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meteora-writes · 5 years ago

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We Could Be Perfect One Last Night ch.6

Fandom: Hannibal Pairing: Hannibal Lecter x Will Graham Warnings: Mild Angst, Silly Accents, Snark, Original Characters, More Snark Chapter: 6. We’re Not Celebrities Description: Six days after they arrive at the cabin Hannibal takes a trip to gather more supplies and reaches out to Chiyoh for assistance. Authors Notes: So I was going to add a scene with Jack in this chapter, but it was running long and I scrapped it for now. Hope you all enjoy. Read on AO3

~~~~~ Read Ch.1 ~ Ch.2 ~ Ch.3 ~ Ch.4 ~ Ch.5~~~~~

“You’re sure you want to go alone?” Will asks for the third time since Hannibal announced he would be taking the motorcycle and heading into town to purchase a disposable phone at one of the mini-marts they passed on the way to the cabin six days prior.

After two days of snow and another four days of low temperatures, the weather had finally warmed enough to melt away the majority of the snow and ice that covered the dirt road that connects the cabin back to the highway. It’s a three-mile stretch. And another four to the closest shop. So they’ve had to wait for the weather to be on their side before either of them could attempt to go anywhere.

“Will, you know as well as I that the authorities are likely looking for us. If only one of us goes out at a time we are far less likely to be noticed. I should only be gone a half-hour at most.” Hannibal looks a touch amused by Will’s worries as he buttons the cuffs of his leather jacket. There’s a hint of mirthfulness in his eyes that’s hard to miss.

“Maybe I should go instead. You do have a fairly distinct accent. If you speak around the wrong people they could call the police,” Will finds himself suggesting. In truth, he doesn’t want either of them to go. But they’re running low on food and they need a phone to reach out to Chiyoh sooner than later.

Hannibal chuckles and shakes his head as he finishes buttoning his cuffs and quickly zips his jacket. “I am perfectly capable of concealing my accent when the situation calls for it,” he informs Will in an almost perfect British accent. “Or would you prefer I try to sound more like you, perhaps?” he tries in a more Americanized pronunciation. It doesn’t quite work, though. One would almost think it was a New England accent, except the vowels still sounding too European in pronunciation.

Will can’t help himself when Hannibal tries to imitate an American accent, the urge to mess with the other man is just too strong to resist. “Not bad, cher. Sept I don’t tink you got dem vowels quite right. Might get people askin’ who dat if you not careful now.” The slightly over-exaggerated thick Cajun accent gets a look of clear surprise from Hannibal that has Will trying hard not to bust out laughing by the time he finishes speaking the words. “Mo chagren,” he adds with a grin that pulls painfully at the stitches in his cheek before going on. “I’m from Louisiana. I speak as clear and concisely as I do exactly because I knew no one would take me seriously if I spoke in that dialect or even just that accent this far east.”

“Shame. I would love to hear you speak French more often,” Hannibal laments with a small smile that’s all teasing. It earns him a hint of pink in Will’s cheeks that only makes his smile grow.

“Unfortunately my French is abysmal at best,” Will informs him before clearing his throat a bit awkwardly. “We only ever spoke it when visiting my grandparents and cousins for the holidays, and that was over twenty years ago,” Will adds with a shake of his head as he avoids looking Hannibal in the eyes. “Just, be careful. Okay?”

“Of course.” Is all Hannibal says in return before he heads out the door.

Will watches him take off, not looking away until the motorcycle is out of sight. He knows Hannibal going on this run is necessary. That they need food and that phone. But that doesn’t change the anxiety he feels at Hannibal going without him.

They’re both recovering slowly. Hannibal still can’t stand for too long, but he can do so for long enough that this run shouldn’t be a problem. Part of Will worries it’ll be too much, but he trusts Hannibal to know his own limits. As for Will, he still can’t get up from a horizontal or even a sitting position without his head feeling like it’s going to explode, which is apparently common for skull fractures. He’ll take that over the irritating feel of stitches in his mouth any day.

The only thing that’s helped him stay sane, aside from talking with Hannibal about nothing important, is the tackle box of fishing supplies he found in the rafters on the second day of the storm. There were enough supplies inside for him to make a dozen lures with plenty of odds and ends to spare. He would have made more, but without his glasses or a magnifying glass to help him work on the smaller details, he’s been working at a snail’s pace.

He eyes the lures where they rest on the wooden table in the center of the room. Hannibal had taken to watching him work from the couch more often than not, usually with that notebook in his lap as he continued to sketch. Will didn’t ask what he was sketching after the first day. He figures it’s a toss-up between Will being his continued subject, or he’s drawing places he’s been or other people he’s seen.

The notebook rests beside the tackle box. It’s open. Page showing a half-drawn landscape that Will doesn’t recognize. Curiosity gets the better of him after a moment and he picks the book up to get a closer look.

It’s a meadow by a stream. Dozens of tiny flowers stretching out over the page until they meet a rocky riverbed. The rocks and pebbles have the most detail so far. The flowers only faint outlines. The detail of the river is what really surprises Will. It has shading to it that in the right light makes it look like the water is moving.

After a moment, he flips the page back, wondering what else Hannibal could have been drawing these past few days.

Sure enough, there are a few sketches of Will in with various cities and landscapes. Not all are finished, like his inspiration shifted mid drawing and he had to move on to something else until later.

The drawing Hannibal made their first night in the cabin has Will sitting down and studying it in awe. It’s the most detailed of the ones in the book. Capturing even the smallest details of the setting. The wrinkles in the shirt Will wore that was too big for him. The bit of torn leather on the back of the couch he had been tugging at mindlessly. The shadows cast by the firelight to his back. Even the faint bruises and scrapes on his hands and arms are there.

Despite it being a portrait of himself, Will feels like he’s invading Hannibal’s privacy looking at it like this. He flips the book closed and sets it down beside the tackle box once more before running his hands through his shaggy brown curls. He suddenly feels like the cabin is too small. Like he needs to get out.

He throws on his boots and jacket quickly, not bothering with gloves or any other layers to help him keep warm in his rush to just get up and go.

It’s early afternoon. Sun warm in the sky above. But it’s still only in the forties out and there’s a bit of a breeze that makes it feel just as cold as it actually is. Will feels like the wind cuts right through him the minute he steps out into it. It’s a welcome sensation. Letting him draw a deep breath in through his nose that fills his lungs and calms his nerves.

There’s a shed behind the cabin. Hannibal had moved the motorcycle in there before the storm hit. Will hasn’t taken a look inside before now and he’s a bit disappointed by its contents. There isn’t much to be found. Some old tools, metal buckets, a large hatchet, and a rusty jerry can.

Eyeing the hatchet a moment, Will grabs it and turns to the stack of wood beside the house. It’s mostly down to larger pieces. Ones that need splitting. Hannibal had said they would be fine for a while with what was already broken down. But Will doubts it, eyeing the pile now for himself.

It’s stupid, he knows it is. But he needs to do something with himself. So, he grabs a piece of wood, gets it set out on a nearby stump that’s clearly where the previous occupants of the cabin cut wood before, and swings.

His shoulder protests the action. Arm twitching at the use of muscles and tendons that aren’t ready for this kind of movement. The pain it causes is grounding, though. So, he shakes the ax free from where it stuck in the wood, fixes it’s position on the stump, and swings again. This time cutting the wood clean through the center. The pieces fall to either side of the stump, clattering on the frozen ground.

“Still got it…” Will mutters to himself before he picks the pieces up and tosses them onto the short end of the pile beside the house. Hannibal will likely give him hell for this when he returns. But that’s a problem for later. He sets up the next piece of wood with a small smile to himself and gets ready for a workout.

~~~~~

The mini-mart is busy when Hannibal pulls up and parks on the far side of the lot. It’s a relief. Busy shops mean less likelihood of being noticed unless you act out of the ordinary. One of the things he prides himself on is his ability to act normal even in the most unusual of circumstances.

There are a few old bikers in the lot. Talking outside the front door as they smoke cigarettes and stand around their bikes. One spot Hannibal as he sets his helmet on the handlebars of his bike and grins.

“Nice ride,” the older man calls out as he nods to the motorcycle beside Hannibal.

“Thanks,” Hannibal calls back, taking care with how he pronounces the word to make it sound more Americanized. “Nice jacket,” he adds when he notices the various patches on the jacket denoting the man as being part of a group that he’s read about in news articles that helps protect children that were victims of abuse. He may find the culture to be crude, but what they do with their time is admirable.

The biker grins at the compliment, sporting a few missing and broken teeth that look like the guy might have lost in an accident at some point. Other than that they don’t say anything and neither does his buddies as Hannibal walks past.

The shop is a decent size on the inside. Sporting a liquor section and impressive deli and fresh food area. It’s almost all junk. But it has vegetables and fruit, of which Hannibal is grateful. He grabs a basket and makes a b-line for the small aisle with the disposable phones and other odds and ends first.

He scans over the tops of the shelves as he walks, observing his surroundings and the other patrons as he starts filling the basket with goods. There are three cashiers working. Half a dozen other customers milling about, two more talking by the soda fountain in the back of the deli area, and another three at the registers buying whatever it is they came to buy.

Nobody pays anybody else any mind. Even the workers seem disinterested in everyone else. It’s reassuring. As is the fact that he only sees a single security camera and it’s pointed at the registers. He can easily stand so that his face isn’t in view and just make it look like he’s simply distracted.

There’s a stack of newspapers by the case the freshly made sandwiches are kept in, and Hannibal grabs one of each along with a few days worth of fruit and sandwiches. He’s already grabbed them some more drinks, not trusting the water from the well and not wanting to have to boil it every time they need some. And much as he dislikes it, he also grabbed some more cans of soup.

Thankfully, though, this shop also had a dairy case with eggs and breakfast meats inside, which means he can cook a real meal for a change. In the end, he has much more than he intended to buy. But he wants to be able to make at least a few meals that aren’t made from cans and boxes or were pre-made by someone in a hairnet.

“Feeding an army?” the cashier asks as she begins to ring up and bag everything. She’s in her late teens, clearly bored and not even really paying attention as she works. For a second it strikes Hannibal how much she looks like Abigail and he has to shake the thought off before he can say anything.

“Lost power in that storm. Need some things to hold us over until they get it up and running again,” Hannibal explains in as dismissive a tone as possible while maintaining the accent he’s going for.

“You must live pretty far out if you don’t have power back yet,” she notes, still not really paying him any mind.

That makes Hannibal huff a laugh and he almost turns to face her fully but stops himself so his face isn’t in view of the camera. He doesn’t answer her, and the girl doesn’t say anything else until everything is run up and bagged.

He pays her and hooks the various plastic bags over his arms before heading back outside.

The bikers are still standing around chatting, several looking over to give him a nod of approval for his choice of a ride once more as he heads to his bike and gets ready to leave.

The ride back is faster than his ride out. Anxious to get back to Will and to take a look at the papers he picked up. He also grabbed the more expensive disposable phone the shop had on the shelf. It’s a smartphone with internet capabilities. One he hopes will still have a decent connection this far from town. He would very much like to see what Freddie Lounds has written about himself and Will at this point.

The sight he arrived back to is an unexpected one.

Will is outside. Jacket off and sleeves of his dark red flannel shirt rolled up his forearms as he chops wood beside the cabin. He’s been at it for a while. Damp curls sticking to his forehead with sweat. He doesn’t pause in his work even as Hannibal pulls up a few feet away and parks the bike.

“You’ll tear your stitches,” Hannibal chides gently as he removes his helmet and studies Will with a tilt of his head.

“My stitches are fine,” Will huffs out as he swings the ax once more. He cuts clean through the log in one swing. His face is a mask of focus as he grabs the next piece and prepares to swing again like he isn’t recovering from multiple stab wounds and likely in a great deal of pain.

“Feeling a bit of cabin fever?” The question makes Will stop and tip his head back as if to look to the heavens and ask why he’s chosen to be with this man.

“I just needed some air,” Will explains with a shake of his head before laying the hatchet beside the tree stump he’s been using as a chopping block. “I take it your shopping trip went well?”

Hannibal nods as he finally climbs off the bike and grabs the plastic bags from where he had slung them over the handlebars. “It did,” he agrees as he holds a bag out of Will to carry. He takes it readily and follows Hannibal inside the cabin a moment later.

“Did you buy every paper in the store?” Will asks as he looks inside the bag. There are four different major newspapers, three local printings by smaller companies, and a single tabloid tucked under the cellphone and international phone card Hannibal had grabbed.

“I was curious to see what has been going on for the past several days,” Hannibal notes as he sets the two bags containing groceries on the small sideboard by the stove. “And I thought the reading material might be appreciated.”

Will snorts a laugh at that but says nothing as he steps up beside Hannibal, shooing him away to sit while Will puts things away.

Part of him wants to protest and assist in putting away their things, but he already feels his energy leaving him, so Hannibal goes and hangs up his jacket before taking his usual seat at the table. The bag with the phone and papers sits on the floor next to his chair, and he picks it up, pulling the phone from inside to begin removing it from its packaging.

“Is there anything in particular that I should ask Chiyoh to acquire for you while she’s making preparations for us?” Hannibal asks once he has the phone powered on and is waiting for the activation signal to go through.

Will glances over his shoulder at Hannibal from his place kneeling in front of the mini-fridge. “A pair of glasses? It’s going to be hard to read navigation charts without them,” It’s a minor inconvenience, but still one he would rather not deal with. He gets a migraine if he tries to read for too long without his glasses. He’s already got a near-constant one thanks to the fracture in his skull from being stabbed.

Humming his understanding, Hannibal looks back to the phone in his hands. He was never a fan of mobile phones. Too easy to track a person by or interrupt one's plans. At the moment, however, he sees it as a necessity they have to hold onto, at least if he’s able to contact Chiyoh.

The number he calls once the phone is activated is one he’s had memorized for ages. It goes to a small shop in England that an old family friend of his aunt owns. It’s run by her granddaughter now. She’s well aware of who Hannibal is and what he’s done. She only owns the shop now because of an unfortunate incident with her grandfather some ten years ago that left him comatose and her and her grandmother free of his abuse for the first time in their lives.

“Lorelai’s Sweets, how can I help you?” A familiar, warm alto voice answers after two rings.

“Hello, Lori,” he greets back, his own tone just as warm. She was always a kind girl and it seems that hasn’t changed in the years since he saw her last.

Will pauses in his putting away of their supplies to look over at Hannibal as he speaks on the phone. Clearly a bit confused by Hannibal greeting someone that isn’t Chiyoh.

“Hanni! Oh, thank goodness you’re alive! They said on the news that you and that former special agent friend of yours had drowned after escaping and killing the Red Dragon!” The relief in her voice is oddly comforting. “Are you alright? What can I do for you, love?”

A small smile tugs at his lips over her concern. “A bit inconvenienced, but otherwise alright, thank you for asking. I’m calling because I need to reach Chiyoh, have the two of you stayed in contact?”

“Chiyoh? Oh, yes! She started coming round to visit just after you turned yourself in to the authorities. She was here for one of her visits just last week, in fact. Left the day you escaped. I believe she’s in Maryland right now,” Lori explains as she shuffles about the shop, no doubt in the process of closing for the evening since there is a five hour time difference between the east coast and London.

“Wonderful. I suspect I know where she is, then. Thank you for your help, Lori. I’ll call again if I require any further assistance in locating her.” He doesn’t think that will be necessary, though. If Chiyoh is in Maryland waiting to hear from him, she’s likely in the small house he set up in her name by Snow Hill. It’s over two hours drive from where they are now. Neither he nor Will is up for that in their current condition, so he’ll have to hope she answers.

“You’re welcome, Hannibal. And please, give me a call to let me know how you’re doing once in a while, would you?”

“I will. Thank you again for your help, Lori. Goodbye.” She says her goodbyes in return and with that, they both hang up.

Will is watching him when Hannibal turns his head, and Hannibal raises an eyebrow in question as he dials the number to where he believes Chiyoh to be located. The line rings once then goes to an automated voicemail box. “Hello, Chiyoh. Please call me when you receive this message.” he doesn’t leave the number because he knows she has callerID setup and the cheap mobile phone isn’t a private number.

“That’s it?” Will asks once Hannibal has hung up and set the phone down on the table.

“That’s it,” Hannibal reiterates before reaching for the first of the papers he had purchased. “We made international news, it would seem. It was reported that we drown together after killing our Dragon,” he informs Will as he unfolds the paper and skims the headlines.

“Seriously? Somebody higher up in the FBI had to have made that call. There’s no way that Jack would declare us dead without physical evidence,” Will balks as he closes the mini-fridge and moves to join Hannibal at the table. He ends up grabbing one of the other papers and starting to skim for any articles about the two of them as Hannibal starts reading his own paper from the beginning.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps they declared us dead in the hopes we would become careless and slip up in the belief that they are no longer looking for us.” He doesn’t honestly believe that. But it wouldn’t surprise him if somebody other than Jack was pulling the strings in the hopes that would be the case. “Either way it seems a bit foolish on their part.”

By the time Will has checked the last paper, Hannibal has finished reading the first one in its entirety. He quirks a brow at Will upon seeing the papers strewn haphazardly across the table.

“All these papers and there were only two articles about us,” Will notes as he folds one paper over to show a small article about how the search for their bodies is to be called off if they aren’t found the following day. The other article being in the paper Hannibal read, which was more substantial. Talking about the Chesapeake Ripper and former professor from the FBI academy at Quantico who took on the Red Dragon and lost their lives in the process of ending his murder spree.

“We’re not celebrities, Will. We spark and fade into obscurity, just as everyone else does,” Hannibal says as he folds his paper and sets it atop the messy pile Will has made of the others.

“That’s not as comforting as you think,” Will says with a sigh as he slouches in his chair a bit. His gaze drifts over to the fireplace, which needs lighting soon. The sun is starting to set and the cabin is growing colder.

“Operating under the assumption that neither of us survived so soon after our fall would imply that they found some kind of evidence to suggest as much,” Hannibal suggests as he watches Will get up and move to get a fire going.

Will pauses in front of the fireplace, hand hovering over a piece of wood as his brow furrows. He lets his hand drop to his side and closes his eyes in a way that Hannibal hasn’t seen in years but recognizes immediately. He’s recreating the scene in his mind. Using his memories of the night to reconstruct the scene.

“The camera,” Will eventually says. “It fell over sometime after he attacked me and left you alone inside the house. It was on the floor facing outside when we were fighting Dolarhyde. It likely caught most, if not all, of the fight. That combined with the sheer amount of blood we both lost at the scene and the bloody footprints we left leading up to the edge showing we fell from the bluffs would give enough evidence to suggest we didn’t survive.” His eyes are closed the entire time he speaks, head tilting and brow furrowing further as he relives the event in his mind. Blood spraying behind his eyelids as they move in almost a dance with the other man before it ends in his death.

“I knocked the camera over while getting to my feet,” Hannibal clarifies, causing Will to open his eyes and look over at him.

“You wanted it to record us,” Will realizes then, eyes going a bit narrow as he studies Hannibal. “You wanted there to be evidence of what happened with him.”

“How else would we prove you were defending yourself?” Hannibal counters easily. “I confess I had initially thought you would take out your gun and shoot him when given the opportunity. Play the part of the special agent doing his duty to stop a madman.”

Will snorts indignantly at that and turns his attention back to getting a fire started. “After everything we’ve been through, you really thought that was what I would do?”

“Three years is a long time to be apart from someone, Will. People change. You’ve changed, in some ways. I hold no illusions of knowing who you are anymore,” Hannibal says almost softly as he reaches out and grabs his notebook and pencil. He flips the book open to the half-finished meadow, eyes roaming over it a moment before he starts working on the flowers.

Will’s shoulders visibly sag as he lets his head drop forward. His eyes closing as he takes a deep breath. “I’m exactly who I’ve always been, Hannibal. Who you helped me to become. The only difference is that now...Now I’ve stopped fighting my true nature.”

When Hannibal looks over, Will is looking back. Blue eyes locking with amber brown in the faint light of the newly lit fire. “And that nature would be?”

To his credit, Will looks only momentarily annoyed by the question. “The nature that drives me to gut a man with his own knife rather than shoot him like any ordinary ex-cop with a firearm on him would have.”

Hannibal can’t help the genuine smile that breaks out at Will’s choice of words. “Do you regret your actions that night?”

“No.” Will doesn’t hesitate in answering. “I don’t regret anything about that night,” he adds before turning his gaze back to the fire.

Hannibal almost doesn’t believe that. Almost. The look in Will’s eyes as he turns away is clear. He doesn’t regret that night. He might be struggling with leaving the life he had and the family he built. But he doesn’t regret letting himself be who he really is for once. It leaves Hannibal feeling reassured. Content even. Knowing that Will isn’t running away from this. From him.

They’re finally beginning to see one another as Hannibal had once hoped they always would. As equals who share an understanding of one another and a taste for the beauty of blood and the suffering of those who are less than they are.

His mind wanders to Bedelia and Jack. To what kind of beauty he and Will could create from them. It sends a pleasant shiver down his spine imagining Will gutting Jack like he had gutted their Dragon. He’ll have to share that thought when the time comes for them to pay the man a visit. But for now, he’s content to simply imagine and enjoy the glow of the fire while Will feeds the flames and hums softly to himself. Now is a time for rest and recovery. Bloodshed and revenge can wait until another day.

Reach Chapter 7

#hannibal #hannigram #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal x will #will x hannibal #hannibal lecter x will graham #will graham x hannibal #we could be perfect one last night #angst #snark #humor #murder husbands

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elfnerdherder · 8 years ago

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Where the Wicked Walk: Ch. 18

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Chapter 18: The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether

Will was discovered hours later by a boy around the age of ten. Will recognized him almost immediately, from his light blonde hair to his too serious face. He paused a polite distance away from Will –four and a half steps, to be exact –and he tilted his head in such a genuine gesture of curiosity that Will found it amusing rather than off-putting.

“You’re Molly’s son,” Will said when the boy gave no greeting.

“Yes.” The boy huffed a breath and buttoned his jacket. It seemed Georgia was going to finally allow it to be cold, and it was a chill that sunk deep. “You’re Will Graham.”

“I am,” Will agreed.

“…Mom said that I can trust you. Is that true?”

Will considered him, from his nicely laced shoes to his raglan sleeved jacket. It looked far too big for him, the jacket of an adult rather than a kid. He wore it with pride, though, that much Will could see. This was a jacket of heritage, of ancestry. At the tattered edges of it, he could sense nostalgia, a boy that worried over the threads of it whenever he was at his most vulnerable.

“What’s your name?”

“Wally. Wally Foster.”

“…Is that your dad’s old jacket, Wally?” Will asked.

Wally smiled a little and bobbed his head. He turned in order to show off the back, the name ‘Foster’ in a proud, arched cursive.

“It was my dad’s, but he gave it to me,” he explained turning back around to give Will his undivided attention. “So it’s mine now. It’s my favorite. He played baseball.”

“What…happened to your dad?”

“Cancer,” he said after a beat. Will’s lack of disgruntled behavior bolstered Wally, and he sat down on the step that Will’s feet rested on.

“My dad died from cancer, too,” Will revealed quietly.

“Really?”

“Really, really.”

Wally nodded, and Will noted his fingers sliding along the cuffs of the jacket, worrying at the threads of it.

“Your mom said that you can trust me?” he asked, and he silently chastised himself for the break in his voice.

Wally flashed him a grim smile and nodded. “She said…we can’t trust anyone in this house, but we can trust Will Graham. If something happens, I’m supposed to find you.”

Will focused particularly on that, on her words said in the mouth of a kid. “She said you can’t trust anyone here?” he whispered, leaning in.

“Yeah.” Wally fiddled more with the sleeves, and he let out a sigh. “She said not even the other kids. ‘Cept maybe Abigail, but she’s not a kid. You and Abigail.”

“Did she say why we can’t trust them?”

Wally liked the comradery Will gave, saying ‘we’ rather than ‘you’. His face brightened, and he shifted closer, like he was sharing a secret. “She said they’re not nice people, Mr. Graham.”

“Just Will is fine, Wally.”

“’Kay, Will. She said they’re not nice, and they could hurt us if we’re not careful.”

Will nodded thoughtfully and looked out over the front yard, a brilliant and loving display of hydrangeas and lavender intermingling into a garden of sorts. He wondered if that was five hundred yards, or if his newfound babysitter would start chirping at his leg if he went too far.

“Do you think that?” Wally pressed when Will didn’t speak.

“What’s that?”

“Do you think they’ll hurt us if we’re not careful?” Wally pressed.

Will thought of the blood down the back of his head that morning in the shower, the way Molly’s hands had felt at the top of his scalp, cold. Her once warm hands were cold, and he didn’t recognize her anymore.

In truth, he saw more of her in her son than anything else since his arrival at the house. The parts of her kindness, friendliness, and light were all wrapped into a small, neat bow in her son. Will had wondered where she’d hidden the parts of herself that first drew him to her, a lighthouse when his world was crashing around him, and he saw it now in Wally. She made herself a fortress of stone, something cold, calculating, and willing to pull the trigger should the need arise.

And all of her goodness she hid in Wally.

“You know what, Wally, I do,” Will said with a quiet sigh. “I think your mom is awfully smart, and you should listen to her.”

“I try to,” Wally assured Will. “My dad said the same thing.”

“It sounds like your dad was a good man.”

“Say, I’m going to go and see if they have a soda,” Wally said, jumping up. “Since…since I’m going in there, do you want one?”

Will smiled a little and nodded. “That’d be nice, Wally. Only if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Well, I was going to go there anyway,” he said, and he was up the stairs and running into the house the way only a kid could run when their mother was smart enough to give their kid the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth.

Which begged the question: if Molly was really in on all of this, why would she warn her son away from the people that she should supposedly view as her family –the one place she could call ‘home’?

Will was approached by a young woman that evening when he was attempting to isolate himself in his room. She stood at the foot of the stairs, wind-chafed and resolute, and he recognized her as the girl that’d first found him after Nate had died, hands bloodied and mind frozen in shock. She’d worried for him, for a breath of a moment.

“You’re…Will Graham,” she said quietly, and he tensed.

“Please don’t try to touch me,” he said warningly. He wouldn’t throw her about like he’d done with Matthew, but there was only so much a person could take before they began drawing lines by force. He imagined his hands around her throat, squeezing before tossing her aside, and his stomach turned. Violent thoughts pushed towards the front of his mind, begged entertainment. He blinked and banished them away. He’d been in the house for too damn long.

“No, I’m…I’m sorry they did that.” Her smile was watery, wavering as she shifted and reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind one ear. “Some people here are…well, you know.”

“Are you Abigail?” he asked. He thought of Wally, rambling about just who he was supposed to trust.

“I am,” she affirmed. “I’m sorry to bother you, I know you’re…you’re having a hard time, I just…”

She stopped talking and looked down, sniffling discreetly behind a hand. She looked to be about seventeen or eighteen, far too thin for a healthy diet. She carried sorrow in the dip of her shoulders, resolution in the set of her jaw as she looked back up at him with intent, blue eyes.

“You’re not like other people here,” she said at last, and something in her voice made him tense.

“Is it that easy to tell?” he asked dryly.

“I heard a lot of people wondering why Dr. Lecter would bring you here.”

“I’m wondering the same about you,” Will replied, and he rocked back on his heels as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “How old are you?”

“Old enough to understand what I’m seeing when I see it,” said Abigail, and she sniffed again and looked down. “Did you ever hear of the Minnesota Shrike?”

“I have.”

“That’s my dad,” she revealed, and she glanced up beneath her lashes to study him. “He’s here, in this house.”

“Well it looks like Dr. Lecter extends amnesty to just anyone,” Will sneered.

“He killed girls that looked like me.”

“I recall.”

“I thought maybe being here would…stop him from that, but…Mr. Graham, it was either them or me, and now that he can’t go about to find them…I’m scared that he’s going to Change me.”

Will thought of Red Dragon whispering his wants, his need to Change. Farther down the hall, there was the sound of plates clattering, glasses clinking as dinner was set. Abigail glanced from the sudden noise, then back to him, her mouth fluttering before pressing tightly shut. Despite the openness of the stairwell, she was divulging something much like a secret to him, and he softened his voice to recognize that.

“Dr. Lecter wouldn’t stop him?” Will asked.

“He would if you pretended to care about it,” she revealed, equally quiet. “If…you pretended to care about me, he’d pretend, too. Enough to stop my dad, should he decide to eat me.”

Will thought about that, eye-to-eye with Abigail Hobbs on their respective stair steps, although they didn’t allow their gazes to meet directly. He thought of Wally, then Molly, then the reports he’d read on the Minnesota Shrike, the profile he’d drawn up as an essay in one of his classes when rumor had risen that the Shrike had a soulmate. The flash of her eyes screamed her penchant for manipulation, although the longer Will stared, the more he was convinced of her honesty. If he cared, then Hannibal cared. If Hannibal cared, then everyone else cared.

“Just what are you trying to ask me to do?” he asked at last.

“Sit with me at dinner? He always sits next to me and touches my thigh while we’re eating.”

“And this isn’t a magical quest bestowed upon you by Dr. Lecter to ensure that I start participating in the endeavors of this place?”

She had the grace to smile a little. “He asked everyone to leave you alone, actually. He wants you to come to us on your own terms, but…I just…”

“You’re trying to survive however you can,” Will realized, staring at the turn of her jaw. He could smell the stench of it, the same as it was for him. They were survivors, something much the same as the other as they tried to survive their lot in life. Rather than submit to her father’s whims, she instead tried to find a way around it, to preserve herself however possible.

Will could respect that, although he balked at the thought of having to sit down among so many obviously unstable people.

“Please,” she whispered, and he cringed from it. “I see the way people here look at you, and I…please.”

“…I’ll do it,” he said, and her shoulders slumped in relief. “Although whatever superpowers you think I’m capable of, I can’t guarantee.”

“Thank you,” she said, and he was forced to follow her down the hall, towards the formal dining room where people were helping to set the table, their chatter amiable and excited.

When they saw Will and Abigail, it was even moreso. He ignored the way their heads dipped close together, their faces alight –if they really were unsure of him and his place in the house, it didn’t show with how they looked at him. Perhaps Abigail was right: Hannibal wanted him, therefore they followed through with his desires.

“Dr. Lecter would want you to sit down there,” Abigail said, gesturing towards the head of the table.

Will eyed the spot with extreme prejudice before he meandered towards the seat, ignoring the stares pinned to his skin.

“You sit there,” he decided, motioning towards the end seat.

“But-”

“Your father can’t sit on your other side if you’re on the end,” Will said, and he sat down pointedly in the second chair in.

Abigail smiled and sat down on the end chair, relief oozing from her skin.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Thank Wally,” he grumbled, and when someone swooped by to fill his glass with wine, he managed a grunt towards them, too. The house arrest bracelet chafed on his ankle. He’d have to find a way to get the fucking thing off of him. Maybe take Abigail and Wally with him when he ran.

Just how many other people were there that were trapped due to the faults and failures of their parents? Their lovers? Their families?

When Hannibal walked into the room, deep in conversation with Molly, Beverly, and Francis, he didn’t stop in his tracks at the sight of Will seated beside a quietly contemplative Abigail, but he took immediate notice. His gaze flickered briefly over them, analyzing, before a perfectly subtle smile graced his lips and he looked away. His incisors flashed as he seemed to taste the room before him.

The space beside Will on the other side remained empty.

“I’m so happy to see you here, Will,” he said as he stopped just behind his chair.

Will took a long, pointed gulp of his wine.

“I wasn’t aware that you knew Abigail,” he continued, and the voices coalescing along the table stilled to better hear him.

Will had a wild urge to say something particularly nasty, what with the way everyone watched the two of them, waiting. He took another gulp of wine, swallowed it down, and wiped his mouth. Just behind Hannibal, a few steps back, a man with a halo of hair, a shiny head, and dagger-like eyes observed first him, then Abigail that sat just out of reach.

Her father, then.

“I do. She’s been showing me around the house.”

“How kind,” Hannibal Lecter murmured. “Thank you, Abigail, for making him feel more comfortable here.”

“I was more than happy to, Dr. Lecter,” Abigail replied, and it all felt rather forced to Will, this pseudo-conversation when the three of them were more than well-aware that there was something far larger at hand. “He said it may make it feel more like home.”

Presumptuous. Will gave her a particularly dark side-eyed stare, which she returned with little to no guilt.

“Dinner will be delicious tonight,” Hannibal Lecter said by way of reply, and he skirted the table to sit at the head of it.

Without ceremony, the man with the balding head sat down on the other side of Will. He smelled of sweat contained beneath layers of jackets for a prolonged amount of time, coupled with the aftertaste of cold, dry dirt. The turn of his cheek screamed meekness, but the cunning glint in his gaze as he watched Will from the corner of his eye put Will on guard immediately. He thought of the women he’d only ever read about, people whose lives were cut short due to a covetous, hungry need. He’d have liked to have thought he could have seen someone like Hobbs in a crowd and known them for what they were, but it was a lie, something to self-soothe. In reality, Hobbs looked –at first glance –much like the sort of person you’d forget about immediately after seeing.

Ultimately leading to your downfall.

“Mr. Graham,” Garrett Jacob Hobbs greeted quietly. He had a well-mannered, salt-of-the-earth sort of speech, quiet and dignified.

“Mr. Hobbs,” Will returned lightly.

“I wasn’t aware that you’d met my daughter,” he said, and the way his tongue curled around the title was possessive while maintaining all forms of politeness.

“She’s been by far the kindest person in this house,” Will said. “I’ve found her to be invaluable.”

Hobbs had no reply to that. His mouth shifted and curled in on itself, as though it were fighting back the words he desperately wanted to say. A quick glance to Will’s hardened stare made him shift and busy himself with his glass of wine.

There were no speeches, no pep-talks. The food was set out for everyone, and those that helped to cook it were thanked, everyone friendly and obliging as they patted one another on the back and thanked Hannibal warmly for such exquisite cuisine: paella with freshly foraged mushrooms, cuttlefish, and a velvety red wine to compliment the taste.

Will picked his way around what he deemed to be a questionable and therefore undesirable meat.

With Abigail beside him, those that snuck glances made no move to speak. Beverly and Molly sat across from him, and it was as easy to avoid their stare as it was anyone else’s. His eyes fixed to the corner of his glasses, and he fiddled far too long with his spoon between bites.

“Abigail,” her father said, speaking around Will’s back. “I’d like to speak with you after dinner, before my night watch.”

“She was actually going to take me to the library,” Will said for her, after he polished off the wine. He needed it to keep his mouth from becoming too sharp. “Sorry.”

On the other side of him, Abigail shifted in her chair, uncomfortable. He felt her father’s stare against his skin, prickling and persistent, but he ignored it. She was one of the only things that could have brought him to the table, one of the only things to convince him away from the solitary room that brought him some form of respite. If the look in Hobb’s eyes was any indication, he’d made a good call. One of few, but still good.

Despite the disquieting sensation of so many eyes on him throughout dinner, when Abigail reached out underneath the table and took his hand to squeeze it, Will didn’t recoil from her. Instead, he returned the gesture, squeezing just as tight.

Hannibal Lecter was the one to walk about with him on the grounds that evening. It wasn’t so much an option, in truth; Will had waited until Hobbs saw himself off towards his shift of night watch, then left Abigail in the presence of a boy somewhat near her age that smiled with an awkward cheekiness. Standing there in the foyer and watching Abigail walk away left Will with something aching just at the space where his ribs met in the center of his chest –something painful and persistent.

Then Hannibal appeared at his elbow and suggested a walk.

He zipped his coat against the cold and huddled into the shell of it as he trudged through the damp grass. Hannibal followed, a whisper of a step behind, and if he had something in mind to discuss, it wasn’t voiced. He let Will pause just at the edge of the forest, and he didn’t give voice to the warning that the chafing ankle bracelet provided.

Birds cried in the dying light, the sun sinking far too soon now that Fall was upon them. Will tracked fast, frantic leaps of bats dancing among the trees in search of bugs, and he stuffed his hands deep into his pockets to maintain warmth. There was the crisp smell of acorns and clover, coupled with the rancid bitterness of the dying leaves on the forest floor. Will inhaled it and held it inside of him as long as he could. When he exhaled sharply, great clouds puffed and curled about his mouth, wisping up above his head.

“You once told me that you dreamt of a house in the middle of a forest,” Hannibal said quietly, disturbing the quiet. “That sometimes, if your dreams became lucid, you would walk to. Standing in the field beside it, you would look back to the lights and feel some semblance of peace. It appeared much like a boat adrift on the ocean, and it was one of the few times within your own mind that you could feel safe.”

When Will said nothing in response, he continued, “Is that what you were searching for when you called Jack Crawford? Some semblance of safety?”

“Some semblance of sanity,” Will muttered.

“And you found a Great, Red Dragon instead.”

“There were no speeches tonight. Are you trying to normalize these people to me?” Will asked. He glanced back to Hannibal, scowling. “Because I sat next to a man who’s murdered at least eight women and ate them during dinner.”

“And you stand now in front of a man that’s killed fourteen.”

“No, I stand in front of a man that was convicted for the murders of fourteen,” Will corrected crossly.

Hannibal neither confirmed nor denied. He merely smiled, the faint moonlight above making his blue eye appear far darker than it was.

Will looked back to the forest that contained the remnants of his panic, the aftershock of the fall of Randall Tier. He felt a scream building, but he didn’t want to let it out. If he started, Will figured he’d never stop –scream after scream after scream before he was swallowed whole by them all.

“Who did you kill?” Will asked, agonized.

“You refer to something recent?”

“Who did you have these people kill?” Will reiterated, and he swallowed down a curse. “That has Jack Crawford sounding so tired?”

“Thirty-two other people in this country held some variation of your name. My friends supposed that for me to be with someone, they should be utterly unique in every way,” Hannibal said after a long, pressing pause.

His words stirred something in Will, something that made him round back on Hannibal, a snarl jerking past his lips.

“Don’t call them your friends,” he hissed, and just beyond Hannibal’s shoulder there were faint shadows moving in front of curtains pulled across windows. “Don’t call those people your friends when you and I both know that you don’t give a damn about them. You don’t give a damn about anyone.”

“Will-”

“And don’t…don’t try and claim that you give a damn about me. You just want to possess me, control me because you don’t like being out of control. You have your pawns in there, and you have your lackeys, but when you’re out here trying to wrap me up inside of my own head, don’t try to bull shit me and tell me that any of those people are actually your friends, Hannibal Lecter. Not when just hours ago, you were content to inform me you’d kill any of them, should they stand between us.”

The look on his face was impassive; it was his eyes, though, that made Will pause, made his breath suck back down his throat.

God, he almost looked proud.

“You see me in a way that no one else does,” Hannibal murmured. His voice was low, like he was revealing a grave, dark secret. “I’m glad that you’re becoming comfortable enough to speak your mind to me, all things considered.”

All things considered being the fine line Will walked between living and dying, he supposed.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you could fool them all, considering how many of us you fooled.”

“Some people just want a place where they feel like they belong, Will. Humans, despite everything, are social creatures. Pack creatures.”

“Well, you may be fooling them, but you’re not fooling all of them.” Will watched a shadow pause before one of the curtains before they drew it open to stare outside. His smile was a snarl. “There are a few of those people that are well aware that the things you care for are in limited supply.”

“You refer to Abigail?”

“I refer to any of them that have to go to sleep with one eye open.”

“I have Garrett Jacob Hobbs under control. Rest assured he won’t harm anyone here.”

“His daughter isn’t so confident.”

Hannibal smiled. “She’s resourceful, isn’t she? You’re so wary of my manipulations that at the first scent of an honest sob-story, you find your way to her and seek to protect her from not only Garrett Jacob Hobbs, but my presumed apathy to her plight. So sure are you of me, but you fail to see her in her entirety.”

“She’s like me,” Will said, and he was suddenly aware of just how close Hannibal had become. A mere breath separated them, a strong breeze enough to make them touch. He stiffened his spine and wet his lips. “Sometimes…we have to do terrible things to survive.”

“You led to the fall of Randall Tier.”

“And whatever she’d done, it’s only so that she survives. I can respect that.”

“Survive, survive,” Hannibal chanted, and his head dipped low, far too close. “That is your mantra, dear Will. To survive; not to live, not to Become. Just where are your lines, I wonder? When is it no longer survival, and instead basking within your own dark desires and fantasies?”

Will thought of his dreams where he dipped hands in blood and licked them, thoughts when he wondered if he’d have to break Abigail should she dare touch him. Whatever his expression, it delighted Hannibal; his eyes brightened despite the gloom of the evening, and he withdrew, allowing Will his space, allowing Will enough air to breathe.

“Just a thought,” Hannibal said, and he turned and headed back into the house.

Will, despite everything in his bones screaming for him to run, had no other choice but to follow.

A lovely, warm thanks to my patrons: Emily Elm, Matilda, Sylarana, Heather Feather, Inky-Starlight, Duhaunt6, Superlurk, and Frosty Lee! <3 You guys are the best!

#Hannibal #Hannibal fanfic #LiaS scribbles #where the wicked walk #the following au #hannibal au #hannibal soulmate au #abigail hobbs

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monstroum · 2 years ago

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hannibal has a superiority complex ( perhaps even a god complex but i’m not opening that can of worms today ) , he sees himself as removed from other people’s lives and watches the world around him as if he were a mere spectator who occasionally gives small pushes in order to make the plot more interesting. he might become emotionally invested in others in the same way we become invested in movies or books ( we might cry and root for certain characters, be inspired by them but, at the end of the day, we can put these things away and carry on with our lives, separate from them ). but, at the end of the day, hannibal lecter is so desperately lonely it’s almost sad.

he becomes somewhat repulsed by one of his patients, franklyn, who has developed an obsession with him. he sees franklyn’s desperation for his attention and validation as humiliating and hannibal despises, above all else, being humiliated. BUT, AT THE EXACT SAME TIME, we find a parallel of how similar hannibal is to this patient. he too craves for the attention and company of one particular person. when will graham doesn’t show up to their appointment, hannibal too feels rejected. although he is much more discreet than franklyn, dr. lecter wants to be seen by one person in particular.

perhaps that is what hannibal finds so repulsive about franklyn; the possibility that he too might turn needy and clumsy in his attempts at reaching out to another person. that he too is clingy and, in hannibal’s eyes, pathetic due to his desire to be seen and accepted. hannibal lecter fears that, like franklyn, his obsession with will graham might make him look weak.

#* ch. study : hannibal lecter #don't mind me i.......#love and hate hannibal lecter.....#he's so intimidating and manipulative but at the same time #when you really look deep into it #such a pathetic little man #who doesn't know how to filter his emotions properly #hannibal vc: i'm eating people because i'm nervous

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monstroum · 3 years ago

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so literally 0 people asked but here are valentine dates with all the different trash goblins:

mr. memphis: go for a real nice real fancy meaty dinner. it’s so hard to get reservations and somehow he managed. memphis offers you a nice expensive piece of jewellery, diamonds maybe, did he buy them? not exactly. have a couple of drinks afterwards, okay maybe 20 drinks, dash without paying, giggling all the way, but not without vandalising or inflicting some serious property damage on whatever fancy establishment you two just stole from. set fire to some trash, maybe a church if he’s feeling naughty. he talks dirty to you throughout 99.9% of the night but it’s not sexy. it’s kinda creepy. actually he might just be numbering all the literal dirty things he knows of. but at least he pays for your uber in exchange for your autograph without getting handsy. what a gentleman.

the woodsman: it’s not a date. has he told you that it’s NOT a date? doesn’t matter. he looks pissed off, is constantly teasing you and seems like he might have had a few before you showed up. you go on a walk through some national park but he’s NOT paying for dinner. woody only stops making fun of your dumb hair and your dumb perfume when he spots a baby deer with its neck stuck on a fence. he helps the animal free and you both watch it run back to its’ mama. woody’s beard looks reddish in the sunlight. he finds some dumb flower that reminds him of you. he tosses it at you, catch it. or don’t. whatever, he doesn’t care, shut up, you both go home before the sun sets, this was a terrible idea anyways.

hannibal lecter: remember that one kid who kicked a stray cat when you were little and how that was the first time you learned about how cruel and senseless the world could be? well, hannibal does. he’s such a good listener he always remembers everything you tell him. hannibal really does pay attention. and even though he can’t really physically comfort you, he hopes that his words can, at the very least, guide you through the darkness. he wants you to prosper and he wants you to know that, despite the violence, there’s also a lot of beauty in the world. anyway, that kid is dead, his remains are scattered across a deserted area, here’s a map, here’s some cryptic one-liners, p.s.- if you look down at the area from an helicopter, the loose limbs draw a heart (aw).

rustin cohle: he doesn’t believe in valentine’s day. he sees it as an excuse for (especially) men to liberate themselves from all romantic obligations or accusations of thoughtlessness. rust doesn’t see how a relationship can survive if the only time love is set on the table is on some day in february. he’ll make you a cup of coffee though. maybe sit on the porch with you while you tell him about ex-lovers. probably chain smoke but only as a way to fight the temptation of sharing. in between all of the depressive shit he says, rust pulls a sometimes love is not a ring or chocolates, sometimes love is comfort. you both sit quietly and watch the sunset.

shadow moon: you grab some hot coco during the day and shadow’s cup is overflowing with marshmallows. he scoops some of them with his spoon and places them in your coco. he says he doesn’t want you to starve. he’s also not very funny. but he does show you a few coin tricks and they’re actually pretty good. he’s not the most talkative but every time you laugh he smiles. he gives you a pair of gloves he bought an old lady during one of his interstate trips. the woman told him they were from the old country though he’s not sure which old country. the wool has bright colours. shadow realises he has to leave earlier than he was supposed to. he looks stressed as he runs out the back door. he never calls back.

hellboy: he forgot it’s v-day. but don’t worry he can fix it! he’s bought a pack of beers and stole two cuban cigars which he’ll smoke all by himself. but hey, he carries you up to some empty rooftop late at night and you do some people watching. maybe even make a game out of it. he’s childish, challenges you to arm wrestle with his big stone hand but hellboy (quite obviously) lets you win. later in the night he says sorry for forgetting and that he’ll make it up to you some other time. you’re about to tell him something but he shushes you and points at a shooting star. you're surprised by how similar your wishes are.

black phillip: he got you out into the woods. you don’t remember how. the sun is vanishing quickly and he doesn’t speak. it’s valentine’s day and he takes you out to meet all of his girl friends. they’re dancing around a bonfire. most of them are naked. bp whispers that you’re different, you’re not like other girls. he sounds shifty but he promised you so much. and he really does sound like someone who keeps their promises. his friends are weird. it’s hard to get alone time with bp tho. besides he keeps making goat noises idk i’d ditch him if i were you bestie.

#* ch. study : anung un rama #* ch. study : the woodsman #* ch. study : hannibal lecter #* ch. study : rustin cohle #* ch. study : mr. memphis #* ch. study : black phillip #* ch. study : shadow moon #i both love and hate all of them #sorry dash

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monstroum · 3 years ago

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olive: is your muse prone to feeling envious of others? if yes, what is it that they typically feel envious over? / for Hannibal from @antisaint

It is not easy for Hannibal to feel envious of others. He is very confident about what he has and what who he is and rarely compares his life to others. Throughout the years he has come to fully accept every single aspect of himself ( the good, the bad and the ugly ) and, because of this, jealousy and envy feel foreign to him. But that is not to say that they have never struck the good doctor.

Despite seeming like a man in control, Dr. Lecter’s biggest weakness happens to also be what he perceives as his biggest strength; his uniqueness. He is alone because he is unique. And though being alone does not equal being lonely, Hannibal often finds himself drawn to the idea of companionship; real honest companionship. He plays his part well and surrounds himself with people who might even consider him a friend, but due to his unethical tendencies, Hannibal finds it challenging to create real lasting bonds --- TO ALLOW HIMSELF TO BE TRULY SEEN IS RARE .

“I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift but you didn’t want it.”

[ S02 . E13 : MIZUMONO ]

Instances of envy can be found when he is rejected by those he chooses to gift his companionship to. It is so rare for Lecter to truly feel connected to someone that, when he is denied that connection, he becomes envious to the point of endangering his freedom and even the life of whoever he has become fixated on. The best example is his connection with Will Graham; after finding out that the special agent had formed a family of his own ( one which did not include Hannibal ) while he was incarcerated, Lecter made sure to point them out to the Red Dragon, hoping that they’d be eliminated and that Will was, once again, left all alone, just like him.

Perhaps Hannibal will never admit to it out loud, perhaps he isn’t fully aware of his true feelings, but this was an act fuelled mostly by envy. In conclusion, Hannibal is envious when he is denied the one thing he does not yet possess; a real connection. Lecter will commit hideous crimes to assure that he gets what he wants: he would burn the whole world and everyone in it down to ashes if that meant he’d get whoever he has his eye on’s full untampered attention.

#* ch. study : hannibal lecter #hannibal: is a grown man who wears suits and reads #also hannibal: boo hoo y no1 likes me 4 who i rly am???#tw : blood #tw : gore #that link leads to a very emo hannibal scene beware

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monstroum · 3 years ago

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H. LECTER EDITS [1/??] / PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG / @sainkts

set inspired by this thread

#* ch. study : hannibal lecter #* sainkts .#hannibal: i'm WaTchInG yOu CLaRiCe Do YoU LiKe It???#your honour i hate him

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monstroum · 3 years ago

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a small note on my approach to hannibal: i do not take into consideration any of the events in hannibal rising. i understand that some people might enjoy all of the source material but i do not like the idea of having a character like lecter “explained” or “justified”. the line on the nbc show “nothing happened, i happened” is the basis for how i write him. hannibal is, in my opinion, much more intriguing ( and horrifying ) if there is no traceable motive for the atrocities that he continues to commit. i like that we cannot fully understand him.

i also need to point out that, in case you did not know, i am a pile of trash and i do love shipping because exploring character dynamics gives me life. but hannibal, like most of the muses in this account, cannot be redeemed by “the power of love”. the way he relates to others is not healthy. he is obsessive, he is manipulative and he is, lest we forget, a cannibalistic murderer. his pathology is set in stone and although different relationships with different characters can aid him in learning new things about himself or even change how he relates to others, it will not change the fact that he is a monster who enjoys being a monster.

this sentiment i have doesn’t only go for hannibal but also for some of my other muses; if i enjoy and/or empathise with an antagonist that does not mean i will justify or defend their actions.

#* ch. study : hannibal lecter #again i feel like i need to underline #this is me.#i also like antagonists with tragic backstories #i like antagonists who think they're good #i like well written characters period.#but i also love a villain who just has pure selfish fun #at doing what they do

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prurientpuddlejumper · 5 years ago

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A Punchable Face That I Want to Kiss, Ch. 3

<- Previous Chapter | Chapter 4 ->

Summary: Chilton thinks about you when he knows he’s going to die.

1,849 words

“Do not come over tonight,” he said. Even through the bad cell phone connection, you could tell he was nervous, and it made you nervous.

“What’s the matter?”

“Or tomorrow night,” he continued. “Or ever. Stay away.”

“What?” Your heart sank. “What are you saying? I thought things were going well…”

“Only for the time being. You... may have been right,” his voice cracked ever-so-slightly. You knew it pained him to admit that, and the fact that he did made your blood go cold. “I think Hannibal Lecter is going to kill me. There is no reason for you to be there when it happens.”

Shit.

You worried when he started to believe Will Graham—ironically, the very thing you had wanted to begin with, but Will had changed, and you couldn't help suspect he was trying to get revenge on Chilton by roping him into investigating Hannibal Lecter. You were certain he at least didn’t care if Chilton was killed when Will started dangling fame and glory in front of his nose.

Chilton was too ambitious to resist the promise of fame and glory, and was the kind of fool to go poking his nose where it didn’t belong.

“Fuck that, I’m coming over. If we’re together, I can protect you.”

“Don’t. I am going to try to... Wait,” he paused, marveling, “you would do that for me?” His resolve firmed again, “Do not come. Please. Look, there is nothing connecting us except sex—good sex, mind you, but—you may not be on the Ripper’s radar. If you are close to me when he comes, he will only kill you, too. It’s not worth it. I do not want you caught up in this. Take the advice I should have: do not get involved.”

There was a click, and the call went dead.

You felt gutted.

*****

Frederick was the kind of man who spent all his nights and weekends alone, until you. It was pathetic to think you were his most stable relationship—not just currently, but of his entire life—when he had only known you for a few months.

That was not to say he was inexperienced.

He had fumbled with plenty of bras as a young legacy in a Harvard fraternity, and with fraternity brothers in dark closets, mostly under the influence of cheap alcohol (bought ironically, of course).

He dated in medical school, but there wasn’t much time for relationships when he was constantly studying twice as hard as everyone else just to stay in the middle of the class rankings instead of sinking to the bottom. Besides, in academia there was a full menu of up-and-coming doctors to choose from, and he was never found to be the most appetizing selection. Too bitter.

Family money opened all the right doors for him after graduating and starting his own practice. There, he could sit on top of his own throne without all the competition. Wealth and power finally made him a prime cut to the type who wanted to marry an important doctor, and the nurses and secretaries fell at his feet.

Unfortunately the type of person who, first and foremost, wanted an important doctor, was not interested in an emotional relationship—at least, the money came first.

Some sought the full package of money and romance, but those he always chased away after one or two dates. He found that anyone willing to tolerate his personality defects was the type to borrow his credit cards, ply him for gifts, demand a promotion, ignore him or cheat the moment he wasn’t buying something, and ultimately blackmail him for one final payout when even the money and status weren’t enough to tolerate being with him any longer.

It was fine, he told himself. He used them and they used him—it was how the game was played.

Then there was you.

Frederick Chilton always found you arrogant and unpleasant. He was an expert in his field, a respected psychiatrist who had discovered the Chesapeake Ripper in his facility, and you spoke to him as if he were a child!

(Well, assuming you swore so much at children. He wouldn’t know. children are filthy.)

Whenever he saw you entering his hospital, he knew he would need an extra glass of scotch to recover. You were fierce, never making a single effort to mask your intentions, whether it was tearing into him for (allegedly) unethical practices, or failing completely to mask your sexual attraction to him.

It had been a long time since anybody made a pass at him. Running an institution for the criminally insane was not widely considered sexy, and made his doctor-husband stock plummet—a fact for which he was grateful. Romance was hardly worth the effort, and he would rather be alone than pretend.

He should have shot you down. It would have delightfully changed the power dynamic—any time you insulted his methods, he could remind you of your embarrassing plea for his attention.

But in truth, he enjoyed sparring with you. The days you didn’t come rattle your sword at him were dull. Nobody else spoke to him so brazenly, even though many certainly shared your opinion. It was refreshing.

He’d been imagining ripping your clothes off for weeks.

This would be a one-time thing, he thought: another case of using and being used. He assumed you would call a taxi when it was over, but when he woke up in the morning your arms were wrapped around him with the sweetest smile on your lips. It was odd. It sort of made his chest ache even though he was sure he liked it.

This must have been what pity sex was like. Ah, the advantages of a cane!

Stranger still, you kept coming back to see him. A one-night stand turned into two, turned into three, until it became a habit—and you spent additional time with him for no particular reason he could discern. The sex was great, but fucking did not require staying the entire night to cuddle. When he was too busy working late to stop for dinner, much less for a sexual escapade, you showed up anyway, surprising him with a bag of fast food. It was greasy and barely edible, but thoughtful. You read a book in one of his leather chairs and ate all his fries while he typed reports into the night.

Surely you had other partners to choose from who would have been more entertaining. Your behavior was quite abnormal.

He knew you had an angle, but couldn’t figure out what it was. Breakfast, maybe?

The fact that he made you eggs and gourmet coffee didn’t seem enough to account for your always choosing to spend time with him. You said his house was nice, but even that wasn't enough. The equation was unbalanced. He never paid you, and you never demanded gifts—even when he offered them, you flatly refused. You would not let him so much as replace your cracked cellphone screen. You had always been so vehemently insistent about Will Graham’s innocence, but since you started sleeping with him you’d never asked for any favors, like moving Graham to a nicer cell or falsifying a psych evaluation.

He’d even had a full-blown panic attack in front of you. Something you could have used as leverage to threaten his very career. But you didn’t.

If you were ingratiating yourself with him for an ulterior motive, you were terrible at it.

Honestly, terrible. He wanted to give you pointers, but it would spoil the game. Unless—he considered the terribly disconcerting possibility—there was no game. You weren’t using him, you just had feelings for him. Real ones. It made him feel strange and off balance—if there was nothing transactional about the relationship, it was not something he could control. The thought disturbed him so much he nearly called the whole thing off, but something stopped him from picking up the phone. There was a squirming in his gut, and he didn’t like it.

What did you possibly want from him? What reason did you have to care?

Was it pity?

Pity was the only answer that made sense. Pity made you want to protect him; you had said as much on that first morning. It explained your change from hostility to affection (usually it went the other way around), and why he hadn’t driven you away by now.

It was nice, he thought. He rather liked your pity.

He would have been happy basking in it for a long time, but… he made an error in judgment.

Chilton knew he had fucked up. He was so drawn in by Hannibal Lecter, trying to be his friend—trying to be like him—and all the while whispering sensitive information right into the Chesapeake Ripper’s ear. Then he had to go and listen to Will Graham, to show Jack Crawford that tape with evidence that seemed so solid at the time. But he was played. Hannibal knew he knew, and Chilton was the Judas who tried to sell him out.

He was dead meat. Literally.

He was dead, but you—you had believed Graham from the start, and stayed far away from Dr. Lecter. He was dead, but you didn’t have to go down with him. He could keep you safe. Out of the line of fire. The time you had spent together recently had been nice, and while he had no desire to die alone, the twisting in his gut insisted that he owed you that much for giving him so much of your time. This was the right reason to call things off.

One good deed could not make up for a life of misfortune and selfishness, but if he could save you from sharing his fate, then dying would not be the worst thing that could happen.

*****

“Him? How can you honestly believe Frederick Chilton is capable of being a serial killer?!” you screamed in Jack Crawford’s face after he arrested the shaken psychiatrist. Since learning what had happened, you were… upset. “Are you stupid? He’s being framed, just like Will! That man does not have the constitution to make dioramas out of murdered bodies—he’s an anxious nerd who can’t even drink coffee unless it has been first digested by a civet!”

“Watch it, or I'm sending you home,” Crawford warned as the federal agent who would tolerate no disrespect, especially in the middle of an FBI field office. As Crawford the sensitive father figure, the edges of his hard stare softened with sympathy, and he pat you consolingly on the arm.

“At least let me see him!”

Crawford did his best to calm you down, reassuring you that Chilton would be investigated fairly using all the resources of his task force. So you tried to relax as the doctor was handcuffed and dragged into the bowels of the field office to be interrogated. Crawford guided his old protégé, Miriam Lass, into the observation room to confirm whether Dr. Chilton was in fact the Chesapeake Ripper who had held her hostage for three years, while you paced impatiently outside.

There came a loud bang.

#frederick chilton #Frederick Chilton x reader #Raúl Esparza #Hannibal #my writing

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meteora-writes · 5 years ago

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We Could Be Perfect One Last Night ch.5

Fandom: Hannibal Pairing: Hannibal Lecter x Will Graham Warnings: Fluff, Cuddling Chapter: 5. Take My Hand Description: Hannibal sketches Will as he watches the storm and they plan for the future. Authors Notes: This chapter went waaaaaaay fluffier than I originally intended. I regret nothing. Read on AO3

~~~~~~ Read Ch.1 ~ Ch.2 ~ Ch.3 ~ Ch.4~~~~~

Will helps Hannibal lay back down once they’ve eaten lunch. It was clear the moment he sat down at the table that the simple act had taken all of his energy, leaving him pale and a touch dizzy. He admits as much when Will scolds him for pushing himself after warning Will against doing exactly that.

Despite being exhausted and in pain, Will can’t shut off his mind and rest. A part of him would like nothing more than to crawl into bed beside Hannibal and sink into unconsciousness. Another part knows if he tries he will either slip straight into nightmares or be unable to do anything but focus on the pain in his skull and the feeling of stitches in his mouth where they rub against the rolled-up gauze that covers them.

So, instead, he settles sideways on the couch with his back to one armrest. One arm thrown up over the back where his fingers fiddle with a torn bit of leather on the backrest near the top seam as he watches the storm rage outside the window beside him. The sight lets his thoughts drift in no particular direction while his eyes trace the swirling mix of snow and rain that come down to create a heavy blanket of white over the area.

The constant yet everchanging sight does so well distracting him that he doesn’t even realize how late it’s gotten until the wintery mix gets almost too hard to see without moving closer to the window thanks to the lack of light out. He watches shadows made of wind and ice dance in the darkness then.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Hannibal’s voice cutting through the relative silence of the setting startles Will, making him jerk and quickly turn his head towards the man. The action makes his head throb sharply and he has to take a moment to breathe through the pain before he can say anything. “I was thinking that this weather is both a blessing and a curse.”

Hannibal hums in understanding and slowly moves to sit up in the bed. “The arrival of the storm was fortuitous, to say the least. Perhaps with a bit of luck that good fortune will carry on once it has passed.”

“I’m not sure luck has anything to do with it,” Will says as he looks from Hannibal back out the window. “After you’ve paid your final visits to Jack and Bedelia, where will you go?”

“That was one of the things I had wished to discuss with you. I have the means to get us out of the country and start a new life with new identities. We can go anywhere you like, within reason of course.” He had originally intended to stay at his family’s estate in Denmark for a time before arranging things to move elsewhere. Now, though, he really would like to know where Will would be interested in going.

If he truly intends to stay with Hannibal then the least Hannibal can offer is to let him choose where they settle. He knows Will’s preference to live somewhere surrounded by nature to help him deal with the more inconvenient aspects of his empathy disorder and other neurodivergent attributes. Hannibal prefers to live somewhere a bit more urbanized. Someplace with culture and a balance of natural and manmade beauty. But he can find other ways to strike that balance in his life.

“The FBI had your assets liquidated and distributed amongst the families of your known victims,” Will points out with a brief glance in Hannibal’s direction.

“A pittance. The funds they seized were merely what I set aside while working as a surgeon and psychiatrist. I have considerably more tucked away in various locations under a few well-established aliases,” Hannibal explains with ease. “So, tell me, Will. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you choose?”

“You know me, Hannibal. Just give me a stream to fish in and I’ll be content…” Will says almost dismissively, clearly still a bit zoned out. The thought of actually leaving this place and going off together feels like a fantasy. He knows logically that the two of them working together once they’re recovered enough can take care of both Bedelia and Jack without question. But a part of him finds the concept hard to grasp. That they could actually do just that and take off together once the deed is done seems like something he fantasized in a moment of desperate loneliness. A fever dream.

“That may be, but there are many places with quiet streams to lose one’s self in. Finding one to settle upon should not be taken so lightly,” Hannibal reasons. He recognizes the look in Will’s eyes. He’s a bit lost in himself at the moment. Will tends to answer his questions more honestly when he’s like this.

“How do you feel about boats?” Will counters after a moment without looking away from the window. His fingers are messing with the bit of torn leather once again, drawing Hannibal’s gaze to it a moment.

“I have a fondness for them. They can be a pleasant means of transportation when one is in no hurry. Why do you ask?” Hannibal asks despite already knowing what Will is about to suggest. He wants to hear Will’s proposal.

“We could take one and see where we end up.” He glances over at Hannibal as he makes the suggestion, watching him appraisingly through tired blue eyes. “Once we’ve gotten a safe distance away from anywhere that the authorities might think to watch the harbors for us, that is.”

That earns a smile from Hannibal. “When the storm has passed I’ll contact Chiyoh. She can make arrangements for us.” They set up a system years ago. People and places they can call or visit and leave a simple message to let the other know they need to meet if they cannot make direct contact. They may not have seen one another in three years, but she has sent him unaddressed postcards on his and Mischa’s birthday’s each year to let him know she is still out there and still considers him to be family. The FBI never questioned it since he’s received cards and letters from countless others. But only Chiyoh would know to send one with churches that have since collapsed on them.

“You’re still in contact with her?” Will asks, confusion and surprise clear in his voice as well as in the way he furrows his brow and tilts his head just a little. He only looks at him a moment before his gaze drifts back to the window.

“We have our ways of getting in contact when needed. And she is no doubt aware of my escape as well as our disappearance by now. If she wasn’t already in the country she will be arriving soon,” Hannibal explains as he shifts so that he can open the drawer of the small bedside table to his right. He had taken a look earlier and found a notepad and pencil inside that he intends to make use of.

He’s still feeling a bit drained, but he felt the desire to sketch strike him the moment he saw Will upon waking. The image of Will curled up in the glow of the firelight as he looks out the window and into the storm is one Hannibal wants to capture in some way other than simply in memory. “She will be more than capable of discreetly acquire anything we need.”

“Perks of having your own personal ninja in the family,” Will quips with another sidelong glance to Hannibal. “What if she doesn’t answer your call?”

“Then we are on our own. If for some reason she is unable to assist us we will make due. I have faith in our capabilities.” He doesn’t doubt Chiyoh will answer if he reaches out. They’ve always been loyal to one another. He can’t imagine her not coming to his aid, just as he would go to hers should she ever ask. “Which would you prefer, to sail or to command something a bit more modern?”

“Sails can be torn to shreds and rendered useless in a storm. Engines can always be fixed,” Will notes as he shifts a bit and pulls his legs a little closer where he has them bent on the couch before him. He’s curled sideways, knees pointing towards the backrest of the leather couch with the one unoccupied hand in his lap. His other is made the tear in the leather he’s been messing with a bit bigger in the time he’s been messing with it. He tugs at the small strip of torn leather, rubs it between his thumb and fingertips as his gaze stays on the frozen world outside the cabin. “Honestly I’m fine with either, but I prefer to have an engine on a boat. Especially if we’re going to be spending any real length of time on the water.”

Hannibal hums an acknowledgment as he finds a blank page in the notebook and begins to sketch. He briefly finds himself hoping that Will doesn’t feel inclined to move any time soon. Even if he does he can remember the details perfectly and easily recreate them from memory. But there is something to be said about being able to actively sketch your muse as they give you inspiration. For three years all he’s had to work with was the occasional guards and his memories to draw from. Having the opportunity to sketch Will in this moment is a true pleasure. And it is one he intends to savor.

“It’s rude to stare,” Will eventually says, earning a chuckle from Hannibal. It’s a familiar feeling, having Hannibal study and scrutinize him so. But it’s the first time the feeling has been accompanied by the sound of pencil scratching frantically over paper. It’s almost alien compared to the soft sound of pen gliding over page as Hannibal took notes during their conversations years ago.

“My apologies,” Hannibal offers, though he doesn’t really mean it. He can’t be bothered to feel truly sorry when he knows it doesn’t really bother Will to be subject to his scrutiny. It used to, years ago. Back before Will learned the truth of himself and who Hannibal truly was. “Do try to hold still, please. Your profile is quite striking at this angle, and the light of the fire is accentuating your features nicely.”

Will swallows back the urge to move out of spite. He doesn’t really have it in him to antagonize Hannibal at the moment, though that doesn’t change the fact that a part of him wants to. After everything, the urge to push the other man is there. Hannibal brings that out in him. Makes him feel like he’s free to act on his less savory urges rather than repress them like he’s had to for so long.”Whatever you say…”

They sit like that until Will has no choice but to get up and add more wood to the fire so that it doesn’t go out entirely. Hannibal continues to draw well after that. Adding details and shading while Will makes them a late supper using a castiron skillet to toast two of the pre-made deli sandwiches he had purchased and yet another can of soup to split between the two of them.

Hannibal goes back to the sketch once they’ve had their fill and still focuses on it even as Will carefully climbs onto the bed beside him and crawls under the covers to turn in for the night.

Back to, Will lays facing the roughly cut wood of the cabin wall. It’s much the same position he found himself in when he laid down to get some rest that morning, only this time Hannibal doesn’t appear to be joining him in sleep any time soon despite the few yawns that have escaped him in the last half-hour

It makes him feel oddly anxious. Like there is a buzzing under his skin that keeps him hovering at the edge of consciousness for the next few hours. It doesn’t leave him until he hears Hannibal set aside the pencil and paper.

A moment later the bed dips and shifts beneath him as the older man sinks down to settle on his back beside Will once again.

“This isn’t going to be a recurring thing, is it? You staying up all night sketching?” Will mumbles sleepily as he finally starts to settle and drift towards sleep

“I do apologize for that. The hour got away from me,” Hannibal admits as he stifles a yawn. “I promise to be more considerate from now on.”

“Good. Some of us need our beauty sleep...” Will jokes, voice barely above a whisper as he shifts and rolls onto his own back. The change in position makes their arms press together and legs touch in a few spots where Will doesn’t try to keep his own together. He’s too tired to care if Hannibal and he are in each other's personal space. Not that it bothers him much when he’s fully awake either. A bit awkward feeling, definitely, but being so close to Hannibal doesn’t bother him anymore. It probably should, given the man has literally gutted him in the past.

Hannibal lets out a huff that sounds close to a laugh but says nothing. It’s clear Will is in fairly good spirits despite everything. He is as well. And so, so tired. But he couldn’t stop until the sketch was finished. It would have taunted him from somewhere in the back of his mind. Not let him sleep properly despite the bone-deep exhaustion that clings to him even after resting most of the day. He can mostly ignore the pain of his injuries, but he cannot ignore the side effects of them.

Neither man wakes to tend the fire in the night and when they do finally wake in the early hours of the morning it’s in unison. Both opening their eyes at almost the same time to find the cabin cold and Hannibal laying on his uninjured side with his forehead resting against Will’s temple and an arm slung loosely over the younger man’s waist while his other wraps protectively around his own to subconsciously protect his healing bullet wound.

Hannibal moves to slowly extract himself, expecting Will to be bothered by the intimacy of the position. “I should get another fire going...” he mutters in a much thicker accent than usual thanks to his sleep-addled mind first wanting to speak in Lithuanian and not English. Instead of Will rolling away or acting bothered by the intimate position, he finds his hand being grabbed in a lazy grip before he’s pulled back towards Will.

“Leave it. We’ll be warm enough in bed. Just go back to sleep, Hannibal…” Will protests softly as he stares up at him with bleary blue eyes. The room is just barely lit enough thanks to the uncovered windows for Hannibal to see them clearly. Letting him know Will is indeed awake as he speaks and pulls Hannibal back toward him under the covers.

He briefly considers getting up anyway. If only to try and give Will the space to realize what he’s asking. But Will still holds his hand and is seemingly completely comfortable and accepting of his being so close while in such a vulnerable state. He had expected more hesitance and discomfort on Will’s part. It would be understandable. Will is a guarded man by nature and Hannibal has hurt him greatly in the past.

They hold each other’s gaze a moment before Hannibal gives in to Will’s request and settles back down beside him. Though this time giving a little space between them. Testing what Will does.

Will bridges the small gap Hannibal creates the moment it’s clear Hannibal isn’t coming any closer on his own. Sliding into the negative space so that Hannibal is once again right against his side. His eyes are closed as he turns his face towards Hannibal’s, making their foreheads and noses bump gently.

Once Will is settled Hannibal finds he can’t look away despite the heaviness of his own eyelids.

“I can feel you staring…” Will grumbles as he once again opens his eyes to look at the other man

“You’re comfortable?” Hannibal questions despite the answer being obvious.

“Are you uncomfortable?” Will asks in turn. He still holds onto Hannibal, though now the hand that had pulled him in by his own is up higher on his arm, resting just above Hannibal’s elbow so their forearms are resting together over Will’s waist.

“Quite the contrary,” Hannibal concedes in a whisper.

“Then go back to sleep, Doctor Lecter,” Will’s tone is chastising, but he has the smallest smile that reaches his eyes and gives away his lack of seriousness to his words.

“As you wish,” Hannibal replies softly before finally closing his own eyes once again.

Will moves his head, sleepily nuzzling their noses together without thought before drifting back off. Hannibal drifts with him. Mind committing this feeling of unfathomable warmth and contentment to memory in those last few moments of self-awareness before slipping away.

Read Chapter 6

#hannibal #hannibal lecter #will graham #will graham x hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x will graham #will x hannibal #hannibal x will #hannigram #fluff #sharing a bed #cuddling #we could be perfect one last night #murder husbands

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meteora-writes · 5 years ago

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We Could Be Perfect One Last Night ch.4

Fandom: Hannibal Pairing: Hannibal Lecter x Will Graham Warnings: Pain, Talk of Feelings, Angst, Talk of Murder, Talk of Cannibalism Chapter: 4. Please Understand Description: Jack is still being an irritable asshole. Will and Hannibal make a few things clear to one another. Authors Notes: I struggled with the dialogue in this one, so please forgive me if it sounds a little OOC. Read on AO3

~~~~~ Read Ch.1 ~ Ch.2 ~ Ch.3~~~~~

“Dash-cam from the stolen cruiser confirmed that Dolarhyde was the last one moving about the property after Graham and Lecter entered the home. No sign of anyone coming or going from around the house or the surrounding treeline after that. If they didn’t fall into the ocean, they sure as hell didn’t climb back up any part of the bluff around the house and leave on foot,” Zeller informs Jack as he walks into his office. “Which isn’t surprising, given there was no evidence of anyone having done that.” The annoyance in his voice is loud and clear. He’s been over all the evidence they got before the storm hit. There’s no way Will and Hannibal got back up that cliff and left the way they came. They fell into the ocean below the bluff without question. No way around it.

“Then find me where they got out of the water and where they went from there. I refuse to believe they drown after everything we saw.” Jack feels ready to start shouting. The urge to bubbling up inside his chest. He’s spent the morning pouring over evidence. Making phone calls. He even tried to contact Alana Bloom and Dr. Du Maurier to get their insight as well as get them both into protective custody. Neither will return his calls and he’s waiting for the agents he sent to their homes to report in.

“Jack, you need to accept the possibility that they didn’t make it out of the water. It’s the middle of February. It was thirty degrees out at the estimated time they killed Dolarhyde. Even with the average temperature of the ocean being higher than the air temperature this time of year, the amount of time it would take them to swim ashore along with the amount of blood they both clearly lost makes their survival rate slim at best. And that’s assuming they made it to one of the nearby summer homes. None of which show any signs of forced entry,” Zeller argues further. He doesn’t like the idea any more than Jack does. But he doesn’t think he can ever look Will in the eye again if he did survive. Not after seeing how brutally he and Hannibal took down Dolarhyde.

“I am well aware of the lack of evidence, Z, and I do not need a science lesson right now. I am aware of what the temperatures were last night and of their odds of survival. Now kindly return to your lab before I get any angrier,” Jack grits out before grabbing a stack of reports from the corner of his desk to start rifling through.

Zeller looks ready to argue, but closes his mouth and walks out without another word. He does however slam the door behind him.

Jack watches him go before heaving an irritated sigh and rubbing at his forehead. He feels a headache coming on. Likely due to too much caffeine. He’s on his fourth cup of coffee as he tries to pour through everything they have on both Lecter and Graham as well as the field reports as they come. He knows Hannibal well enough to know he’s always got a backup plan of some sort. The trick is connecting the puzzle pieces to find out what it is.

It makes him wish Will was there. Which only serves to anger him further. He should have known better. He let Will’s reluctance and the fact that he had a wife and son now convince him that Will wouldn’t go off with Hannibal. That he had changed and he wouldn’t be drawn to him like he was before.

“Because I wanted to run away with him.”

“Part of me will always want to.”

Jack curses under his breath as he remembers Will’s words from years ago.

A buzzer cuts through his train of thought, drawing his attention to the phone on his desk. With a growl of annoyance, he pressed the button for the intercom. “What is it?”

“Sir, Molly Graham is on the line. She wants to speak to you and she doesn’t sound happy,” the agent on the other line informs him.

“Thank you.” Jack briefly looks up to the ceiling and prays that she has some useful bit of information to help them find Will. He picks up the receiver then and clicks over to line two, which is lit up with a waiting call. “Mrs. Graham.”

“What the hell did you do, Jack! Where is my husband!” Her angry voice cuts through the speaker, making Jack wince. He was hoping whoever broke the news to her would do so in a way that explained everything. Apparently they did not.

With a tired sigh, he rubs at his forehead with his free hand once more and begins to explain what’s happened.

~~~~~

It’s sometime in the early afternoon when Will finally wakes again. Not that he really wants to.

His body still aches. Head throbbing sharply with the beat of his heart. He feels like he’s been cracked open and parts of him are spilling out with every beat. The only thing that helps him through the initial shock of pain is the feeling of what is definitely a warm, solid body pressed against part of his back. His sleep-addled mind connects the dots slowly. He knows where he is. Who he’s with. And he’s just too tired and miserable to be bothered or feel much of anything about that fact aside from relief that he isn’t alone.

Hannibal is asleep behind him. Breathing soft and even. Barely audible thanks to the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind outside. There’s a distinct patter of freezing rain hitting ice somewhere above. The storm they had outrun having arrived a few hours ago blanketed the area in a layer of fresh snow before it changed to freezing rain.

Lifting his head with a wince and gasp at the way the change in position makes it throb and his vision go black a moment, Will steadies himself and looks out the closest window. It’s a dreary shade of gray out as sleet comes down at a harsh angle thanks to the winds that accompany it.

“You really should lay back down, Will. Overexertion will only make the pain worse,” Hannibal mutters sleepily as he shifts on the mattress behind Will. It’s more obvious now that he’s simply resting on his back behind the younger man, his arm pulled over his own chest in a way that allows Will’s back to press against his side. Giving them both a bit of extra warmth and comfort without making either man feel trapped or particularly awkward.

“I don’t think there is anything I could do right now that wouldn’t make the pain worse,” Will replies softly as he lets his head lower slowly back to his pillow. Even that is painful. So much so that he momentarily wishes he hadn’t woken up so soon.

A soft hum of understanding comes from Hannibal, who isn’t making any move to get up yet now that he’s awake. “Perhaps something to eat would do you good? I could prepare some soup if you like?”

Will can’t help but snort a laugh at that. The thought of Hannibal cooking anything that comes from a can feels like a joke. “I don’t need you to make me soup, Hannibal.”

The bed dips slightly as Hannibal sits up, and it makes Will shift and roll onto his back to look up at the older man. “I know you don’t. I simply offered because I intend to make myself something to eat as well. It’s really no trouble.”

Studying him a moment, Will sighs and lets his eyes slip closed. “Please?” he finds himself asking a bit reluctantly. He would do it himself, but the thought of getting up, along with the pain it will cause his head, is unappealing, to say the least. He hates feeling like this. Useless and weak. It makes him miss his dogs. They always distract and comfort him when he feels this miserable.

Hannibal smiles down at Will, watching him a moment before finally climbing out of bed. The cabin is quite warm now. Thanks in part to his keeping the fire going. He had added another split piece of wood before laying down early that morning and added yet another when he woke to relieve himself a few hours later. It’s been maybe two hours since then and the fire is smaller now, but still burning nicely.

There’s a collection of cast iron cookware hanging on the wall over the small wood-burning stove that sits in the corner. Beside that is an old sink with a well-pump for a faucet, and a set of cupboards that contain a few pots and dishes. More than enough to work with for what they need.

“The last time I prepared a meal from a can like this I was a young man just entering university, if memory serves,” Hannibal muses as he sets a pot on the stove. There’s no sign of a can opener, but he finds an old churchkey in the silverware drawer and grabs that to use.

“Somehow I find it hard to imagine you ever eating anything out of a can that wasn’t in some way extravagant or more expensive than my first car,” Will jokes as he opens his eyes and blinks up at the rafters above him. There’s various kind of gear stored up in them. Old looking wooden snowshoes, and what might be fishing equipment. He’s not entirely sure since he can’t get his eyes to focus well enough to get a good look through the shadows.

With a chuckle, Hannibal glances over to Will before grabbing two cans of chicken soup from the small counter by the stove. He had placed most of their food in there before stuffing the small fridge tucked below full of snow and placing their drinks inside to stay cold. “There are still many things you do not yet know about me, Will.”

“Of that, I am well aware,” Will says with a sigh. He lets his eyes slip closed again as he listens to Hannibal putter around across the room. “So what do you plan to do after this?”

The question makes Hannibal pause in the middle of opening a can. He has to ponder it a moment because while he knows what he would like to do, he also wants to know what it is that Will wants. And how that could possibly work into his own desires. “This being?”

“Recovering, here, with me,” Will clarifies tiredly. “I assume once you’re well enough to travel there are people you intend to pay a visit to before relocating to someplace more comfortable.”

“There are a few people I would like to visit, yes… Would you perhaps have an interest in joining me?” Hannibal asks carefully. He knows it would be a stretch to think Will might help him kill Alana Bloom. Killing her can wait for now. But the others? He isn’t going to leave the country without giving them a final farewell dinner.

“That would depend entirely on whom we would be visiting,” Will counters just as Hannibal had expected. He still has his eyes closed. Body language not changing as he lays with the blanket pushed down a bit so his upper chest and shoulders are visible along with his face. He appears relaxed despite the pain he’s in.

“Bedelia Du Maurier and Jack Crawford,” he supplies as he goes back to his work preparing their meal. He knows Bedelia being someone he intends to kill isn’t a surprise to Will. Jack really shouldn’t be either. But then again he’s left him alive in the past so that does give reason to consider he might leave the man alone.

“Jack?” Will asks, finally opening his eyes to look over at Hannibal. “I thought he wasn’t worth the effort?”

“He wasn’t. Even after the trouble he caused me in Italy, I never considered him much of a threat. And I had no intention of causing him harm unless he got in my way again. But it’s become clear that he will never stop pursuing either of us. And to be totally honest, I find many of his actions, as well as his overall treatment of you, to be quite rude.” He can remember every conversation they had regarding Will over the years. Every time Jack referred to Will as a dog or some tool for furthering his own agenda.

Hannibal takes some credit for guiding Will to who he is today. He’s proud of what the other man has become with his guidance. Of the evolution of his design. He probably wouldn’t bother with Jack if he was on his own now, but it seems Will might be here to stay and the man did spend the better part of three years silently gloating that Will had chosen to forsake the life they could have had together. And Hannibal isn’t going to let that stand.

“Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude,” Will quotes Hannibal with a chuckle. He remembers the night that Hannibal spoke those words to him. The look of amusement on his face as he said them despite being frustrated that Will hadn’t killed Mason Verger and instead flipped the script to set the sick bastard up to try and kill Hannibal instead.

“A sentiment I still hold to this day,” Hannibal agrees with a fond shake of his head.

“I think…” Will begins before carefully pushing himself up to sit. It hurts his head, makes the room spin, and his body sway a bit. But he holds himself steady and breathes through it before he opens his eyes and looks over to a worried Hannibal once he’s fully upright. “I think I would like to see that.”

“I have to ask. When Jack Crawford is dead and this is all over, will you try to go back to your family?” Hannibal keeps his eyes locked with Will’s. Reading his reaction to the question. He had briefly considered finding a more delicate way to ask. But he knows Will prefers him to be honest in his questions. So, he’s being honest.

Will’s face twitches like he doesn’t know if he wants to smile or frown. “They’re not really my family anymore, now are they,” he says in a tone that betrays his mixed emotions on the subject of his wife and step-son. Tears well up in his eyes and he has to break eye contact with Hannibal as he blinks them away. It’s too much right now.

“I‘m sorry, Will…” He knows what it means to Will. Having a family. Especially after the loss of his unborn child and then losing Abigail for a second time right before his eyes. It seems if he’s to be involved with Hannibal in any way, it means losing those he holds dear no matter the circumstances.

“I’m only going to ask you this once. Don’t mention them again,” Will says as calmly as he can with a glance to Hannibal before letting his gaze drift down to his hands. He has them folded in his lap. Eye’s roaming over the scrapes and bruises that start on his knuckles and move up his arms. His mind is spinning. Trying to accept the fact that who he is, who he really truly is, isn’t someone that could ever be with them again. It’s what’s best for them all. He’s suppressed his nature for years. He can’t go back to that after last night.

“Of course. I am sorry, Will. It wasn’t my intention to upset you.” He really hadn’t. He cares a great deal for Will. And seeing him hurting so deeply does affect him. Despite his best attempts not to let it. It makes him long to go back to a time when he could have chosen a different path. Saved Abigail and forgiven Will. Left for a life with them. The longing is fleeting. He knows there’s no going back and there is likely nothing he could do to make the loss of his children up to Will.

“I’m not… I’m not going to leave you, Hannibal. Not unless your feelings towards me have changed,” Will says after a few minutes of silence pass between them. It was hard to find the words. Get them out of his mind and past his tongue.

“My feelings for you are exactly the same as they were the last time I saw you like this,” he settles on the answer as he studies Will. Remembering the night Will woke up tucked carefully into his own bed after Mason Verger tried to have his face removed so he could claim it as his own. “I think the real question you should be asking is have your feelings towards me changed since then?”

Will forces himself to look up and face Hannibal then, fighting back the urge to look away and retreat into himself at the intensity of his gaze. Wade into the stream and catch a few fish rather than confront and admit how he feels. “They have,” he finally says, knowing full well that Hannibal can see what he means from the look in his eyes. He doesn’t need to say anything more. And the smile that spreads across Hannibal’s face has an oddly calming effect on Will. It lets him take a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding back.

“Then there are some things we need to discuss once you are feeling up to it.” The smile doesn’t leave his face, even as he turns back to the simmering pot on the stove.

Will watches Hannibal serve up their meal, wondering what will happen from here. His mind sifting through all his knowledge and past experiences with the other man. Trying to find any tells or signs that his feelings aren’t genuine. He finds none. And it leaves an oddly warm feeling in his chest knowing that Hannibal appears to feel the same way.

Read Chapter 5

#hannibal #hannigram #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal x will #will x hannibal #hannibal lecter x will graham #will graham x hannibal lecter #angst #murder husbands #we could be perfect one last night

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elfnerdherder · 8 years ago

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Where the Wicked Walk: Ch. 14

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You can read Chapter 14 on Ao3 Here

Chapter 14: Hop-Frog

Alyss stared at the wall before her, and she counted the seconds like sandpaper.

She had dealt in death before. Death had plagued her for far longer than any chronic pains or childhood traumas; it made her who she was. Her ease in it, slipping in and out and around the cracks of death is what made Francis Dolarhyde first recruit her to Hannibal Lecter’s following, a grouping of like-minded individuals that saw her previous works and congratulated her for it. Their hands had passed along her shoulders, awe and praise as she told her stories. The acknowledgement merely fueled her, merely made her dream of more to come.

First her family. She’d never loved them anyway.

Then the doctor that tried to prescribe her anti-psychotics. She would not be controlled.

A woman that’d tried to take her ex-boyfriend, although he ended up walking in on their meeting and had to be put down, too. A shame, since his smile was so lovely it could light up her most dreadful of days, stuck working as she’d been in retail with people who honestly made her pension for killing go up a notch.

But then Nate came along, and honestly she’s forgotten that ex-boyfriend’s name.

“My condolences for your loss,” the interrogator said.

Loss. Even before, when her name wasn’t Alyss, she wasn’t in the game of losing. She didn’t lose, she gained. She grew. Not anymore. She was most assuredly falling in on herself, and there could be no growth to come when everything around her was dead, dealing in shades of rotting, putrid grey.

She bumped into him on a subway, and his eyes were the loveliest shade of tomorrow that she’d ever seen. She wondered what they looked like, now that he’d had time to begin decomposing. Ugly. Milky white. They wouldn’t be so mismatched anymore. A matching shade of death.

“We want to help you, Kelly Brown. Maybe there’s an arrangement that we can come to, if you just answer a few of my questions.”

When she found him the next day, a stirring in her chest that pushed, pushed, pushed, she’d been almost nervous that she was going to have to kill him to make that feeling go away. Soulmate, the general public said with the sort of sigh that made her teeth rot. You’ve found your soulmate, and isn’t that nice? It didn’t sound so nice to her. Alyss didn’t like being controlled, no matter if it was her mind or her body or a chemical reaction that made her focus on the shades of color within another person’s eyes.

“This won’t change anything,” she promised him, clinging to his skin to make the whispers go away.

“What if I want it to?” Nate asked her, clinging back.

Then it turned out that Nate had a pension for killing, too.

She didn’t feel much when she’d killed her family. Natural emotions, like frustration at their staining her favorite shirt. Fatigue after the care she took in displaying them, laying them out. Pride at her work, at the inevitability of taking care of something she probably should have dealt with years before. It was done now, though. She could say that it was done.

“Kelly?”

Nate’s death, though…God, she could feel it within her very cells it hurt so bad. She’d been stabbed a few times, shot on more than one occasion. One of the girls at the house had given her a cigarette burn on her left breast, and Nate had kissed away the pain of it. The scar was a lopsided heart that she liked to look at, each bit of raised tissue something pretty, something that was hers.

She wondered if she told them that she couldn’t feel her legs, if they’d cut them off of her. Remove the dead tissue, give way to something new. She didn’t want something new, though, she wanted Nate for God’s sake. She felt his stomach give way, felt him stumble, searching. Distance was a razorblade to the skin, the gunshot wound the aftermath of a sledgehammer to the gut.

The death a severance so complete that she was sure she was going to die.

God, why wasn’t she dead?

“Kelly, I do honestly want to help you, despite what you may think.”

Her gaze lifted from the table before her, grey and matte and cold. The agent had a soulmate, that much she could see; one eye black, the other eye black with a ring of blue around it. The set of their eyes made them appear Chinese in nature, although she could be wrong. She didn’t like to assume those sort of things because it was a stereotype and it was ignorant. One of the girls at the house was Japanese, and she spent her time practicing crochet. She’d made Nate a hat once, two years before.

“Is your soulmate alive?” Alyss asked. Her normal sort of self-control that would have made her voice sound so vividly sweet was gone. Her tone cracked on the way ‘alive’ tasted sour and rotten in her mouth. Alive, alive, alive. Why was she still alive?

“Yes.”

Alyss nodded in thought at that, fingertips pressed tight together as she considered them. She wondered how much force it’d take to bite them off so they’d stop hurting so much.

“If I could…I would give them a smile like I gave Agent Bowman a smile,” she said at last, hoarsely. “Maybe the shock would be so much that you died when you felt the severance.”

“Kelly-”

“Are you afraid of death, FBI-Guy?”

“I think we all are.”

“I’m not. And neither was Nate.”

“Was Nate your soulmate? We are trying to-”

“I want you to tell Agent Crawford this for me,” she interrupted. He paused to listen, head tilted to catch the slightest word. “Think of it as a courtesy, nothing more or less than what he needs to hear.”

“Alright, Kelly…I can do that.”

“Are you listening carefully?”

“Yes.”

She licked dry lips, smiled as wide as she could. “That which you mistake for madness is but an overacuteness of the senses. You who death follows so closely, a companion we give to you: Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

Just underneath the capped tooth near her back left molar, a pill lay in wait that she bit down on, swallowing the taste of bitter, rotten almonds. It curled, burning down, down, down her throat.

“Kelly, what are you-”

She wasn’t listening anymore, though. She couldn’t have, even if she wanted to, the pain was so acute. A fiery agony that washed away the dull, rotting ache of Nate, baptized her skin anew just to burn it to ash. She relished in the pain, even as it killed her.

“I need a medic! Kelly Brown took a foreign substance that…”

One couldn’t call soulmate death a severance if you were soon to join them.

Molly walked along the garden path, Wally’s sticky hand in hers.

“Beverly and Saul gave me candy last night,” he confessed. At eleven years old, he was far too mature for his age, a fact that haunted Molly to her core. While he still clung to childhood curiosity, time and experience had given him an edge that Molly resented and blamed herself for. He was an honest person, someone that reminded him of her deceased husband with every turn of his cheek, every furrowed brow. They’d married too young, but they’d been happy.

They were happy.

“That was nice of them.”

“Can we trust them?”

She sighed, stared out towards the impossibly blue sky. Despite her abhorrence of the humidity, the bugs, and the clay that caked everything and stained it an ugly orange, she had to admit that the skies in Georgia were beautiful.

“No, Wally, we can’t,” she said, staring at the sky. The expanse of it with no clouds to interrupt was beautiful, a never ending entity where everything seemed possible. She resented it, even as she loved it.

“We can’t trust anyone here,” Wally muttered, kicking a rock.

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s a new guy here. Will Graham.” When they reached the rock once more, he kicked it with a little more gusto, sending it skittering here and there before resting just ahead of them. “I saw him. He looks sad.”

“He is sad, honey.”

Just in the distance with his back to them stood Will. It wasn’t apparent in his stature or the way that he held himself that he was in pain, but Molly saw the edges of him that others often missed. The way his arms bowed in as his hands were stuffed to his pockets, the way his head ducked as he concentrated on whatever he was looking at; he was in pain, and it wasn’t just whatever had happened to him in the forest.

“Is he sad because he’s here?”

A dangerous question. While Wally had had to grow up too fast, he didn’t always know when not to speak, let alone around those that would take his words to someone who would wield them against her like a knife. In all things she tried to be honest with him, and she did so once again now. “He’s sad because he’s having a hard time here.”

“Can we trust him?” Wally pressed.

Could they trust him? At the end of the walkway, they paused long enough for Wally to pick up the rock and study it at all angles. Bits of mica clung to it, facets of crystal that fell away under his insistent inspection. As if sensing her scrutiny, Will turned away from the forest’s edge and paused, and if the distance hadn’t been so great, Molly would have sworn that he was staring right into her eyes. Judgment and a stab of betrayal, that he dared to give some part of himself to someone that used it against him like a clumsily weld scalpel.

“We can trust him, Wally, but he can’t trust us,” she said sadly.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Wally decided, and Molly laughed.

“Maybe someday it will, but that’s okay. Just know that if something is happening; if you’re scared, or if you need help, you can trust Will Graham. He’ll help you.”

Even as it hurts him.

She swung their arms with wild abandon as they turned away from Will and headed down a bend in the path. In his free hand, Wally clutched his newfound rock with a sense of victory.

The autopsy room at the Atlanta HQ was almost too small for so many bodies.

He’d had them delivered there, all the same. He needed people that could really dig into each and every aspect of the tragedy that’d occurred, compare and contrast the many lethal ways in which thirty-two innocent people were murdered for the sake of some sick statement by a man that found delight in torture and death.

He’d found new wrinkles in his skin since taking a look at the bodies. Newfound wrinkles and a newfound purpose.

“Agent Crawford?” someone pressed.

Jack looked over to them, poised in the doorway, and frowned impressively. They were sharp, from their pantsuit to their perfectly adjusted cuffs, and nary a hair lay out of place.

“My name is Clarise Starling,” she said, and she strode over to shake his hand firmly. “I head the division specializing with cult activity.”

“Did Director Purnell send you here?” Jack asked.

“Yes, sir. I’m heading this investigation now,” she said. She had a way of speaking that sounded like she was used to constantly having to defend herself. Her shoulders were squared for battle. Jack wondered if it was because someone had warned her about him, or if she was just used to putting up with constant bull shit.

“That so?”

“You work with behavioral analysis, but group mentality is something far different from tracking a singular person. You found Dr. Lecter through your knowledge, but I can use my knowledge to help you bring his entire group down. Director Purnell called me in for that reason.”

“He may be using people to front his sadistic game, Agent Starling, but I can track him. Everything I need to find him is right here,” Jack said, nodding towards the bodies. Too many bodies.

“From what I can tell, he’s not giving you a damn thing, sir.” She had a bit of a southern twang as she shifted her stance, irritated. “You’ll have better luck finding him through the mistakes of his followers, not through taunts he leaves behind for you.”

“Agent Starling-”

“My presence here isn’t a request, Agent Crawford,” she said, bowling over his words. “This here is my jurisdiction, and if you’re nice enough I’m willing to share. But just let me do my job, and I’ll let you do yours. How’s that?”

Jack liked that about as much as he liked hearing Katy Brown’s final words before she bit down on a cyanide pill and died in an interrogation room. He stalked from the autopsy room and left Agent Starling to glean over the dead bodies, needing to breathe in some air that didn’t reek of chemicals and death.

A companion we give to you: darkness and decay.

He stood on the steps to the HQ, breathing in the stink of the city and the smell of burning, crackling cloves. He’d broken down on his smoking habit, having needed something to do with his hands.

“Agent Crawford,” someone off to the side called out, but it took a moment for him to register.

He looked over, saw who it was, and choked on the smoke. Short, curt, ugly puffs of it spewed from his mouth as he swallowed a curse and took the tobacco with it, making his lungs burn and his stomach curdle. Logic said that at a time like this, it only made sense for them to make an appearance, but that didn’t improve his mood in the least.

“I’m not talking, Freddie,” he said warily. His distaste for her was far kinder than Will Graham’s was –during Lecter’s trials, she’d hounded him to try and get an inside scoop to what had happened. When Jack was in the hospital, trying to survive off of Jell-O and runny soup, Will had barely been able to stop her from sneaking into Jack’s room while he slept so that she could try and get a photo of his stab wound.

The article claimed that Will had physically lifted and threw her down the steps of the hospital when he’d escorted her out, and when Jack asked about it, he wasn’t inclined to deny it. Jack made sure that the FBI paid her a visit to ensure that no charges were pressed against Will for attempting to give Jack some much needed peace and quiet.

“Come on, Jack…you’ve seen the news, right?”

“I don’t watch the news much. It’s a load of shit is what it is,” he replied. He took another drag from the cigarette and stared out at the air that rippled with the humidity and the heat. Even in the Fall, Georgia tried to stay hot.

“Thirty-two dead, all by the name of Will Graham? Will Graham, one of the few survivors of ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’s reign of terror missing just after Lecter’s escape? This is good stuff, Jack,” she needled, walking closer.

Freddie’s outfits were as loud as they were obscene. He eyed her plaid pants and polka-dotted button-up with extreme prejudice as he tried to find something kind to say. The red of her pants matched the vibrancy of her hair, accented by a heart shaped face and too big blue eyes. Matching eyes, he thought. The day Freddie Lounds gets a soulmate, I’ll eat my hat.

“Most people think a killing spree is horrifying, not good stuff,” he said after a pregnant pause. “But I guess you’re not most people.”

“I covered most of the Lecter trials, as well as the hunt for the Chesapeake Ripper, Jack. I’ve earned a word from you.”

“You haven’t earned shit,” Jack said pleasantly.

“I know you want to catch Lecter again. I bet that once you get guys like that behind bars, you want them to stay that way.”

“Most people do.”

“I might have heard something that could be of help to you,” she said, stepping closer. Jack had to resist taking a large step back, something that kept him out of her range of reach.

“That so?”

“Something that’d set you on the right path towards who got your man Zeller. I know most news places ignored that fact, but as Will Graham’s across America were being mutilated, someone got a needle in your man, too.”

“We’ve already got him in custody, but thanks, Freddie.”

“No, you have the witness in custody, Jack,” she replied. “You have a mentally impaired man in custody, but he didn’t attack Agent Zeller.”

“The cameras inside of the establishment had been tampered with. He was the only one with access to do so.”

“Don’t take it out on him because you can’t get to the real culprit, Jack,” she said softly. “I know you like throwing darts at the board with wild abandon, but I have something substantial for you.”

He sighed and dropped the cigarette, stomping it out with the heel of his worn shoe. He hadn’t had time to polish them since Will first made notice of it.

“If what you have to say is something good, I’ll give you something in return,” he said irritably. “But only IF.”

She snorted and flipped her hair over her shoulder, head tilted. It reminded him of a finch, hopping closer and closer to beg for just a bite. “There’s a guy in a bar near Convington, Georgia that got too drunk last night. I happened to be there to interview someone that claimed they knew the woman that assaulted Agent Bowman, but it didn’t pan out.”

“Those things tend not to,” Jack agreed.

“I was about to leave when I overheard him speaking with a female companion about his luck with Agent Zeller. He’d had to wait in that bathroom for ages before you stepped out, but it was worth it.”

That stopped Jack cold, right in the midst of lighting a new cigarette. Chain-smoking, and Bella would scold him once he was able to get on the phone to talk to her. The ache of their distance was a cold one, something much like the chill one gets when they wake in the middle of the night with no blankets on.

“Excuse me?” he asked, dangerously quiet.

“I got a drink and listened, Jack,” she said, and she pulled a recorder out of her purse. Naturally, it matched the ugly red pants. Fingers with nails short from constant typing and biting curled around the plastic, and she hit play with pursed lips and a furrow in her brows.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so loud, Clark.”

“No one here is listening…’sides, they arrested that gas station manager –what was his name?”

“Peter Bernardone.”

“Peter Bernardone, yeah…yeah. They got him. We’ll head to the big house and tell the boss the good news.”

“I already called him. He said to do a roundabout way to town, since there’s a lot of feds on the interstate.”

“They won’t stop us, baby, we’re on the home stretch. I played my part, you played yours, and we’ll go and get a big fat hug when we get back there.”

“Dr. Lecter isn’t exactly the hugging type.”

“Maybe he’ll make an exception when I show him just how much I got that fucker to bleed.”

She hit stop on the playback and stared at Jack, maintaining a long, uncomfortable stare to match the long, uncomfortable silence. The air felt too heavy in the aftermath.

“I got his license,” she said, and she reached into her purse and withdrew a leather billfold.

“Of all of the crazy, fucking luck,” Jack muttered.

“Not really crazy, Jack. I got a copy of the gas station video, same as you. I saw him go into that bathroom and wait, saw you come in, saw a girl pull up to get gas, saw you go out, and that’s when the inside camera went fuzzy.

“The outside camera, though…it shows you on the phone while that same man walked out of the gas station, got into the car with the woman, and drove away. You go inside, and that’s when you find Zeller.”

“You think Peter Bernardone is innocent?”

“He’s so innocent, I’m going to offer him my lawyer that I keep on speed-dial for libel cases.”

That was something.

“Once he knows that his wallet is missing, he’s going to move quick,” Jack muttered. He headed towards the bureau doors. As an afterthought, he turned back and snatched the billfold from her. “Thank you, Miss Lounds. Because you’ve been useful, I won’t make a case about you letting that son-of-a-bitch walk out of that bar without calling the police.”

“Your end of the bargain, Agent Crawford,” she prompted, following close behind him.

“My end?” he turned back, tucking the wallet into his inside jacket pocket. “Oh, you thought I’d give you something ‘off the record’?”

“I just helped you so that you didn’t make an ass of yourself when you tried to incriminate an innocent man,” she fired back. Heeled boots clacked along the concrete as she crept even closer. “You owe me.”

“You owe me, Miss Lounds,” Jack replied. “After your last venture with me, I’d say you piled on quite a few debts.”

“I can really make it miserable for you in the papers if you do this, Jack,” Freddie warned, and she hitched her purse higher on her shoulder. She looked ready for a fight.

“Look, you want some kind of scoop, how about you put that nosy business of yours to the grindstone and find me Will Graham; how’s that? You kept hunting him down six years ago, dogging his every step then. Shouldn’t be too hard for you to find him now, right?”

He walked back into HQ, savoring the ugly shade of pink on her cheeks. As he passed security, he motioned back towards her. “She doesn’t come anywhere in here,” he ordered, and the security guards nodded in understanding.

Will Graham wandered the house for the next few days in order learn its secrets.

He wasn’t quite sure what he’d find, perusing the unnecessary amount of formal living rooms. Something, he supposed –anything. More than a week’s time in that house was making his skin stretch to odd proportions, making his muscles tense at the slightest of sounds.

He wondered how many others felt such a kindship to Hannibal Lecter; would more Matthew’s crawl from the floorboards to try and oust him? Was another Randall Tier lurking along the forest’s edge, waiting?

Every time he blinked, he kept focusing on his eyes. Randall Tier had matching eyes, and they stared at the stars like they could somehow find peaceful oblivion in the night.

It was a nice home, all things considered. Will could remember times between moves where he and his father would take tours of the old homes in the south, passing hands along bronze posts and velvet ropes to keep them from ruining relics of the past. He’d always felt small in such places, the history stuffed within the very air he breathed, so much so that he felt something like a thief standing in the space. His father loved the tours, though, so he followed along. The paintings of George Washington were always a cheesy touch.

Dr. Lecter didn’t have an abundance of Revolutionary War paintings, although he had an unhealthy obsession with Blake. Will paused before one such painting and stared, hands tucked into his pockets.

“The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun,” Dolarhyde said behind him. His deep voice, appearing so suddenly in the silence, startled Will, and he turned around sharply.

“I didn’t see you as an art type,” he said in lieu of nothing else.

Dolarhyde’s eyes were dark, fixated on the painting. “…You don’t know. But you could understand.”

“I could,” Will agreed reluctantly.

Whatever Francis wanted to say to help Will understand was unable to break past his lips. He stared at the painting, and his jaw clenched. His mouth worked, mulling the words over, but they didn’t come, something blocking up in his throat and silencing him. Tension rippled just underneath his skin, and Will thought of the way his shoes had sunk into the carpet soaked with blood, how it’d seemed like a terrifying amount of blood to lose –how simply killing someone wouldn’t do that, that someone would have to really relish in the way blood stained everything to make someone bleed that much as they killed them.

“…I didn’t protect you,” Dolarhyde said, and Will took a step back from him unconsciously. The intensity that he’d pinned to the painting shifted to Will, made his skin crawl. “I promised to protect you, and Matthew almost killed you.”

“I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at Matthew,” Will assured him. He felt a genuine need to convey that fact.

“I promised you that you’d be safe here.”

“You’ve been lying to me from the start, Agent Dolarhyde, so you shouldn’t start feeling bad about it now,” he replied. The staring was beginning to make him sweat, the something just lurking at the edge of Francis’ gaze unsettling. Quiet he may be, calm he may be, but he wasn’t stable. Will could smell it off of him like a fever. It threatened to bleed into him, force Will to take some part of it.

“I never lied to you,” said Francis calmly.

“Oh?” Will barked a curt laugh.

“I told you the truth. I would keep you safe, we would go to the house, I would make a call at the house, your friends would be safe, I do my job very well, and I wouldn’t hurt you.” He frowned, mulling everything over. “The only lie is that you were put in danger. For that, I apologize.”

Will was pretty damn sure that a lie by omission was still a lie, but he wasn’t sure if that was a conversation to have with someone like Francis. While he speech came across as simplified, it didn’t quite fit the calm control and intelligence it’d taken for him to completely fool not only Will but Jack, too.

“How long had you been in the FBI?” Will asked.

“S…Seven years.” A hand lifted unconsciously to hide the scar near his mouth.

“How did you find Dr. Lecter?”

“…We read about him in Quantico. Learned him before he was publicly named, found his ways and habits when he was nothing more than The Chesapeake Ripper. When he was discovered by Agent Crawford, I wanted to know him. I understood him better than anyone else I’d ever seen, and I wanted to know him. I wanted him to know me, too.”

“The FBI has strict psychological screening protocols, Agent Dolarhyde,” Will whispered.

Francis blinked lazily at him, nary a flicker of emotion at Will’s pointed statement. “I did my job very well, Mr. Graham.”

“You did,” Will agreed. “You made me equivocally trust every word that came from your mouth without a second thought.”

“You can trust me,” Francis assured him. “You can’t trust Matthew Brown.”

“So if he tries to take me on morning walks again, I should find you?”

“Yes,” Francis affirmed. “Or, if you’re inclined, you could just kill him.”

Will took several steps back at that, and Francis let him. His flat gaze followed Will’s trail around a small sitting area, using the couch as a barrier between them. He neither advanced nor retreated, merely watched. Merely observed.

“…I don’t want to kill him, Agent Dolarhyde,” Will said, tasting how it sounded in the air. Honest. Real.

“You could kill anyone in this house, Mr. Graham, and Dr. Lecter wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t view his opinion on killing as a base for my own interactions.”

“Just a thought,” Francis said, and he gave a small half-smile. It tugged on his scar, gave him an altogether crooked look. “In case you’re ever inclined.”

He walked out of the room and left Will to his thoughts, dark and wicked as they were.

Just to the side of him, Red Dragon arced over the woman clothed in sun, ready to devour her.

A wonderful thanks to my patrons: @hanfangrahamk @matildaparacosm @starlit-catastrophe @frostyleegraham @sylarana @Frostylicker Duhaunt6, and Superlurk <3

#Where the Wicked Walk #Hannigram #Hannibal x will graham #hannibal fanfic #hannibal au #the following au #hannibal soulmate au #someone help will graham #Francis dolarhyde

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elfnerdherder · 8 years ago

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Where the Wicked Walk: Ch. 10

You can read Chapter 10 on Ao3 Here

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Chapter 10: Berenice

Three Years Before:

She was a lovely sort, from the tip of her head down to her feet. On the rare occasion that Hannibal had correspondence with her, her letters were always well-written, to the point, and articulate. Molly Foster wasn’t the sort to mince words, let alone waste time.

In person, she was even more charming, even as he wanted to rip her throat out with his teeth. He wondered if he’d taste Will’s kisses on her skin as he did it.

“I wonder at him ending your relationship once again,” Hannibal said, studying her. “I’d rather thought the two of you were getting along nicely.”

“He’s a commitment-phobe, Hannibal,” Molly said, flipping her hair over one shoulder. “If I get too close, he backs away. When you crowd Will Graham, he shuts down. You have to make him come to you.”

“He shuts down?”

“It’s a defense mechanism that I’ve noticed. He’ll share some things, but you can’t pry. I think he’s afraid to commit because he honestly believes that he’s on borrowed time.”

“Borrowed time,” Hannibal murmured, and he licked his lips. “Is he drinking again?”

“Definitely.”

“What was the catalyst?”

“I’ll need to figure that out,” she admitted. “It was bad enough he spent the weekend puking everything up before going right back out again. I went back to the apartment to make sure he was alright on Friday night, and whatever set him off, it was…bad. It’s a bad bender.”

“Bad,” Hannibal repeated, and he tasted the scent of her perfume and her unease. A disquieted smell that muddled the air, turned it fetid and foul. “You wouldn’t give me this detail if it was not important.”

“You’d wondered before if he still thought of you. You asked if he ever mentioned you.”

Hannibal felt a thrum of interest at her tone, and he leaned in. “Naturally.”

“I put him to bed when he got most of it up, and I told him that he was being reckless with his life, constantly doing this. One of these days, he wasn’t going to have someone nearby to help him in his drunken stupors. No one deserved to have to bury his body.”

“The guilt of implying people need him alive rather than dead because of the extra work it’d be,” Hannibal agreed.

Molly licked her lips, pressed them together tight. The color fled them, left the edges pale and wrinkled with the effort. “He laughed then, and he said, ‘Don’t worry, Molly…I’m already dead.’”

“I’m already dead,” Hannibal murmured. His skin, thin and stretched over his bones, felt too tight, and the breath left him.

Molly nodded, shifted in her seat. “He looked…unwell. Like he wasn’t there. When I asked what he meant by that, he’d already passed out. I wondered if he was thinking of you.”

“I’m already dead,” Hannibal repeated, and the words rang, resonated deep within him as the doors of his mind palace fell away, left him with the memory of Will Graham staring at him in the courtroom, pulse fluttering in his neck, too fast for comfort. They’d only exchanged words once in the courtroom, in the midst of witnesses and forensics and verdicts. Hannibal could imagine Will’s pulse, heavy and full of life, thudding so hard he could feel it against his teeth as he smiled, stared into the eyes of the only person in this world that could move him and somehow not be moved in turn.

“I’ll give him his space because he was convinced that I deserve better than him, but I’m genuinely concerned, Hannibal. I don’t know if it’s a simple depressive episode, or if there’s more to it than that, but he’s not well.”

“Molly, have you forgotten the date?” Hannibal asked lightly.

“No?” Her brow wrinkled in confusion.

“It’s a commonplace date, all things considered, but for him it holds a special place. It’s the anniversary of his father’s death.”

“…I see.” Realization made the wrinkles of worry smooth away, falling to a twist of pity and remorse. She’d have done more if she knew that, tried harder to break through walls that he lifted between himself and the world.

That was why, ultimately, she was no good for him, though. Hannibal was. Hannibal knew Will Graham better than Will Graham knew Will Graham. While she stepped away when he built his walls, Hannibal knew the cracks in the foundation to help Will lower them instead. She was a proxy, a stand-in until he could break past the walls that contained him. She would have to do, for the moment.

“He held his father in his arms as he died from cancer,” Hannibal explained lightly. Kindly. “In his death, he took some aspect of his son with him.”

“I’m already dead,” Molly repeated with better understanding. She nodded. “Thank you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal dipped his head in acceptance, a small, thin smile about his lips.

He thought about it, though, for long after. Long after she’d left, her perfume light enough to tease but not stifle, long enough for him to be deposited back to his cell where the corner light flickered pathetically, long enough that Multiple Miggs had already masturbated and fallen asleep in a corner, and long enough that the lights in the hall had been turned off, Hannibal thought of those words, of a desolate and broken Will Graham saying them as he curled around a trash can desperately.

I’m already dead.

He thought of Will Graham walking by him in order to take a seat behind the partitions, having done his part in giving his testimony. Hannibal’s memory gave him every detail, from the sweat dotting his temples to the twitches of his fingers at the probing attention. Will never enjoyed close attention, let alone from so many at once. He could smell his sweat, a horrid combination with the cologne he’d worn throughout the entire trial. He could still smell it, something putrid that tickled his nose and tightened his throat. It reeked like something with a ship on the bottle. Cheap, encased in plastic, and set in the back of a medicine cabinet for far too long.

I’m already dead.

His eyes had said that, as he looked at Hannibal, truly, honestly looked at him. As much as Hannibal could see every detail of his starched shirt, his new slacks, and his scuffed shoes, Will Graham saw Hannibal, too. Will saw him, saw the hunger in his eyes, saw the calm, detached manner in which he sat. He’d swallowed so hard his adam’s apple bobbed painfully along his five o’clock shadow, and he ducked his head. In speaking against Hannibal, he knew that he was dead.

“On borrowed time, Will?” Hannibal had asked kindly.

“I advise you not to speak,” the DA urged.

Will looked away from him, and he pushed the partition open, fingers stuttering across the solid, wooden frame before they gripped firmly. Resolutely.

“Oh, yes,” he said absently, like remembering something last minute at the grocery store that he needed to buy. “In reality…I’m already dead,” he added, and he took his seat behind the prosecutor’s bench, utterly and impossibly alone save for the beating of his frantic heart.

Will woke with two blue eyes on day seven.

He marked them triumphantly, a small, savage smile at his mouth at the sight. Even when Matthew Brown unlocked the door and stood poised in it, a slight curl to his lip that had no real purpose other than to look intimidating, it didn’t quite reach Will the way it was likely intended. He wondered if Matthew had spoken to Hannibal Lecter yet of Will’s early morning ‘walk’.

In the kitchen, a plate was made ready for him, pancakes with peach slices and a glaze. Bacon sat on a separate plate next to it, as well as what looked like fresh orange juice.

“Dining alone?” he asked Matthew.

“Everyone is busy at the moment,” Matthew explained. “Although Dr. Lecter wanted to ensure that you had a proper meal.”

“That’s…considerate of him.”

Will ate everything except for the bacon.

He then wandered the house, time an odd sort of thing that didn’t quite sit right. He passed a grandfather clock in the foyer, marked the passage of the secondhand and felt distinctly separate from it. Time may have moved, but he didn’t.

Truth be told, he hadn’t really left the space that he’d stood in while Nate bled to death.

The sole comfort, as small as it may be, was that he could reasonably assume that Nate had deserved it. If he’d tangled with the FBI, he deserved what happened to him. If he was anything like Francis Dolarhyde, he most certainly, unequivocally deserved what happened to him.

That didn’t clean the blood off of his hands, though. It didn’t stop him from dwelling on other nasty, ugly things that liked to crawl deep into his ear to rot.

He paused in the doorway of a parlor at the sound of voices and stared into a room full of people. Followers. Cultists. The word sounded funny in his head, grave depictions of men in robes with curved knives. Usually there was a virgin running around in the trope, and they were generally the captive –captive he may be, but virgin he wasn’t.

These people, for all their odd stares and touching, appeared relatively normal. No robes. No curved knives. If anything, it looked like a book club was meeting, one person standing and gesturing aimlessly while others nodded along, hands grasping at leather bound works.

“You know it,” the speaker said, smiling. “You know it as you live and breathe, as you sit here and look at me; death is just another part of the journey. All of you that have taken a life –those that have felt changed, moved –you know the reality of what we do. What we’ve done.”

Heads nodded, bobbed along. Far too many heads nodded. Far too many killers.

“We know how life is nothing more than light and sound and sensations. Their loss fueling our radiance, our growth and beauty as we become more than what we are in those moments.”

“In those final seconds…I’ve always felt a little bit like god,” someone chimed in, and the main speaker laughed.

“Yes, yes! We are made powerful through them. They give us a precious gift, that they first were seen, and in being seen, Became.”

A squeaky floorboard betrayed him, interrupting the discussion. Heads turned back to survey him, and Will froze next to the entryway, swallowing heavily when multiple eyes rested upon him. He was pinned by their scrutiny, more so when they recognized him than anything else. Expressions of confusion and annoyance gave way to utmost delight.

“Mr. Graham,” the speaker said, pleased. “Please, come in.”

“…I don’t…” want to, he finished silently. He licked his lips, tried again. “…want to interrupt you. Please continue.”

“No, no,” the man urged, and he made his way through the onlookers in order to coax him further into the room. More from a desire not to be touched than anything else, Will reluctantly followed. “With your education, your knowledge…please, share your insights.”

He reached the front of the room and turned, balking under the stare of shining, fervent eyes. Too many stares, like a toy shop with the marble-eyed dolls placed right at the entrance.

“…Uhm…” he swung his arms by his sides, shifted his weight. At least fifteen people sat and stared with naked hope –that was probably the most frightening thing about it, in truth. They were waiting for him to say something. To be something. “…You’d…said that people are nothing more than light and sound.”

“Yes,” the speaker agreed.

“Quick noises, first started and ended because you decided that it should.”

“In those brief moments where we can see their life and death, coinciding in that final moment of something beautiful,” he added with a smile. “Is that not lovely, Mr. Graham?”

“…No.”

He wasn’t surprised at the shock that rippled through the water, soft breaths and even softer murmurs.

“I beg your pardon?” the man asked.

“It’s the ugliest thing in the world,” Will added, glancing to him. “You make it very poetic and artistic because that somehow softens its reality, but killing is…disgusting. That moment where life and death coincides is a revolting and intimate thing to witness.”

“You…you saved Agent Crawford. Surely you saw that moment then?” a woman asked, raising her hand. It was a half-raise, the sort made when they’re not quite sure if they even want to speak. Emboldened by their confusion, Will snorted.

“I did.”

“Did it not invigorate you?”

“No.” He sighed, rubbed his mouth to remove a barely formed curse from his lips. “He said…light and sound, sensations fueling your radiance. What a load of shit.”

“Excuse me?” The speaker’s cheeks darkened.

“Tell me… everyone, be honest, raise your hand if you’ve actually murdered someone,” Will said, ignoring him. “Don’t…don’t lie.”

He was just barely mollified when only three people raised their hands in the room. Just three out of fifteen or so. Not bad, all things considered. Still pretty bad, though.

“Depending on how you did it, surely you realize it’s not all poetry and aesthetics, right?” At their stupefied expressions, he sighed. “It’s…heavy. Dirty. Messy. Slack mouths, a person at their most vulnerable, and you made them vulnerable. You made them that way.” He scoffed, glancing to the speaker again. “Air and light and sound…yeah, it’s not…like that. It’s more…a breath you cut short. Wasted. That’s what death is when you choose to administer it the way he’s preaching. It’s a waste.”

“Dr. Graham, I don’t think-”

“No, you wanted to know, didn’t you?” he asked. “You wanted my insight, and there it is. Your leader took Jack Crawford’s life in his hands, and he tried to waste it. He lived, though, and that’s life and death. You either live or you die, and no one here has the authority to decide who gets to live and who dies. None of us have that authority.”

The room sat in silence, disquieted by his admission, somehow still keen on his words. Their quiet emboldened him, made him feel just strong enough to drive the point home.

“Your friend just died,” he said, looking over all of them. As many mismatched eyes as matching eyes. “Nate? I held him up as he died. There was no poetry in that. Shot from a shotgun shell fell out of his stomach when we were lowering him onto the medic table. It was dirty.”

“He had a soulmate,” one of them protested. “You can’t just…refer to him…like that.”

“He had a soulmate,” Will sneered. “I guess that’s a huge focus for you people, right? Because of your leader?”

“Dr. Lecter has a half-connection to you,” one of them agreed.

“He will bridge the gap so that you can connect back,” another chimed in.

Will’s lip curled, and his gaze looked over the crowd, surprised to see Hannibal watching him just at the doorway to the room. “…What a load of shit,” he murmured.

“You’re a soulmate psychiatrist. Do you truly find no value in their existence?” the speaker asked.

Will stared directly into Hannibal’s eyes as he replied, “I think that I’d rather end my own light and sound and color than deal with the overwhelming disappointment of a soulmate.”

After a pained, taut silence, Hannibal smiled.

“Dr. Lecter said that you understood us,” the speaker stated, appalled.

“I don’t.”

“But he will,” Lecter interjected, still smiling. “That…is simply something we’ll have to show him. How our lights and sounds and colors can blend to something truly beautiful.”

Will didn’t wait to be beckoned. He waded through the onlookers and made his way to the exit, ignoring the sensation of what it must feel like to have someone walk over your grave.

Hannibal followed him out.

His office was the same as before, apart from a small tray of lunch foods set out for them. Will picked at a sandwich, his back to Lecter. It must have been lunch time.

“Did you enjoy riling them up?” Lecter wondered. Thankfully, he didn’t sound angry at the idea of it; merely curious.

“…They love the idea of what you do. In application, they’d find it messy.” He thought of how the blood felt, drying within the cracks of his skin. “Sticky,” he added.

“Most of them, yes,” Lecter agreed. His voice came closer, crawled along Will’s shoulder as he paused just behind him. “A lot of the people that came to me are, in truth, nothing more than lonely hearts; those left in the wake of despair or delusions, seeking comfort and stability. Quiet places like this are a haven for them.”

“They were easily manipulated.”

“Easily convinced that this is a safe place for them,” he corrected. His arm snaked around Will to grab the other plate where a sandwich waited. “It’s not so nefarious as you make it sound.”

A weird sound gurgled in Will’s throat, a mix between a laugh and a sob. When Hannibal withdrew from him, Will made his way to one of the chairs near the fireplace and sunk into it. He considered the meat on the sandwich, thin slices of white with Cajun seasoning.

“It’s chicken from a specialty deli,” Lecter said, sitting down in the chair across from him. He watched Will with an inscrutable expression, his plate perched precariously on his knee.

“You must hate that I’m making you take lunch here rather than set up at a table with twelve courses,” Will said, inspecting the meat with extreme prejudice. It looked like chicken.

“I can be flexible,” Hannibal assured him.

Hannibal could be flexible. The meat tasted like chicken when he took a bite. Human meat hadn’t tasted like chicken when he’d first had the horrific experience of dining upon it, and he took that as a sign that this came from a deli rather than someone’s ribcage.

It still made him uncomfortable, though. If he managed to live through this, Will would probably consider some form of vegetarianism. Maybe fish. Maybe not.

“Nate didn’t survive,” Hannibal said as Will took small, suspicious bites of his sandwich.

“I know.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“I’m more than happy to discuss it. I know that death is…a delicate topic for you.”

He took a larger bite of the sandwich, far hungrier than he wanted to admit. He’d forgotten to eat the day before. “…I didn’t know him,” he said, swallowing it down. “And what I do know of him corresponds to this house and everyone in it. He didn’t exactly have a glowing reference for me.”

“You still held him in some of his final moments.”

“…I did,” Will agreed. Reluctantly.

“Did it remind you of Agent Crawford?”

“I walked into your office for therapy and found an FBI agent bleeding out on the floor, Dr. Lecter,” Will said, fingers digging into the soft bread. He wasn’t sure how many times he’d have to say it, but saying it made it real, resurfacing from the deep dark waters of his mind where he sent sordid thoughts to drown. “He was investigating you for the murders of several people, and you stabbed him. I find no correlation between him, a servant of the law, and the guy that stumbled out of a car from a wound that was likely given to him by a servant of the law.”

“For hours after, though, you stared at your hands, clean but somehow still stained, and made the associations against your will,” Lecter replied calmly.

Will jerked back, stung.

“You’re wrong,” he managed.

“You can pretend all you like that I don’t know you, Will Graham, but I do. For two years you came to me and opened your mind, laying out each piece so that I could examine it, to better understand it. You asked me to build you walls because you didn’t know how to, and you asked me what it was like to be able to compartmentalize your feelings and associations the way that others could. The way that I could. You wanted to know what it was like to be ‘normal.’”

“I shouldn’t have asked you,” Will ground out savagely. “Seeing as how you’re not normal in the least.”

“No, but for once in your life, someone understood. You claim that you don’t make the associations between Nate and Agent Crawford, but it is a lie, and a poor one at that. You stared down at the blood on your hands, and you wondered if you’d always feel that pull, that drive that whispers that maybe one day you will be the one to cause such violence. You wonder when the blood will flow because you willed it, rather than you having to catch it in the aftermath. Then, a quiet part of you said, ‘this is somehow your fault, anyway. If you hadn’t caused a half-connection to Dr. Lecter, none of this would have happened.’”

Lecter had a way of speaking that was almost drug-inducing. His tone, the rhythm and melody of it, had a lulling effect, and Will found himself setting the sandwich down as he stared, enraptured. He swallowed a lump of barely chewed food down his throat, and he coughed.

“…Let’s…say that you’re right,” he said slowly.

“Alright,” Dr. Lecter replied with an encouraging nod.

“It doesn’t matter. Even if I…feel the same, think of them as the same, see myself in their weakest moments, their…balancing act, it doesn’t matter. Even if I can see myself as the one to pull the trigger, the one to take a knife to skin, that’s not reality.”

“In the nightmares you dream while awake, though, it is your reality. That is why you fight it so much. That is why you, for all of your degrees and education and capabilities, are a person that is driven purely by fear.”

“Fear.”

“When you’re afraid, you’re rude,” he explained lightly. “Most others entertain a fight or flight response in aggressive situations, but due to your fear of losing yourself within the minds of the people around you, there is an almost constant companion at your side named fear. That is what motivates you, what creates your reactions.”

“His name was Winston, actually, and your thug left him behind,” Will retorted. “Kind of relieved, seeing as I was brought here instead of a safe house.”

“I did maintain that animal therapy was an excellent idea,” Lecter replied. “I’m glad you took my advice.”

Will busied himself with his sandwich, picking over the pieces of it that he didn’t want. The pickles he set to the side, along with the spinach leaves and tomato. He stared at the dressing that’d been drizzled over the meat, and as it oozed over the sides of the bread, he imagined the bloodstains on his shirt from Nate. From Jack.

“His death was inevitable,” he said after a long, stunted silence. “I could see it, even as I couldn’t fix it.”

“It reminded you more of your father, then,” Lecter observed. “Helpless as you were.”

“The medicine made him vomit,” he murmured to the sandwich. “And I caught it in my hands. Called the hospital, but he was already gone. I called anyway, just in case.”

“You helped Nate to our small infirmary, just in case.”

“I didn’t hear screaming,” he said, glancing up. Lecter’s sandwich sat forgotten on the end table near his chair, focused as he was in watching Will decimate his own meal with plucking, nervous fingers. “His soulmate wasn’t here.”

“Alyss has unfortunately been detained by the illustrious FBI,” Lecter informed him. “Therefore the pleasure of her grief was given to Jack Crawford, not us.”

Will knew he should feel some sort of glee in that, Jack managing to get his hands on one of them. He thought of the pain, though, and how horrifying it’d be to hear the screams of someone that thought they were dying. The severance. The shock. He wondered if she’d torn at her own skin to try to pry the hurt out.

“His wife has cancer,” Will said, then instantly regretted it.

“Then Agent Crawford likely witnessed Alyss’ pain and knew that one day he’d share it, should Mrs. Crawford not survive.”

“…Yeah.” He took another bite of food to have something better to do with his mouth than talk.

“Your welcome here was sporadic, I know,” Lecter said as Will tried to focus on his food. “You haven’t properly met these people as a whole entity. They’re all really quite kind.”

“Yeah, well, the first time I met them, they all started grabbing at me and Agent Dolarhyde had to get them to stop touching me,” Will said around a mouthful of food. “Second time, they were in a book club meeting talking about lights and colors and sounds. I’m not exactly impressed.”

“’Slack mouths, a person at their most vulnerable, and you made them vulnerable. You made them that way. Air and light and sound…it’s not like that. It’s more a breath you cut short. Wasted. That’s what death is when you choose to administer it the way he’s preaching. It’s a waste,’” Lecter quoted quietly. “That is what you told them.”

“It’s true,” Will said curtly.

“I find it poetic, in its own way. You chastised him for speaking of death beautifully, but you did the same in your own rendition of loss and life.”

“There’s nothing poetic about deciding that you get to be god,” Will snapped.

“It reveals far more about you than you realize, though, Will,” Lecter replied. He stood and walked over to the small lunch tray, picking up a wine glass and taking a sip. “How would you administer death? Would you be wasteful with your choices, or would your choice in who lives or dies carry far more weight because you’d take the time in choosing?”

“I don’t take on that responsibility. I’m not god; I’m a human being.”

“You’ve thought about it, though,” Lecter chastised lightly. He sauntered over to Will, staring at him as he set his glass on the mantle. “Your adamant and passionate response tells me you’ve dwelled on the thoughts before, enough to make you defensive of them. Enough that once again it is your fear speaking for you.”

Will had no answer to that. He wasn’t quite sure he could make the lie sound convincing if he did.

“How would you choose?” Lecter inquired when Will didn’t –couldn’t –speak. “How would you choose who to kill, if you could do so without repercussion?”

Will mulled the question over, even as he finished the sandwich, even as he was relieved of his plate. Even as Lecter coaxed him to his feet so that he could stare into his eyes, mismatched and ugly and clever, Will thought on the question, dangerous as it was.

Enticing as it was.

“I’d probably start with you,” he said, staring into Lecter’s appalling gaze. “If I was to kill anyone, I’d probably start with you.”

A lovely thanks to my patrons: Sylarana, Frosty Lee, Emily Elm, Heather Feather, Matilda, Starlit-Catastrophe, Duhaunt6, and Superlurk!

#LiaS scribbles #hannibal fanfic #soulmate au #hannibal soulmate au #Where the Wicked Walk #hannigram #slowburn hannigram #the following au #someone help will graham

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elfnerdherder · 8 years ago

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Where the Wicked Walk: Ch.5

You can read Chapter 5 on Ao3 Here

Check out my Patreon Here for early chapter releases, insight to the characters, chances to vote~ on certain outcomes, and more! :)

Chapter 5: The Black Cat

Will Graham was allowed outside in the early morning.

He’d grabbed a change of clothes from his pack, having ignored the now obvious hints that the other clothes within the room had been provided for him. He stood out in the fog, and he inhaled the humid air, cool only because of the early morning. It was going to be a warm day, much like it often was in a place like that.

Will may have had a bag put over his head, but he could recognize the good old, country south when he saw it.

The trees were hardwoods beyond the lush, well-maintained yard: maples, oaks, river birches, hickory, and beeches. The dense thickness of them was apparent even from where he stood, off to the west side of the house, standing among the dew and the grass. He wasn’t allowed to walk in the forest, Francis said, but he could walk around the yard. A kind sort of exercise, all things considered.

There was a pond in the back that he stood beside for a long time, staring down in it. It was a large pond, devoid of too much algae and grime. It was difficult for him to wrap his mind around the idea that Lecter hadn’t paid anyone to put so much effort into the space around them. It was difficult because of the implications, because of the idea that adoration for him was so utterly strong that they’d break their backs to give him a lovely mansion of sorts to lounge about in as he attempted to force his old patient’s eyes to change color.

Thankfully, they hadn’t changed color. He woke with two very, very blue eyes.

“Judging by the interstate we were on last before Molly had a bag put over my head, I’d say we were in Georgia,” Will said casually, glancing back to Francis. Francis stood a respectable distance, standing at a stiff ‘parade march’.

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Francis said.

“You don’t have to,” Will assured him. “It’s not quite wet enough for Florida, and we drove farther than South Carolina. I’m guessing Georgia.”

Francis said nothing to that, a stoic expression on a carefully constructed face of calm.

“Marine Corps?” Will guessed, studying his stance. “Yeah…Marine Corps. My dad was in the marines, long before I was born. When he thought he was stuck waiting for something a long time, he’d stand like that, too.”

“Mr. Graham-”

“Did Dr. Lecter tell you to call me that, or have you decided that’s just how you’ll speak to me?” Will asked. “Because if he told you to call me Mr. Graham, that’s a load of horse shit.”

“I respect your position in this house,” Dolarhyde said, and he stumbled over his ‘S’ once more. It made his shoulders tense, and he ducked his head. “Please…just enjoy your walk.”

Will sighed, tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, and enjoyed his walk.

It wasn’t right for him to needle at Dolarhyde, but he’d woken with an honest anger, now that the shock was abating. Dr. Lecter was going to try and induce a full connection because he couldn’t handle the idea of his psyche reaching for something that didn’t reach back? He was going to try and force Will to connect to him so that he could justify something in this world changing him the way he oftentimes changed other people?

God, if he were a saner person, the thought alone would have crippled him.

He wasn’t a saner person, though. That’s why Hannibal Lecter honestly thought that he could change him.

“Will?”

Will glanced to the side as he meandered along a gravel path. Beverly stood closeby, her steps silent in the grass.

“Go away, Beverly,” he said pleasantly.

“I just want to talk.”

“Do you honestly think that you can salvage this mess out of the maw of madness?” he wondered. He realized instantly that he’d picked up on Lecter’s tone and words, and he gritted his teeth. He hated when he did that. “Better put, why do you think that I want to talk to you?”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“I don’t,” he agreed, and he kept walking. “And I honestly don’t want to.”

“If you’d just listen-”

“You know, I’m getting that a lot from you people. If you’d just listen, if you’d just trust me, if you’d just get in the fucking car, if you’d just look into my eyes…everyone here, despite claiming to care about my well being, seems royally hellbent on giving me a laundry list of to-do’s, even as you all say, ‘if you’d just.” He paused to savor the sound of his voice coming out dry, sardonic, and perfectly in control. “I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised at your lying, though.”

“Look, Will, we’re friends, and I honestly care about you,” Beverly replied.

Will barked out a harsh laugh, hands curling into fists in his pockets. “No, we’re…we’re not friends. The, uhm, the light of friendship wouldn’t reach us, Beverly, not for a thousand years. Not after this.”

“Will-”

“You pretended to give a shit about me! For the better part of four years, you slowly gained my trust, got to know me, became the person you thought would appeal to me so that you could sidle in close and spy on me for Dr. Hannibal Lecter.” When his voice grew, he paused to take a deep, slow inhale. “What…could possibly make you think that now that I’m well aware of just the kind of person you are, I would ever want to consider you a friend, let alone think fondly of you?”

“I do care about you, Will!” she snapped. “That is real! That is honest!”

“Whatever shred of real honesty you claimed to have shriveled up and died the moment you watched Molly point a gun at me and did nothing,” Will replied.

That made her hesitate. An odd shadow passed over her face, and if Will had been closer, he could have seen the emotion shifting in the corners of her eyes, bleak somehow as her lips twisted down.

The moment passed, and the expression was gone.

“Dr. Lecter…is a good person,” she said after a long, pained silence. “He sees things that no one else does. He views the world in an entirely different light, like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because he views human beings as animals,” said Will dryly. “Beverly…you may think this is somehow right or somehow…justifiably good, but you are putting your faith and trust in the hands of a very bad man.”

“You simply need to see him from a different perspective,” Beverly replied easily.

“Under his orders, I was kidnapped. Under his orders, Francis Dolarhyde murdered at least five FBI agents, and four others aided in the escape of a criminal, not before murdering at least two innocent people at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. That was after another person under his command walked into a police station and murdered a police officer. Can you say that it’s worth it? What you’re giving up for someone like that?”

“…I don’t know that yet,” she said honestly, “but I’m willing to find out.”

“You know that sooner or later you’re going to have to pay the piper, don’t you? Are you going to be willing to pay that price?”

Beverly held his intense, probing stare, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.

“I guess we’ll see,” she said, and she raked fingers through her hair before adjusting her stance.

“I guess we’ll see,” Will agreed.

“Mr. Graham, it’s time for breakfast,” Francis Dolarhyde said from behind them. Will turned to him, no longer standing at parade rest, then looked back to Beverly, brows raised.

“We have a specific breakfast time,” he said informatively.

The three of them ventured across the lawn back to the house, their passage marked by the dark shapes of their feet cutting through the dew.

“Dr. Lecter said that you’ve likely puked up anything of substance last night,” Beverly said when they reached the door. “You didn’t consume anything with protein, so he requested a remedy for that.”

Will didn’t want to admit that she was right –alone in his room, thoughts gave way to a discontented nausea that brought everything up, the wine burning in his throat hours after.

“…I wasn’t sure quite how the meat was sourced,” he said after a beat, darkly.

“We’re not all cannibals,” Beverly retorted.

“You just blindly follow one, I know.”

She looked like she had a quick rebuttal for that, but when they walked down the hall towards the dining room he’d just visited the night before, she let the matter drop. Which was just as well; at the swell of voices carrying down the hall, Will’s muscles tensed, and the ease in which he condemned Beverly was gone, replaced instead with the sensation of hands reaching out, grasping for him. He was painfully, completely aware of Francis following behind him, just a step-and-a-half away, and he wondered if he’d be so quick to keep them off of him, should they try to touch him again.

The curtains had been opened in the dining room, bathing the rich mahogany walls with natural light. The flowers from before remained, although they’d been moved to a small table against a wall off to the side. That gave room for the twenty or so people that crowded along the chairs, eagerly discussing the morning events, punctuated with yawns, sniffles, and the sort of dry cough one can only give when they’ve just woken up.

As Will walked in, such chatter stumbled to a stop. Will was painfully aware of far too many eyes on him, their mouths in various shapes of surprise or intrigue, mouths half-full of what looked to be semi-chewed eggs and sausage.

“Come on,” Beverly coaxed, and she blessedly led him through a door to the side that opened up to the kitchen and away from so many prying eyes.

“Good morning,” Lecter greeted from an island counter. Standing poised beside him, Molly sipped a cup of coffee and observed him over the rim of it.

“…Good morning,” he managed after a beat. When Molly met his gaze, his lip curled, and he had to look away before something nasty fell out of his mouth.

“I’ve made omelets. It’s been some time, but I do believe I remembered the recipe after all these years,” he said. Molly and Beverly laughed appreciatively, and Will managed a grimace.

An uncomfortable pause followed, one bred from the memory of what a butter knife felt like pressed to his pulse just the night before. Being blatantly rude to Beverly was one thing, but when he’d exhibited too much emotion in front of Lecter, things hadn’t gone so well.

“Thank you,” he said, much too late for it to be considered polite, much less in conjunction with what Dr. Lecter had first said.

Thankfully, Lecter didn’t seem to mind. He set a plate down to the side of the island where stools had been pulled out, and Will sat down, accepting a fork with a dip of his head.

“The tomatoes are coming in only a little late in the season, but they taste wonderful,” he assured Will. “Ladies, if you’ll give Will the privacy of eating in here, there should be more than enough room at the table.”

Molly and Beverly left, although the look Beverly shot him as he began picking bits of sausage out of the omelet clearly said behave.

“It’s a protein-packed meal in order to replenish anything you lost within the last few days,” Hannibal said conversationally, washing his hands at the sink. As he dried his hands, Francis set a plate in front of the stool beside Will, adjusting the fork just-so. Will wondered if Lecter had ever had the chance to stab someone with a fork before.

Maybe that’d be the weapon of the day, if he didn’t keep careful control of his mouth.

Dr. Lecter hung his apron up on a hook by the pantry, and he sat down on the stool beside Will, his back straight and his presence far closer than Will would have liked. Beside his own hunched, curved posture, Lecter’s was impeccable and professional.

“The spinach is to replenish electrolytes,” he said, motioning to Will’s plate.

“I don’t even have the ability to puke in private,” Will muttered, savagely setting another bit of sausage to the side. He stopped, turning the fork around in his hand. “…Thank you for breakfast,” he added hastily.

“It was an educated guess that I made based off of what I know of your personality, actually,” Lecter said. “No doubt if you did manage to sleep, the images of fallen agents whose faces you’ll now forever remember haunted you at your most vulnerable.”

He was right about both of those things, although Will didn’t want to admit that. He picked another piece of sausage out of the omelet and set it to the side by the steadily growing pile. He tried very hard to pretend that he didn’t notice Hannibal watching his every move, taking notes. Before, when he’d been nothing more than his therapist, Will had always felt under a microscope, each inch of his person noticed and noted. While at the time it had been unsettling but ultimately helpful since he was trying to get better, now it was a grating sensation, the notion that each move he made gave away some sort of aspect to his character that he didn’t want to share.

“Do you suppose that I am feeding you something other than pork?” Lecter wondered after Will dug out a particularly large chunk of meat.

Will gripped the fork tightly and focused on the task at hand. “After the first year of therapy with you, Dr. Lecter, you wished to congratulate me on my progress by inviting me to dinner,” he said, staring at his food. “You told me that you’d made rabbit with braised potatoes and fresh herbs, and I ate everything on the plate that night. It was probably the best food I’d ever had.”

He spared Hannibal a glance as he unearthed another piece of sausage. “About two years later,” he continued savagely, “during one of your court cases, the prosecuting attorney listed dates in which the Chesapeake Ripper had murdered his victims. One of the victims you’d killed, Marissa Schurr, had died just one day before that dinner. She was missing several vital organs, as well as the meat just along her spine.”

“You believe that I fed you Marissa Schurr.”

“No, I know you fed me Marissa Schurr. When Agent Crawford was secretly investigating you, you invited him to your home and fed him Nicholas Boyle, brother to Cassie Boyle.”

“He vomited the dinner and ran tests on the meat,” Hannibal said dismally. “An ingenious plan, all things considered.”

“Yeah, so I’m not entirely convinced that it’s not your plan to do the same now. Half of your amusement, I think, was keeping us ignorant of your general machinations.”

“How is Agent Crawford?” he asked.

“You saw him less than a day before your escape. How was he then?” With all of the sausage successfully removed from the eggs, Will allowed himself to eat, chewing over the cooked spinach with a curl to his lip. He hated spinach.

“I asked if he ever woke with stomach pains. He informed me that the only pain he suffered was the fact that I was still alive.” He didn’t sound upset by the statement. Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw his lip twist into a small, delighted smile. “I’m sure he is enduring stomach pains now.”

Will had nothing to say to that. Instead, he focused on his meal, and Lecter followed suit, the sounds of forks clacking against china the only noise in the otherwise silent kitchen.

After breakfast, he was led back through the dining room where the numbers had dwindled down to about ten, Hannibal walking just ahead of him. Will didn’t so much as watch him as he watched the others in the room, noting the way adoration and –horrifically enough –hope lit up their eyes, mouths curling into soft, pleased smiles. He’d seen similar expression on the faces of those in churches, eyes turned towards statues of Gods and saints. Hope. Blind faith.

“Who are all of these people?” he asked Dr. Lecter as they walked down the hall.

“Attempting to glean information, Will?” Hannibal wondered.

“…Trying to understand what I’m seeing.” Among other things. He hadn’t seen a single cellular device or telephone yet, but he reasoned that he hadn’t seen all of the rooms just yet. Once he could locate a phone, he could find a way to get ahold of Jack.

“These are dear friends that have come together to help me in my time of need.” He didn’t sound the way one sounded when referring to a dear friend; if anything, there was a distinct turn of his mouth as he spoke, and Will wondered what sort of person suit he’d put on to convince them that he was their savior. He thought of the hands touching him before and cringed.

“Are they all…?” His voice trailed off.

“Killers?”

“Yes.”

“Some.” A young woman walked by them and stopped just long enough to bob her head respectfully. “Some are disparate youths seeking shelter from a society that has rejected them. Others simply found a place where they can be accepted, regardless of their differences.”

“So you’ve made a summer getaway camp for psychopaths,” Will said, though he immediately chastised himself. He couldn’t call it ‘surviving’ if he kept running his mouth and made Hannibal angry enough to make him dinner.

Rather than chastise him, Lecter surprised Will when he instead laughed, pausing in the main hall to really, truly look at Will, as though he were seeing him for the first time.

Will tried very, very hard to not look at his mismatched eyes.

“I have missed our conversations,” he said fondly.

That time, Will was smart enough not to say anything in return.

Jack sat across from a pretty, young woman with mismatched eyes and wondered where all her love had gone. If blood hadn’t stained the front of her shirt in a sloppy, haphazard manner, her appearance would have suggested a trip to a mall, not an attempted murder. She was dressed to blend with a ponytail tucked into a baseball cap, a white t-shirt, and medium wash denim pants. Jack wasn’t the sort of person have a damn clue about differences between medium wash from a light wash, but Zeller had noticed right away. This was a woman meant to blend into a crowd.

Thankfully, even while being stabbed, Bowman was quick on the uptake.

“We ran your prints, and they don’t match your identification, ‘Alyss Conners’,” Jack said at last. He’d let the silence sit suspended around them for quite some time, simmering in an underlying rage that was contained with only the slightest control. She hadn’t seemed to mind it, in truth; one brown eye and one hazel eye blinked at him lazily, casually. Her thin lips parted, and she let out a soft huff of breath.

“That’s odd,” she said. She had a distinctly high-pitched tone, the sort of voice that would normally get her whatever she liked.

“They did match the prints found at the scene of a crime in Kansas City from nine years ago, though,” he continued like she hadn’t spoken. “Suspect Kelly Brown, wanted in conjunction with the murder of four family members: Jason, Steven, Linda, and Bryce Brown.”

“My name is Alyss, not Kelly.”

“We know you’re working for Lecter. We’ve been pulling visitor records, and you’d started going to see Hannibal for at least 3 years under various misnomers. Thankfully, face recognition was able to pull you up and save us time.”

“I’m currently unemployed, actually,” she informed him lightly. “I hope to fix that, though. I want to work with soulmate counseling.”

Graham was attempting to finish his residency with soulmate grief counseling. Jack leaned in at that small jab, his mouth rippling with a silent snarl.

“Where’s Will Graham?”

“It must hurt to see your fellow agent die, Agent Crawford,” she commented. “In a TattleCrime news article, Freddie Lounds once said that you ‘walked with death’. Everywhere you go, death follows. How does that feel?”

“Agent Bowman isn’t dead, Kelly,” Jack replied with a gritty smile.

That took her aback. Her expression of sweet calm faltered, a twinge of panic lurking around her eyes before she struggled to compose herself, teeth bared.

“You’re lying,” she decided.

“He’s in surgery right now, but things are looking good. Whatever mission Lecter gave you, you failed.” He relished in her unease at his completely serious tone, a spasm near her mouth. It was a balm against the burn of her words. “You were supposed to kill Agent Lloyd Bowman and get away, right? A shadow of death that could strike wherever. Except you failed on both counts, Kelly.”

“You won’t find Dr. Lecter,” she hissed, and she bared her teeth. Her canines were sharper than normal, peeking out over lips the color of pink rose petals. “I may have failed him, but you won’t find him. You who walks with death and brings it in your wake, you will only hurt those around you in your quest to save Will Graham.”

“Where’s Will Graham?” Jack demanded. His tone darkened in response to hers.

“You’ll never find him,” Kelly hissed.

“Tell me, and we can maybe think of a deal, Kelly.” It was a lie, but it was a good one. Even if he took care of her attempted murder of a federal agent, she was wanted elsewhere for other murders. Things didn’t look good for Kelly Brown.

“Over my dead body,” she snarled.

“That can be arranged. The death penalty is still legal in Missouri.”

He stood up and gathered the papers into a file, heading from the room with a straight, confidant step. Just outside, Zeller straightened from his slouch, and he fell in step beside Jack as they headed down the hall.

“He’s still in surgery,” he said, and Jack grunted. Bowman was still alive, even if only just. It was good news. Good news was hard to come by whenever Lecter was in the mix.

“Also, I did checks on everyone. Molly Foster, single mother with a son by the name of Wally. Twenty-seven, widowed, but the death of her husband is from cancer, not murder. No soulmate, and no word on where her son is. Her face was pulled from the cameras at the BSHCI five different times, although she signed in to see Lecter under a different name each time.”

“I want to see where, when, and how she first came to find this guy. Do we have letters of correspondence?” Jack wondered.

“Beverly Katz, a student in the GWU graduate program for criminology. She was being scoped out by the FBI, but… this essentially ruins her application. She has a soulmate, Saul Yancy, who visited Dr. Lecter five years ago and used his real name. Beverly Katz visited Dr. Lecter only once, although she used a pseudo name.”

Jack nodded and walked into the autopsy room where Price was busy peering through a microscope. He tossed the folder down, loosened his tie, and tried to roll her words off of his back.

Everywhere you go, death follows.

“Agent Francis Dolarhyde.” At that, Zeller paused, a frown creasing the space between his brows. “We pretty much know his professional career. Before that, though, he was bounced from foster house to foster house, abandoned by his mother, cared for by his grandmother for a short while before she died, then taken in by his mother once more before he was back in the foster system until he graduated high school and joined the marines a month later.”

“How many times did he visit Dr. Lecter in his spare time?”

Zeller glanced up from his folder and frowned, uncomfortable. Jack didn’t care, though; while Dolarhyde may have been an agent, he certainly wasn’t one any longer. Jack had placed his trust in him to keep Will Graham safe, and Francis Dolarhyde had spit on it.

How does that feel?

“Quite a few times, actually, each time under a false name with a different guard working,” Zeller said reluctantly. “We’re going through as much information as we can, and Dr. Chilton is giving us his full cooperation.”

When Jack didn’t speak right away, Price lifted his head and cleared his throat.

“While he was looking at that, I looked through a few things, too,” he said. Jack turned to him expectantly. “Namely, the backpack of your Saul Yancy, soulmate to Beverly Katz. It seems that in the rush, he left a few things behind, namely a Nalgene bottle with very stale, very warm water in it.”

“Okay,” Jack said blankly.

“Well, I decided to study the diatoms in it, on a hunch,” he continued.

“You studied the diatoms on a hunch,” Zeller repeatedly bluntly.

“People have hunches,” Price replied defensively. At Jack’s aggravated sigh, he continued, “Diatoms are unique and can house specific ‘fingerprints’, so to speak, like people can. You study the diatoms, compare them to other diatoms, and you can find a general water source. Where this was water from a tap rather than bottled water…”

“We can try and hunt down just where Saul was before he made his way to Graham’s apartment,” Jack finished for him. His gut tensed, and he idly rubbed the scar. It did that often enough when he was stressed, a reminder of just how close one walked the line between life and death in situations like this. If Bowman lived, they’d have to compare scars.

“Sounds like a long shot,” Zeller murmured. Despite the misgivings in his tone, his eyes lightened perceptively.

“That’s what I thought, but I decided to give it a shot while you were doing your background sleuthing and face recognition project.” Price paused to savor the moment. “Looks like our guy Saul came from a place in Georgia before he made his way to Graham’s apartment that fateful night. Specifically either the Piedmont region, or the Upper Coastal Plain.”

“That guy really needs to drink more water,” Zeller said triumphantly.

“I’m pretty damn glad that he didn’t,” Jack replied. He felt the beginnings of excitement unfurling just under the place where Lecter gave him his crooked smile. “Get me on the phone with the Atlanta HQ,” he said, grabbing his phone. “I want my ass in the air in under an hour.”

A special thanks to my patrons, @hanfangrahamk @sylarana @matildaparacosm @starlit-catastrophe Duhaunt6 and Superlurk! Y’all are the best!

#LiaS scribbles #where the wicked walk #hannibal fic #hannibal au #hannibal soulmate au #hannigram #slowburn hannigram #i mean it it's a slowburn yall #someone help will graham #will graham x hannibal #team sassy science #minus once since she is in a cult as of right now #jack crawford #needs all the help he can get

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elfnerdherder · 8 years ago

Text

Where the Wicked Walk: Ch. 4

You can read Chapter 4 on Ao3 Here

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Chapter 4: Never Bet The Devil Your Head

“You must be hungry, Will. If you’ll follow me downstairs, I’ve had dinner prepared.”

“…Dinner,” Will repeated stupidly.

“Yes.” Hannibal gave him what seemed to be a somewhat disappointed look. “Francis informed me that you haven’t eaten today, and yesterday was spent feeding an empty stomach with alcohol.”

Francis could kindly go fuck himself, for all Will cared.

Hannibal glanced about the room as though he could see just where Will had spent the afternoon, gaze tracing along the path he’d paced. When Will didn’t reply, Hannibal walked back to the door and held it open for him gesturing towards it. Will stared at the door blankly, then looked to Lecter for confirmation.

“I wouldn’t do you the discourtesy of making you eat in your room,” he explained.

Will hesitated, torn between trying to melt himself into the walls or comply with the request for food. His stomach twisted, wrenched with hunger –he hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours, that much was true. It’d been difficult to try and even imagine stomaching something when his worst fear was that Hannibal Lecter would find some way to get him out of the clutches of the FBI.

Then that fear was realized, and he most certainly didn’t have an appetite after that.

As he inched closer to Dr. Lecter, he reasoned that he couldn’t escape on an empty stomach. He’d need to eat just enough to at least give him the energy to get away until he could do something –what exactly, though? Where were his opportunities? When would he have the chance?

Dr. Lecter held his hand out, palm up like he was trying to soothe a scared animal. When Will passed him and walked through the doorway, his hand ghosted along his back, a breath away from touching him.

He was led down the stairs, the lights brighter now that the sun had gone down. The people that’d pressed close to him earlier, hands stealing the faintest of touches from him, weren’t present. He was led to the right where the hall bisected to multiple corridors and rooms, doors closed on every side. It was one such room with double sliding doors that he was led into, a formal dining room housing a large, solid wood table decorated with vases of rich flowers whose perfumes clogged the air.

“Everyone was excited to contribute at least one flower to tonight,” Hannibal said. Two places had been set, one at the head of the table and one to the right of it. Will numbly sat down at his place, and Hannibal sat at the head of the table, the faintest impression of a smile near his lips.

“Wine?”

“…Yes, please,” Will murmured.

A rich red wine was poured for him, and Will studied it rather than look to the man whose gaze was burning into his skin. Questions, thoughts, and fears crowded their way to the forefront of his mind, but he wasn’t quite sure how to even begin to say them, let alone if he should give voice to the whisper that he most certainly was going to die. After all this time, Hannibal Lecter had finally decided that he was done being charitable with his time.

“This is loin in a blackberry sauce, with fresh figs and vegetables from the garden,” Hannibal said in the quiet. Will looked down to his plate and stared at the meat for far longer than was probably necessary. How did one kindly ask if the meat was pork or not? The thought of it being anything but pork made his stomach threaten to rebel, although there was nothing for it to give. Would these people actually try and force him to eat human meat? Just who had died for this meal?

“Thank you.”

Hannibal cut into his meat, and Will took that as his cue that he could eat. He managed a cooked fig, the flavor rich and succulent with the sauce it’d sat in. He washed it down with wine that settled sourly in his stomach.

“How have you been, Will?” Dr. Lecter asked. His tone was curious, engaging, like no time had passed since their last therapy session. It could have been a courtesy call, if he hadn’t been taken hostage.

“…Fine, thank you.”

“You’ve been hard at work at your residency. You work with Dr. Bloom at one of her clinics, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I remember Dr. Bloom. She was a fine young woman, quick on the uptake.” Lecter cut another piece of meat and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “She was my TA for a time, when I lectured.”

Will wasn’t quite sure if he should laugh or cry. He speared a few more greens onto his fork and stuffed them in his mouth so that he’d have an excuse not to reply. When he felt particularly brave, he glanced to the mismatched eyes set into Lecter’s face, focusing particularly on the blue one.

He’d be an idiot not to recognize his own eye color.

“She wasn’t specifically involved with soulmate psychiatry, though. She works with family trauma, doesn’t she?”

“…Yes.”

“She must have an extensive clinic for you, then, so that you can practice your own specialties.”

“Yes.” Will cleared his throat, and when he trusted his voice, he continued, “Dr. Lecter…why…am I here?”

“You’re here because I wanted you to be here, Will,” Lecter replied easily. He tried to catch Will’s stare, but Will avoided it and took a gulp of his wine. “I have quite a few friends that wished to bring that desire to fruition.”

The hysterical laugh tried to bubble up, but he swallowed it back down with another gulp of wine. When his glass was empty, Lecter refilled it without prompt, his shoulders turned so that he could give Will his full attention.

“I don’t know what use I could be to you here,” said Will, although it sounded stupid, even to him. Why keep him alive if he had no use? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“You’ve seen my eyes, Will. Eight years of studies within your specific field of interest, and you can’t make your own conjectures?” Despite having to state the obvious, he sounded kind while doing it. It was like being back in therapy again, the good doctor pointing out an avenue of interest that Will either was too afraid to go down or had never considered.

He didn’t want to consider what he was seeing, though.

“It…it looks like a soulmate connection, Dr. Lecter,” Will said slowly.

“Please, you may call me Hannibal.”

Hannibal was too familiar for someone that Will was certain would eat him within the week. “It’s not…it’s not me, though, it’s…” His voice trailed off, and he fumbled, trying again. “Your eyes were brown the last time I saw you. And my eyes haven’t changed color, so…”

“Within your first week of therapy, Will, you met my eyes exactly once,” Hannibal said lightly. “The next morning, I was surprised to see that one of my eyes had changed color. I felt no different, though, no presence of need or concern. Not wishing to upset any patient of mine that struggled with soulmates, I purchased a pair of colored contacts until I could understand what I was dealing with.

“I met with you a week later, and your eyes were still the same. A half-connection, one bred from my mind connecting to some aspect of yours that didn’t quite connect back.”

Half-connections weren’t as common as a full, established connection, but they were still common. Will’s studies had focused more on the aftermath, a culture of people whose behaviors circulated around wanting a soulmate. More often than not, half-connections were seen as one person not entirely meeting the needs of the other, and society as a whole viewed it with the kind of disdain one gave a sub-par vacuum.

Will felt a cold sensation slither down his spine. Dr. Hannibal Lecter wasn’t the sort of person that would endure being thought of as a sub-par vacuum.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly. He glanced to his eyes once more, then looked away quickly, swallowing heavily. He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want to even consider it. “I…I’m sorry that you…had to endure that.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong, Will,” Lecter replied. He took another bite of food, strokes of his knife cutting the meat with ease. “The longer I spoke with you, the more I understood just why there was no connection on your part. The aspects of yourself that I connected to are things you resisted taking enjoyment in, let alone indulged. Of course your psyche didn’t reach back.”

His mind was whirling with that information, stunning as it was –damning as it was.

“Did they know in the institution?” he asked. “Does Jack Crawford know?”

“The hospital knew that I had a half-connection, but I gave no information on the particulars,” Lecter said. He sounded almost like he was trying to reassure Will. “My lawyer was able to ensure that I wore my contacts, though, as it is a basic fundamental human right. He was quite passionate about it. Agent Crawford wasn’t given leave to have that information.”

Will sorely wished Jack had known about the half-connection. Maybe if he’d been aware that Hannibal Lecter’s designs on Will had even deeper meaning, better precautions would have been taken with his safety.

“Forgive me for saying this, but…” Will’s voice halted in his throat. He cleared it and tried again. “With a half-connection…I still don’t understand why I’m here.”

Hannibal hummed, low in his throat, and Will busied himself with another bite of food. The pork lay untouched on his plate. When he chanced a glance up, he caught Hannibal’s eyes and looked away, staring about the room decorated with such designs at what he was fast realizing was something akin to a date.

But surely not, right?

“You truly don’t, do you?” Lecter said, more to himself than Will. He sighed quietly, like this was the sort of conversation one tried to avoid. “You’re here, Will, because the idea of enduring a half-connection is insupportable to me.”

“Insupportable…?”

“Clearly there is something that goes unnurtured in your mind that would connect to me. I had never entertained the thought of a soulmate, but there is no reversal for what has occurred. We can only move forward.

“In your research, I’m sure you’ve come across what we call Âme décalée. It’s the French psychiatric term for the staggered soulmate connection.”

Will wasn’t quite sure if he’d heard him correctly. “Âme décalée is one of the rarest soulmate pairings known to psychology, Dr. Lecter,” he said. His stomach clenched.

“It is. But our minds are somewhat of a rare thing. Is it so difficult for you to suppose that a staggered connection couldn’t occur?”

He wasn’t hearing this right. He wasn’t hearing Dr. Hannibal-fucking-Lecter say that he wanted to somehow create an environment in which Will would endure a staggered connection to him –to become a soulmate to him.

This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real.

“Something to consider, Will,” Hannibal said. His tone was much like it was when he was tabling a particularly difficult thread of therapy from one of their sessions. “We can discuss it later.”

Silence. Their forks scratched faintly against fine china. Will tongued the back of his teeth and struggled to find words.

“I don’t…want a connection to you,” Will finally managed to say, although once it was said, he regretted it. It was too aggressive, too blunt in the face of a man that had been more than capable of gutting someone with a linoleum knife of all things.

We managed to save one of her eyes…

“You haven’t had time to process-”

“I…I don’t want a connection to anyone, let alone you, Dr. Lecter,” Will said. He felt the hysteria bubbling up his throat again, making his stomach churn. The wine wanted to come back up with it. “You of all people should know that I don’t want a soulmate, I don’t want…I don’t know what sort of operation you have here, but Francis Dolarhyde murdered at least five federal agents to get me here, you told Molly that she could shoot me if necessary, you –you fucking planted people around me to…to pretend to give a shit about me for over four years! And this is because you’re trying to force Âme décalée? It’s not…this isn’t…” This isn’t happening.

“Rest assured, everyone within this house cares about you in a fundamentally important way, Will,” Hannibal interjected.

Will found himself jerking to his feet, stumbling over the leg of his chair as he tried to move away from Lecter. Lecter stood as well, although with far more finesse and control over himself.

“I’m sorry that your eyes changed, honestly. Socially, I completely understand the discomfort of it, the issue of having to be part of a society that’s arguably hell-bent on pushing a basic chemical connection down everyone’s throat, but I can’t…I don’t want that!”

“Will-”

“If you were going to kill me, this would be one thing, but I can’t pretend that I could do something like this every single night and enjoy it, not when I literally found-”

He moved so quickly that Will was hardly fast enough to trace the movement, let alone prepare for it. One moment, he was using his dinner chair as a shield of sorts, and the next moment, he was pressed against the wall of the dining room, a butter knife pressed against his neck. He wasn’t so stupid as to suppose that Hannibal wouldn’t be able to break skin with it; he was more than confidant that his life hung in the balance in that moment, suspended between Hannibal Lecter’s mercy and his ultimate judgement.

“If I was going to kill you, Will?” Lecter asked quietly. His weight pressed against Will, his skin burning hot. Pressed tightly against Will’s chest, Lecter’s heartbeat was calm, steady. Will felt it through his clothes, through his favorite t-shirt that a gun had been pressed to just hours before.

It’s not smart to piss off the psychopathic cannibal, Will.

He swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing harshly against the blade of the knife, and sweat broke out along his temples.

“If I was going to kill you, Will Graham, you would already be dead,” he said, and god damn if he didn’t sound almost affectionate. “Don’t you recall the last time we stood so close without handcuffs, paunchy bailiffs, and an army of lawyers between us?”

Will nodded dumbly, thought of how Jack Crawford’s blood had felt in his hands as he tried to staunch the flow. He thought of Dr. Lecter standing not ten feet from him and deciding to spare him –not because he was his patient, as Will had stupidly supposed for all this time.

It was because of his eyes.

“I brought you here for a reason. I’m not so foolish as to suppose your thoughts and feelings will change so rapidly overnight, but I’m a patient man, Will. I am willing to create the space in which such foundations could be made. In this house, we will have all the time in the world to see whose theory will pan out –yours, or mine.”

He moved the knife, turned it so that the flat of it glided down Will’s neck, stopping to rest at his collarbone. Will gulped again, tremors working their way over his skin, and he thought of Jack Crawford staring him down the first time they’d ever met, long before he’d ever walked into the bad end of Hannibal Lecter’s linoleum cutter.

“I just have a few questions for you, Mr. Graham.”

“I’m late for class.”

“It’s about your psychiatrist. Dr. Lecter?”

“What about him?”

“Has he ever given you the impression of a desire to hurt anyone?”

“What?”

“To cannibalize anyone?”

Hannibal reached up with his free hand and jerked Will’s chin down. In his surprise, his eyes met Hannibal’s, and he stared into the mismatched color, horror curdling the blackberry sauce he’d managed to choke down. Within their depths he saw the way flecks of grey dotted the blue, the way tawny streaks of gold caressed the brown so rich it looked red. He also saw a hunger, something primal and something far too dangerous for a human being to contain within their skin.

“Sir?”

The sound of Francis’ voice filled the room, jolted Will from the frozen, calculating expression of the man before him. Lecter released him, and he turned to smile at Francis as though this were a common enough occurrence, him threatening guests with dinner knives. Will stayed pressed against the wall, chest heaving with breath that’d refused to come before.

“Everything is quite alright, Francis. Will is tired, though, and I think rest is best.”

Rest was best. A barrier between him and Hannibal Lecter was best. Will raggedly reached up and rubbed the spot where the knife dug in, and when Lecter turned to look back at him, he nodded jerkily. Rest was best. Getting away from Lecter was best.

He skirted around the table the long way and escaped down the hall, his harried steps accompanied by Francis’ long, sure strides. When he reached the main hall, he took the stairs two at a time and fled to the bedroom, not so stupid as to suppose he could make a getaway from the main entry at a time like this.

He would have to find a way to escape soon, though. There was no way he’d survive, not when Dr. Lecter finally lost his cool because his bets were placed on a soulmate phenomenon that had less than one percent chance of ever even happening.

Will sure as hell wasn’t going to place his own bets on the mercy of a man that ate people for a living.

The woman stood just at the edge of the crowd of onlookers, close enough that she could see the whites of the eyes. News reporters milled about, interviewing distraught apartment tenants, but she didn’t pay much attention to those sorts. They’d see soon enough. She wouldn’t have to fight for their attention; they’d give it to her all on their own in just a moment.

She saw the FBI agents walking down the stairs, heads ducked at they discussed their business with rapid, quick speech. Against the fall chill, she pulled her coat closer around herself, a tang in the air from the storm that was soon to follow.

The bodies had been removed from the pavement, but the lake of blood still remained as a testament to the keen and honest brutality of Francis Dolarhyde. It was art, in its own way. It wasn’t necessarily her style, but it was a style none-the-less, and it worked. It sent the perfect message to the FBI, something that would stick with them for the years to come, even as they tried to understand fully what they were dealing with:

We are whoever we want to be. Your friends, your co-workers, your lovers.

She saw her target the moment he came out of the apartment behind the illustrious Jack Crawford. He wore a bowtie to a crime scene, and that’s how she knew she had her man. Jack Crawford was a person comprised of moving parts, a leg that specialized in fingerprints, an arm that extended to toxicology. Each limb was equally as important as another, rising up to meet the head, a bull-man who tended to rush into situations before truly understanding him.

Cut off one limb, watch the bull-man flounder. Cut off another, watch him fall.

Just to the edge of the crowd, she felt the budding excitement of her soulmate, her one and only. It made her own eagerness bubble, beginning to boil. She had to tamp it down. She had to focus.

She shifted closer to the line, waiting for the agent guarding the line to step away in order to force back a news anchor. The air had a smell of chemical cleaner.

“It’s certainly Dr. Lecter’s writing, Jack. I’d pin your marriage on it,” Lloyd Bowman said. His gloved hands tenderly held the paper, as though he were cradling a dove.

“You heard that, did you?” Jack grunted. “Everyone’s gonna use that phrase now.”

“It’s really more of a jab at you than a real clue. He’ll jab at you one too many times, I think,” Bowman said. Despite his slight stature, his voice was deep, and as he laughed, the bowtie bobbed.

“We’ll still do as many tests as we can, see what we’re dealing with.”

“This was left in the mailbox, and we didn’t get it ‘till day two, Jack. I know that no one is wanting to say it, but…have we considered the idea of a cult?”

“A few ‘friends’ running around gutting people doesn’t make it a cult.”

“How high does the number have to climb before it does?” Bowman wondered.

Jack Crawford parted ways with him and headed towards a line of SUV’s, each one as non-descript as the one Francis had delivered Will Graham in. Bowman continued on towards a small transport van with the bold, yellow letters FBI emblazoned on the side. His head was ducked towards the sheet of paper, and she could distinctly see him mouthing the words, ‘you’re so sly, but so am I.’

The moment he passed along the line, she reached out and touched his shoulder. It was a gentle gesture, but it got his attention all the same.

“Excuse me,” Bowman said, and she smiled, a wide, cheek-cringing smile that took him aback with her utter sincerity, her kindness.

“Are you Agent Bowman?” she asked sweetly.

“I am.”

“Oh, good,” she gushed, and when he turned to face her head-on, confused, she withdrew the linoleum knife from her sleeve, and she glided it with ease along his stomach, parting cloth and skin and muscle.

There are many ways in which a person reacts to being stabbed. Her own experience was a burning hot pain that reached her like waves, building then crashing over her. Over time, the burning became muted, like a barrier protected her so that she could focus on the task at hand –the task at that time being, of course, survival. Some people froze, face showing pain but above all an honest confusion at their circumstances. She figured that Agent Bowman was something more along the lines of the latter, a person so used to the laws of order that they drew around themselves that when such a thing as a stabbing occurred, they didn’t know quite how to react.

She was very, very wrong.

Rather than stumble and fall, hands grasping at his insides, Agent Bowman reached out and grabbed her, hauling her over the yellow line so that they fell to the ground together, his weight pinning her down. Screams permeated the air as blood seeped from his wound, and she struggled against him, furious grunts issuing past her mouth. She had to go. She had to go.

She had to go.

“You’re so sly, but so am I,” he murmured against her skin. His breath was ragged, hot, and she hissed a curse as she tried to crawl out from beneath him. Despite his fatal wound, though, he was strong, and as other agents came running, Bowman was removed just long enough for another agent to haul her up, the linoleum knife clattering to the ground as she was twisted into a pinned position.

“We need the ambulance here, stat!”

“Agent Bowman, I need you to stay with me, okay?”

“Back up! Back up, now!”

“You’re under arrest,” the agent holding her said, but she wasn’t quite hearing him. As she struggled, fought against hands that held like iron, her eyes scanned the crowd, heartbeat hammering in her ears as she found who she was looking for. Their concern for her was claws down a chalkboard, and she shook her head, struggling, fighting.

Run, she mouthed to them. Run and don’t look back.

Their mismatched eyes widened, then narrowed in understanding. They broke through the crowd that was eager to get away from the carnage, every step away from her a pounding pain in her skull because that was her soulmate, that was her life, and she was desperately needing him to get away so that everything could be alright.

Everything was going to be alright.

A special thanks to my patrons, @hanfangrahamk @matildaparacosm @sylarana @starlit-catastrophe Duhaunt6, and Superlurk! <3

#LiaS scribbles #where the wicked walk #hannibal #hannibal fanfic #hannibal soulmate au #hannigram #will graham x hannibal #someone help will graham #soulmate au

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elfnerdherder · 8 years ago

Text

Where the Wicked Walk: Ch. 6

You can read Chapter 6 on Ao3 Here

Check out my Patreon Here and consider joining the crew! Early updates, sneak peeks, and insight into what the characters are going to do next :)

Chapter 6: The Gold Bug

6 Years Ago:

“Mr. Graham, can you please tell the court how you first met Dr. Lecter?”

Will shifted in the uncomfortable wooden chair and tried to look towards the prosecutor’s face, like they’d practiced. He managed to get to his chin and stared it down. “I met Dr. Lecter two years ago when I was searching for a therapist.”

“Was he recommended to you?”

“I have a bad habit of being too thorough. I extensively researched various therapists for quite some time before even calling to set up an appointment with any of them. He was recommended by several psychiatric journals, reviews online, and through word-of-mouth from professors at the school I’d just started attending.”

“Which school was that?”

“George Washington University.”

The prosecutor nodded and looked away from Will, pausing for a sort of dramatic buildup that Will had been coached to wait for. He shifted once more and spared a glance towards the defense’s side of the courtroom, something he’d been attempting to force himself not to do. Seated between two defense attorneys and two guards, Dr. Hannibal Lecter was the picture of serene calm. If he minded much that Will was taking the stand against him, it didn’t show. In the quick pass over that Will gave him, he’d have almost said that the doctor appeared pleased.

“You traveled a little under an hour once a week to see your therapist?”

“He was a good therapist.”

“I’d like for you to describe the events which took place on the evening of April 10th of this year, Will. You’d been seeing Dr. Lecter for almost two years at that point?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about that night in your own words.”

Being as stressed as he was, that was difficult. The speech and inflection of the attorney was a smooth, rocking cadence that gave way to a sense of ease and self-assurance that Will desperately wished he had. He could feel his mouth parting to scent the room the way the man across from him did, like he could taste the emotions around him and react accordingly.

“Due to my classes and travel, my appointments were at 7:30 P.M. I was early that evening due to a class being cancelled in the afternoon.” He licked his lips, desperately wishing that he had a glass of water. “I normally waited in the waiting room until he opened the door.”

“Why didn’t you that time?”

“The door was ajar. I heard…a noise.” He paused the way he’d been told to, a brave man in a horrendous situation that didn’t know how to put to words the horrors he’d witnessed. It wasn’t entirely a lie, in truth. “I thought maybe Dr. Lecter was unwell, or that something had happened, so I opened the door.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw Agent Jack Crawford on the ground with a knife wound to his stomach. He was bleeding, and he was clawing his way towards his jacket on the couch towards what I supposed was his phone.” He blinked, each click of his eyelids a snapshot from that memory, a thing burned into his skull, so much so that he eat, slept, and dreamed it as though it’d happened to him instead.

“What did you do?”

It took longer than it should have for him to answer, lost as he was in the scene. The rug he’d spent the better part of two years digging his heels into was soaked, an oddly beautiful gloss to the stains as each straining grunt made more blood ooze from the opening along Jack’s stomach. His skin, despite its darker tone, was pale, sweat staining the collar of his shirt as he struggled. He was dying, and he knew it, knew it like he now knew what his own blood felt like on the outside of his body, knew it like he knew the tone of his own voice.

“Mr. Graham?”

He blinked rapidly and shook his head, trying to shake loose the way he’d panicked. He was ashamed to discover that as his eyes had glazed over, as he’d retreated into himself, his eyes had sought out Dr. Lecter, honed in on him.

Dr. Lecter smiled faintly and bobbed his head as though he were encouraging him to continue. It could have been another therapy session to him, for all the calm he exuded.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he rubbed his soggy palms onto his recently purchased dress slacks. “I…I took off my jacket and used it to staunch the blood flow, and while I did that, I called 911. Agent Crawford was in shock, and he kept saying to me, over and over again, ‘It’s Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal Lecter did this.’”

“Did you see Dr. Lecter?”

“Not at that moment, no,” Will replied. There was a speck on his glasses, and he stared at it rather than look back over to where Dr. Lecter was watching with rapt attention. “I didn’t realize he was in the room until I heard a noise at the door. He was…walking out of the room. In his hand was a curved knife.”

“I present to the court the weapon in question, a standard linoleum knife.” The prosecutor crossed the room and retrieved a plastic bag that housed the weapon Jack Crawford had almost died beneath. “Did you try to engage him in any way, Mr. Graham?”

“No. I thought that if I moved, Agent Crawford would die.”

“Thank you, Mr. Graham. No further questions.”

He could sense the appreciation and awe from onlookers in the room. It felt like a rash that spread along his neck, hot and itchy, and he nodded and glanced to the judge with mismatched eyes and a face of stone.

“Defense, your witness.”

The defense attorney had matching eyes and an uncomfortable smile. When he stood and crossed the room, Will felt distinctly pinned to his chair, and he couldn’t have moved if he tried.

“Mr. Graham, I’m sure Agent Crawford is grateful for your brave and quick actions that led to his life being saved,” they began with a thin-lipped smile. “I have a few questions for you, though, if you don’t mind.”

Will nodded. He didn’t have a choice in the matter, in reality.

“What were you seeing Dr. Lecter for?”

“I’d rather not say,” Will replied, far curter than he’d have liked. “That’s personal.”

“Mr. Fisker?” the judge prompted.

“While the details of his therapy are certainly his right to have remain private due to confidentiality laws, your honor, I’d like to submit this letter provided by Dr. Bloom, a psychiatrist that guest lectured often at GWU. It is a letter from her to the head of the psychiatry department discussing the mental state of student Will Graham.”

The judge accepted the letter and pushed glasses up on the bridge of his nose in order to read it. As his hand touched the standard printer paper, a cold sweat broke out at Will’s temples, and he looked back to Dr. Lecter, eyes widening.

The bastard was smiling.

“Will Graham is a unique case due to his hyper-empathy disorder, a disorder still being discussed within psychiatric circles today due to its relatively newer discovery and study. Your honor, the pure empathy that Will Graham can display for anyone in a room means that his mind can be swayed simply by high emotion and the power of suggestion. He first was given recommendation to see a psychiatrist due to his almost withdrawing from his first semester of school because of delusions he was suffering after the death of his father. In his own words to Dr. Bloom, ‘I sometimes think that he may be alive, and I will see him just ahead of me in the distance. I can literally make myself see things, but I am powerless to stop the images once they appear.’”

“Your point, Mr. Fisker?” the judge prompted.

“I motion that Mr. Graham’s testimony be struck from record due to his inability to recount past occurrences with complete accuracy. His memory, as malleable as it has been proven to be by esteemed psychiatrists apart from Dr. Lecter, is such that as he attempted to save the life of Agent Crawford, the agent informed him that Dr. Lecter attacked him. His hyper-empathy caused him to fully believe in what he was being told, causing the delusion of seeing him departing to occur. Mr. Graham’s mind is not stable enough to stand up in a court of law.”

“I didn’t imagine seeing him leave,” Will snapped, his cheeks burning red with anger and embarrassment.

“The traits that have been given to Dr. Lecter are claims of an intelligent psychopath, your honor. An intelligent psychopath, armed with a deadly weapon, would have simply attacked Will Graham before he could have made the call that ultimately saved Agent Crawford’s life. In the scenario provided, he only saw Dr. Lecter after Agent Crawford told him to see.”

The courtroom was quiet, save for the stenographer typing. After a stilted few seconds, even that paused. An air conditioner in the back of the room gurgled and complained, and somewhere down the hall, a door slammed shut. Will curled his fingers into his knees and dug his nails into slacks he’d paid far too much for, all for the sake of looking professional as he testified against his own therapist.

“I’m going to call a recess,” the judge said at last, setting the letter down. “Councilors, my office. We’ll meet again here within the hour, at approximately 1:20 P.M.”

His gavel made a sharp cracking noise, and Will jumped with the sensation of it. At the motions of one of the agents off to the side of the prosecution, he rose from the stand and made his way off of it, his skin going numb and cold all over as he realized that despite his best efforts, his mind that –in the words of Dr. Lecter –was supposedly a gift, was now being used as a weapon against him instead.

All the while, Dr. Lecter remained smiling.

Will was given an official tour of the house and all of its winding hallways. There were over fifteen bedrooms that Will could see, many of them housing bunkbeds or neat, straight rows of twin sized beds lined from one wall to the other. The rooms and halls were spacious, newly painted and refurbished with modern lighting and technology. Lining the many walls were oil paintings of what Will recognized as things that had once inhabited Dr. Lecter’s office and home.

“Did they find what once belonged to you?” he asked, pausing before one. “Or did they replace them?”

“Much of my art went to auction, but it was recovered.”

Will nodded, not at all surprised to see Leda and the Swan as part of Lecter’s collection. There was something depraved and carnal about the swan pressed close to her thigh, her dress hiked up her stomach so that she was exposed to the world and all its censure. No one liked to talk about the fact that Zeus tended to rape most of the women who bore his children. Hera definitely like to ignore that tidbit when she exacted her revenge. Dr. Lecter paused with him, much too close for comfort.

To be fair, anything not involving a 6x8 cell with bars was much too close for comfort.

“How did you find this house?”

“I had this house placed in my cousin’s name a few years before Agent Crawford began his hunt for me. It had been a precaution taken with little thought to what would happen later, but I’m pleased with the decision.” He didn’t press closer when Will moved away from him. The space was given with little resentment or anger.

“Don’t you think they’ll try and track your cousin down? Or any family you have here?”

Lecter laughed lightly. “If I didn’t know better, I would say that it almost sounds as though you’re concerned that they’ll find us.”

His voice had definitely been pitched that way, although the honest emotion tied to it was more hope than anything else. Will hadn’t been aware of Lecter having a cousin in the states, but if they could locate information on the cousin, Jack would be one step closer to finding him.

“They won’t, though,” he continued when Will didn’t speak. “This has been pieced together for some time, Will, comprised of many parts that have come together to run as a singular, cohesive plan. So far, there hasn’t been a single snag.”

“You’ve been working on this for years, I know,” Will said bitterly. He thought of Beverly and Molly, a sore in his mouth that he kept tonguing over.

“All good plans take time and patience, Will,” he said. “Come, let me introduce you to some of the people.”

Downstairs was a maze of parlors, living rooms, sitting rooms, tea rooms, and a library that’d been remade into a large security office. Computers and hardware sat in an organized chaos, and a large map had been pinned to a burnt ocher wall. Their entry was noted, eyes drifting over him to fixate on Hannibal immediately. Francis covered the map from Will’s view and greeted Lecter with a dipped, submissive head.

Seeing him before Hannibal was far different than seeing him beside Jack. Where there’d been a perfect, calm assurance to his mannerisms with Jack, a slow, deep, and mellow personality that moved as a shadow, as he stood before Hannibal, that persona was stripped away. There was a vulnerability in his eyes, the way they dipped down rather than meet Lecter’s gaze. His large, broad frame somehow shrunk, like he could take all of his muscle and his deadly capabilities and make them smaller in Hannibal’s wake.

“Dr. Lecter,” he greeted. “Mr. Graham.”

“If he likes, Will can go by Dr. Graham,” Hannibal said lightly. “He’s completed his degrees, after all. His residency was soon to be finished, too.”

Francis looked to Will expectantly, although he wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“It’s not like I’m going to be practicing psychiatry anytime soon,” Will stated bluntly.

“Mr. Graham, then,” Francis decided.

“I thought it best to introduce him to the main security here at the house,” said Hannibal, looking about. “I see Matthew is still here.”

“I’ll be leaving soon, sir,” a man said, walking over to them. He had a Baltimore way of curling his letters in his mouth before discarding them, thin lips twisted into a semi-permanent smirk. His close-cropped hair was professional, his beard neatly trimmed, and when he looked Will over, Will was more than capable of tasting the disdain that rippled off of him, dank and heady in the air.

Will thought to make a joke about his wearing a Sherriff’s uniform, but at this point it was becoming far too exhausting to be surprised by these people.

“Sherriff Brown has been a valuable asset to our cause here,” Hannibal informed Will. “He was more than eager to help in relieving me of the Baltimore State Hospital.”

“You used to work there?” Will asked. There was a surprised pause at his question. “You sound like you’re from Baltimore,” he explained.

“Matthew used to work there, yes,” said Lecter.

“I take care of the town here, now,” Matthew said. There was a sudden conscious attempt to give his tone a southern drawl. Will wondered if he had a hard time fitting in at his department, if the good old southern boys gave him trouble when it came down to brass tacks. “And I help Dr. Lecter however I can with the big house.”

“Lucky for Dr. Lecter,” Will replied, deadpan.

“We haven’t heard anything yet,” Francis said, looking from Will to Hannibal. “If they have anything, it’s not…good enough to make a move.”

“You were sufficient with your evidence, then,” he said, pleased. Francis’ intent gaze lightened at the compliment. “Once we hear word from Alyss, let me know.”

“I will have gotten a call by this afternoon,” Matthew assured him.

“Good.”

Matthew left with another glance tossed towards Will’s way, and Hannibal made quick work of the rest of his guards: Sam, Howard, Matt, Glen, and Rick. Their faces blurred, melted together in the sort of mush that made Will uneasy to look at for too long. He considered it luck that they didn’t reach out to touch him again.

They left the room, the implication by the introductions made abundantly clear from the gun holstered at each of their hips: Will would be detained if necessary.

He was taken to a large, spacious office next, the chandelier overhead an antique that threatened to drop at a sideways breeze. Will skirted around it and took quick stock of the room, from its open, wide fireplace to the large bay windows that gave way to the sprawling backyard he’d walked along earlier. Books lined the shelves from floor to ceiling, and the musk of male cologne hung along the chairs and desk.

“It looks the same as your old office,” Will said when he realized Hannibal was waiting for him to speak. He shifted his stance and tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, eyes drawn outside where he spied Molly walking with a young boy.

“Does that bring back pleasant memories or disquieting ones?”

“…Tasteless ones.”

“You tried to see another therapist after everything that occurred. It lasted a month before you never returned.”

“Therapy lost its…charm after everything,” he replied. “I didn’t see a reason to return.”

“Were you afraid that if you returned, you would somehow find another therapist whose personal desires extended towards a less socially acceptable avenue of interest?”

That was an awfully fancy way of saying that Hannibal Lecter genuinely enjoyed killing and eating people. Will bit along his bottom lip, found a piece of peeling skin, and tugged it so sharply that he tore flesh. Just outside, Molly held the child’s hand and swung their arms, sunlight gliding across her cheekbones and giving her a halo of light. He wanted to strangle her with it.

“…Not even I’m that unlucky,” he managed. His tongue glided along the tender skin, lapped up the blood that beaded with faint dots of red. He kept his back to Hannibal. “I didn’t want to talk about you in therapy. Dr. Bloom wanted me to stop internalizing everything, but I just kept…holding it in. It was a waste of her time and mine.”

“It must have hurt you when you realized that your perceptions of me weren’t quite what you supposed.”

It had hurt, but not in the way Hannibal was implying. “I didn’t blame myself for being blind,” he said, harsher than intended. “We were blind because you wanted us to be blind. I don’t blame myself for that.”

“What did you struggle with reconciling, then?”

“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me right now?” he asked, turning away from the window. Molly and the child had disappeared downhill towards the pond. “Missing the days when I paid you to climb into my head?”

“You have a unique mind and a valuable way of thinking. I won’t feel guilty for wanting to understand it further.”

He wasn’t going to say it, stuck as the words were in his throat, jamming up and making breath stutter to a stop. He wasn’t going to give voice to the fear that of course the only person in the world he’d been able to be completely honest with was a psychopathic cannibal; Will Graham was not a man that shared the ugly thoughts in his head very often. What did it say about him that the first time he’d been able to consistently remove them and place them before an unjudging person, it was the same person that just the day before they’d met had taken the brain from a judge and placed it on a set of scales in order to display his displeasure in the judge’s last ruling?

What did it say about Will Graham that for two years, his source of mental stability and clarity had come from the lips of a serial killer?

“…Do you think that by attempting to…do this, you’ll somehow be able to make my eyes change?” He looked to Hannibal who stood poised beside a rich mahogany desk, his three-piece suit a blend of greys, greens, and off-white plaid. “Do you think that by trying to pick up where we left off six years ago, you can force a connection?”

“What do you think, Dr. Graham?”

“I’ve been told that my line of thinking is considered rude in polite company.”

“You once informed me that I should practice the art of ‘say it rude,’” Hannibal countered. “When one can’t think of the kind form of rephrasing, they should simply speak their mind. You said that there was something to be said about transparent honesty.”

Will gritted his teeth. “I think you’ve got a cult following you for reasons I don’t quite understand, and I think you’re just using them for whatever game you’ve got going currently –a big, honest ‘fuck you’ to Jack Crawford. I think you’re going to try and force a staggered connection that –even when no manipulations are added –has a less than one percent chance of occurring between two willing participants because becoming part of some ‘common rabble’ is ‘insupportable’ for you.

“You said that they’re your friends, but you had absolutely no qualms in sending one of them that was clearly mentally unstable into a police station so that she could commit suicide-by-cop. You’ve somehow manipulated other people into ingratiating themselves within my life in order to spy on me for you, and they say that it’s not for pay –what hold do you have over them? What have you promised them that they’re willing to sell their lives away at your whim?”

“If you’re upset about Molly, know that she genuinely enjoyed your company. She informed me that you were a good person,” said Hannibal. When Will set to a furious pace across an oriental rug, he sat down and tracked his route with half-lidded eyes.

“She…you…” He floundered, digging his nails into his palms. I fucked her the night before you escaped. You told her to do that, didn’t you, you son-of-a-bitch? You told her to fuck me? “Dr. Lecter, soulmate connections are based off of some form of commonality among two people that our psyche can see before our conscious mind does. It makes that leap, and in the space and time when we dip into REM sleep, it establishes the connection between the individuals. It can connect due to shared beliefs, personalities, desires, feelings, or even memories and sensations.” A beat before he added, “You know this.”

“Yes, and my mind connected to yours,�� Hannibal said.

Will blanched and stopped his pacing to face Hannibal, hands planted on his hips. “Mine didn’t connect back,” he said, attempting to sound calm. His tone was almost plaintive. “You of all people know that my hyper-empathy makes connections with soulmates a tricky environment.”

“Which is why you’ve spent the better half of your life avoiding eyes, yes,” Hannibal agreed.

“It’s not…fair to them that if I even did connect back, there is no guarantee that it was due to a genuine connection. It could have been my empathy, my…sub-consciousness reaching for that space in which it became someone else. Your reaching, your…finding of me is not an indication that there was even something between us to connect to. My empathy disorder may have only made it seem that way because I can empathize with anyone. I can connect to anyone.”

It would have been a much better argument if he could have maintained calm. It was difficult to do so, though, when was staring down a cannibal who sat with such poise and tranquility that Will was certain he was imagining the many ways in which he’d potentially flay Will alive. He took a shaky, uncomfortable breath of air and looked away from him, worrying over the wound on his lip. His hands dug into his hips, and he imagined bruises forming in small, uniformed ovals.

“That is what makes it so special,” Dr. Lecter said at last. Against his olive skin and ashen hair, the blue eye stood out far more than the maroon, giving him an eerie, unearthly look. “Your grasp and understanding of the thoughts and behaviors of others makes the likelihood of a staggered connection far more likely because you’re able to see what first drew my subconscious to you.”

“That’s what you don’t get, Dr. Lecter,” Will snapped, exasperated. “I can understand it, but that is not enough. The aspects of my person is this untapped potential, like you’re the first person that’s ever seen that in me and tried to take advantage.” And succeeded, he thought bitterly. “You’re a murderer. You’re a serial killer, you’re a cannibal, and my potential for that darkness doesn’t matter because I will never be that person. You can’t force a staggered connection with me because the things you have hope that I will come to understand are the things about you that I’m completely and unequivocally repulsed by. I don’t find any aspect of that interesting, let alone appealing.”

Hannibal stood, and he crossed the distance between them at a leisurely, calm pace. Be it the look on his face or the way his hips twisted, but Will had the sensation of being prey, a predator crossing the distance between them to end him. He’d gone too far, said too much, and it didn’t matter that Jack could maybe hunt Lecter down through his cousin that owned a plantation home when Will managed to get himself killed on his second day there –

-Hannibal withdrew his pocket square and pressed the corner of it to Will’s bottom lip.

“…You will,” Hannibal said simply. Will snagged the handkerchief away from Hannibal, glancing from him to it, marking the small specks of blood along its white cloth. When he looked up again, he was disquieted by the pleased, secretive smile he was being given, like he was in on a joke whose punchline was told too fast for him to catch.

A special thanks to my patrons: @hanfangrahamk @sylarana @matildaparacosm @starlit-catastrophe Duhaunt6 and Superlurk! You’re the best!

#LiaS scribbles #where the wicked walk #soulmate au #hannibal #hannibal fanfic #hannibal soulmate au #hannigram #someone help will graham #the following au #poor guy can't catch a break

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