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Part 2

Once More To See You (Hannibal AU)

(Art for AU on page, Chapter Two, Seven more on Ao3)

Summary:

Will Graham never joined the force, never went to school. Haunted by a brutal childhood and burdened by a mind that won’t let him forget, he spends his life running his dog rescue out of his cluttered home in Wolf Trap, no structure, just fur and chaos and the fragile peace animals bring. Isolated and spiraling into alcoholism, Will hides from the world and from himself, believing the only good he can do is for creatures who can’t speak.

But everything begins to shift when he picks up a rescue from a crime scene and he catches the eye of a well-dressed stranger standing in the distance. Dr. Hannibal Lecter sees something in Will. something broken, something fascinating and he’s not the type to look away.

As Will’s episodes worsen and memories from his past claw their way to the surface, he finds himself drawn to the man who seems to be the only one to truly see him. What begins as therapy teeters into obsession, danger, and a connection.

tags:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/67105033/chapters/173270161

Chapter two:

I wake up with a startle.

My shirt is damp. My heart is hammering like I’ve just run for my life but it’s only the ceiling above me, the same cracked pattern I’ve stared at for years. There’s no blood, no porch, no knife. Just the low creak of an old house filled with sleeping dogs and ghosts that don’t stay dead.

The dream slips away like fog, thankful for no recollection of whatever haunted me but the weight it leaves behind clings to my chest like a soaked blanket. It’s not even six in the morning.

I drag myself out of bed because I have to. Because the dogs are already stirring. Because they need to be fed, walked, watered. Because if I don’t get up, they’ll jump all over me making sure to remind me that they’re still here, and I still matter to something.

The floor is cold on my feet. My body aches like I’ve been beaten, not just sleeping. The nightmares after effect lingers in the way my hands tremble when I open the pantry, in the sharp burst of sweat at the back of my neck as I lay out the mass of dog bowls.

Their tails wag like they’re proud of me.

I can’t look them in the eye.

The coffee pot gurgles behind me. I pour it into my chipped mug and stare at the bottle next to the sink. Still out from last night. I told myself I’d put it away.

I don’t.

Instead, I pour just enough into the coffee to keep the edge off. Just enough to make it through the morning. I lean against the counter, watching the dogs eat, one hand gripping the mug like it’s anchoring me to the present. Outside, the yard is still dark. Fog clings to the tree line. My eyes linger there, too long. Like I expect something to look back.

The new dog is quieter than the rest. He eats like he’s not sure the food will stay. Like someone might rip it away before he finishes.

I know that feeling.

I took him to the vet around nine. He rides in the backseat, curled up like a question mark, paws tucked under. Doesn’t bark or whine. Just stares out the window like he’s memorizing the way out.

The vet says he’s in good health. He’ll be ready for a new home soon or even foster.

I nod. Say thank you. Try to ignore the way the receptionist glances at me when she thinks I’m not looking like I’m the one they’re not sure is healing.

I get home by noon. The house smells like wet fur and dust, but it’s familiar. I make another cup of coffee, no whiskey this time, and sit at the kitchen table with my laptop, dragging it open like it weighs a hundred pounds.

Emails.

Adoption applications.

Invoices.

I click through them with one hand while the other absently picks at my hair. A usual sign of my stress and anxiety.

One couple in Vermont wants to adopt two bonded seniors. A vet tech in Charlottesville wants the blind shepard. A woman with a fenced-in yard and three kids wants a malinois mix who’s terrified of sudden movement.

I flag that one. I’ll have to call her.

Gently tell her no.

I start to go through the bills, but my head’s pounding again. Nonprofit paperwork, donation receipts, the food budget, the meds, the repairs I still haven’t made to the back gate.

Then the line that always stares back at me.

Alcohol – $117.48

Too much.

I close the spreadsheet.

The dogs are napping on the floor, twitching softly. One has their head in my lap. The new dog is by the door, not quite part of the pack yet, but watching.

I stretch out on the couch with them. Just for a minute.

I’m asleep before I know it.

The dream returns, soft at first.

Gentle.

A house.

A forest.

Breath against the back of my neck.

Then I’m there again.

The crime scene.

The body.

But this time… I’m not alone.

He’s there.

The man from yesterday. Dr. Lecter.

He’s standing in the doorway, composed and silent, like he’s always been there, like he belongs here somehow. His hands are folded neatly in front of him. His gaze is fixed on me, not the body, not the blood, me.

He doesn’t speak.

He doesn’t need to.

I look down, and the knife is in my hand again.

And he just watches.

Not horrified or alarmed.

Interested.

I wake with a gasp, lurching forward off the couch.

My head’s spinning. My shirt clings to my back with sweat.

The dogs stir, ears flicking, but they don’t move.

They’re used to this.

I sit on the edge of the couch, elbows on my knees, breath catching in my throat like I’ve swallowed something sharp.

What the hell was that?

Why was he there?

The day is dying by the time I let the dogs out again. The sun slips behind the trees, turning the yard, silver and blue.

I stand on the porch, one hand resting on the frame, the other absently petting the mutt pressed against my leg, Winston. He always finds me when I’m not okay.

I don’t drink.

Not yet.

I just stand there.

Breathing and watching the woods.

The silence is loud.

Stillness has a weight to it and tonight, I’m wearing it like a second skin.

Eventually, I go back inside. The house exhales around me, wood creaking as it settles into sleep.

I flip on the kitchen light and stop.

The card.

It’s there on the counter. I must have thrown it there at some point, unsure when. But it almost felt like it was staring at me.

White and crisp.

The name, printed in precise black ink.

Dr. Hannibal LecterPsychiatric ConsultantPrivate Practice – Baltimore, MD

I stare at it for a long time.

I should throw it away, I thought again.

I don’t.

I end my night the same, drinks and all.

And when I wake, the morning light is weak through the grimy windows, slanting like dust motes and cold regret.

I’m awake before the dogs, I can’t seem to hold on to sleep anymore, not the kind that saves you.

I move slow.

Almost mechanical.

Pour coffee with one hand, the other shaking just enough to make the mug wobble in my grasp. Then pour the last of the bottle on my counter into my cup.

The bitter steam curls into the air, but it doesn’t warm me.

The dogs circle, patient, familiar. They don’t ask why I look like I haven’t slept, why my eyes are red and glassy. They don’t ask why I sometimes wake up drenched in sweat, heart pounding like I’m running from something no one else can see. It’s a beautiful reminder, just how innocent they are.

I fill their bowls.

I sit down at the table with my coffee, staring at the chipped rim like it holds the answer.

Minutes pass.

When a sound noise startles me, pushing me deep inside my mind.

It’s not the dream this time.

It’s a memory.

hunched on the bathroom floor, the tile cold against my legs. I can’t stop crying. My face is swollen, nose crooked and bleeding, ribs cracked and flaring with every breath. The mirror shows a boy who looks like he lost a fight with God. The dull, heavy throb in my jaw from where my father’s fist caught me. The heavy scent of stale beer and anger pressing down like a stone. The crushing weight of being small and powerless, as I sob out to nothing.

I’m fourteen again.

The bruises bloom on my skin, spreading like ink.

I grip the table edge, trying to force myself back. To remind myself that I’m not there anymore.

But the past is pulling me under.

The itch beneath my sleeves demands release.

I’m holding a razor.

Hands shaking, chest hitching, mouth open, rough scared gurgles and sobs escape it.

The memory grips me by the throat.

I see him, see me press the blade to my arm, eyes squeezed shut.

Not to die.

Just to feel something he could control.

And on my couch, in the now, I move without thinking.

My coffee mug crashes to the floor, shattering like a shot fired in a quiet room. My hand closes around one of the shards before I even register the pain.

The edge bites deep as I drag it across my skin, matching the movement in the memory one for one.

Watching my younger self through my body.

The bathroom.

The bleeding.

The sound of my own breath breaking in two different timelines.

The ceramic clatters from my hand.

Blood pours down my arm in a warm ribbon, and the sight of it pulls me back just enough to feel the horror.

I wake in my kitchen, gasping, staring at what I’ve done. Pacing back and forth, pulling up my shirt to get a tight hold onto my bleeding arm. Staining it a deep red.

Tears hit the floor before I realize they’re falling.

I can’t breathe.

Can’t stop shaking.

It wasn’t supposed to go this far, the burn so rigid, I hadn’t felt this pain in years.

I sink to the floor, heart pounding like it wants out of my chest.

And all I can think is, I can’t keep doing this. If I let it go far enough, I’d end up trying to take my life again. A memory deep from when I was seventeen.

The sting turns from a burn to a throb.

Then something worse.

I look down, and there’s more blood than I expected.

More than there should be.

It’s trailing down my wrist, dripping off my fingers in thick drops that hit the tile with a sickening rhythm.

I press my other hand harder onto it, the blood has completely soaked through the thin fabric.

Still bleeding.

The ceramic shard lies in a red smear near my foot and panic clamps down like a vice.

I didn’t mean to cut that deep.

I slowly drag myself off the floor, staggering toward the sink, one hand clutching tight over the wound. My fingers slip on the drawer handle before I yank it open, grabbing the first clean towel I can find a white one, of course.

I wrap it tight, twisting, tying.

Red blooms through the fabric in seconds.

Shit.

I lean against the counter, breathing through my teeth. My knees want to give out, but I don’t let them. My shoulders shook, almost violently.

I should go to the hospital.

But they’ll see the cuts.

They’ll ask the questions.

They’ll know.

And they’ll put me in a Seventy-Two hour hold, a psych room with fluorescent lights and no dogs and cheap cotton blankets.

It would leave my dogs alone.

Probably worried I’d never come home.

The thought guts me more than the blood running down my arm.

A whine breaks through the haze.

Then another.

I turn.

They’re crowding the kitchen doorway, six of them, maybe seven, pressed together in the way dogs do when they know something’s wrong. Ears pinned back and tails low.

Eyes wide.

Winston noses at my leg, soft and trembling. Another lets out a sharp, distressed bark like she wants to fix me but doesn’t know how.

“I’m okay,” I whisper, my voice cracked and broken. My body shook as the lightheadedness hit and It’s a lie they don’t believe.

I sink back to the floor, the towel is soaked. The bleeding isn’t stopping.

I press harder.

Grit my teeth.

Try to breathe.

But I can feel the weakness setting in the lightheadedness, the cold.

I don’t have a choice.

I stagger to my feet and the room sways.

The dogs follow me like shadows as I stumble to the door, grab my keys with blood-wet fingers, and make it to the truck.

I slam the door shut and press the towel tighter.

My arm pulses, eyes sting. The engine roars to life.

In the rearview mirror, I see them pressed against the front window, watching me drive away.

I’m sorry, I want to say. I didn’t mean to leave you.

By the time I reach the ER parking lot, my fingertips are numb. Barely aware of how I made it in the first place.

The towel around my arm is soaked through dark and wet and sticking to my skin. I press harder, but the pressure’s fading. Everything is. The world tilts on its axis with every step I take.

I make it through the first set of doors. Cool air hits my face and I take one more step into the sterile light and

The floor rises up to meet me.

I hit it hard, the sound of my body slapping the tile swallowed instantly by a chorus of voices I can’t quite make out. The towel slips from my arm as I fall. Warm blood pools against the floor like ink in water.

Someone shouts and the fluorescent lights blur.

Then hands gloved, firm on my chest, my shoulders, my head.

A woman kneels next to me, her face close, voice soft but urgent.

"Sir? Sir, can you hear me? You’re at Frederick Memorial. You’re safe. Stay with me, okay?"

I try to answer, but my mouth doesn’t work.

"Pressure’s low. We need fluids now. He’s tachycardic, get a line in. No time to wait on a room."

They lift me onto a stretcher. The ceiling races past.

I catch glimpses of faces, lights, a blood pressure cuff squeezing my arm, a plastic mask placed gently over my nose and mouth. My body jerks slightly as cold saline rushes into my veins from an IV they push into the crook of my elbow.

"Two liters of NS wide open. Start him on oxygen, ten liters."

Another voice: "BP’s dropping 78 over 42."

The nurse next to me takes my hand.

“You’re doing great,” she says, her voice warm, practiced. “We’ve got you. Just keep your eyes open, sweetheart. You lost a lot of blood, but we’re stopping it now. You’re going to be alright.”

My throat tightens. I want to tell her she’s wrong.

When I come back to myself, I’m in a curtained-off bay in the trauma unit. I’m warm. My arm is numb and tightly bandaged. The rest of me feels like it was hollowed out and refilled with cotton.

An IV bag hangs above me, clear liquid dripping steadily into the line in my arm. A monitor beeps rhythmically. My chest rises under a thin hospital blanket.

A nurse is checking the dressing on my arm. The same one, I think. Kind voice and soft hands.

“Hey,” she says when she notices I’m awake. “There you are.”

I blink at her. Try to sit up, but the nausea swells instantly. She presses a hand to my shoulder and eases me back.

“Easy, okay? You lost more blood than we’d like, but you’re stable now.”

My mouth is dry. My lips cracked.

She offers a cup of ice chips, placing the cup on a table next to me.

“You’re gonna feel wiped out for a while,” the nurse says gently, tugging the blanket a little higher over my chest. “We gave you fluids, started you on antibiotics, and you’ve got twelve stitches in that arm. You were dangerously close to losing too much blood, but we got ahead of it. You’re lucky you got here when you did.”

“We’re gonna keep you for the night,” she continues. “If your vitals stay stable, we’ll discharge you tomorrow morning. Sounds good?”

I try to nod. It doesn’t feel like it lands.

My heart’s still pounding, even with the fluids, even with the warmth of the blanket and the soft beep of the monitor beside me.

I should be relieved.

I should be grateful to be alive.

But all I can think about is the front window back home, and the noses pressed to the glass.

They’re waiting.

No food. No one to let them out. No one to soothe the ones who don’t like the dark.

My stomach turns.

“They’re going to think I left them,” I whisper, mostly to myself.

The nurse frowns. “What’s that, hon?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

But it’s not nothing.

It’s everything.

Because I didn’t plan for this. Because I didn’t mean to end up here. Because the only things I’ve ever taken care of are sitting alone in a house with no explanation, and I swore, swore. I’d never make them feel the way I did when I was a kid.

Alone.

Forgotten.

Unloved.

I lie there, blinking up at the ceiling tiles, and wait for the guilt to crush me completely.

They’re alone. All of them. With no dinner and no one to let them out. No soft voice to say their names. They’ll think I abandoned them. The weight of it is a living thing in my chest.

A doctor arrives next, a nurse next to him. White coat, clipboard, clipped tone. He looks at my arm, checks the IV, reviews the chart with practiced detachment. Then the questions start.

“How did this happen, Mr. Graham?”

I lie. “It was an accident.”

His brow twitches. “You cut through the dermis and into the subcutaneous fat. That’s a deep laceration. Took effort.”

I say nothing.

He doesn’t buy it.

He flips a page. “We ran labs. Your blood alcohol content was .10. There’s also a significant level of benzos in your system traces of alprazolam and diazepam. Are those prescribed?”

I shake my head. “No.”

He sighs through his nose. “That’s concerning.”

“I didn’t take them today,” I say quickly, but it’s weak. Pathetic, really. The kind of excuse someone makes when they’re circling the drain but not ready to admit it.

There’s a pause. His voice softens, but not with compassion, just control.

“Do you have anyone who can stay with you at home? A roommate, a friend, family member?”

“No.”

“Someone we can call?”

“No,” I say again, more clipped this time. “Just the dogs.”

He blinks. “Dogs?”

“I run a rescue,” I mutter. “Out of my house. I have over twenty dogs under my care. I can’t… I can’t stay here. They need me.”

He exchanges a glance with the nurse at his side. She looks down at the chart, then back to me. My heart pounds like it’s trying to outrun the room.

“You understand,” he says carefully, “that with injuries like this, combined with substance use, we have to consider psychiatric evaluation. Especially if there’s concern for your safety.”

“I know.”

“And if we believe you’re a danger to yourself ”

“I’m not,” I cut in, voice cracking. “It was a mistake. I was… overwhelmed. But I’m stable now. I just need to get back to them. They’ll panic if I don’t show up. I’m all they have.”

He looks at me for a long, unreadable beat. Then calmly, but with finality:

“You’re lucky we’re not holding you for seventy-two hours.”

That shuts me up.

“We’ll monitor you through the night,” he adds. “If your vitals stay stable and there’s no change in your mental state, you’ll be discharged first thing in the morning.”

And they do.

They keep me under observation, replace my IV fluids, give me Tylenol for the fever they say might be creeping in. I don’t eat the crackers they bring.

I stare at the clock and count every second.

The guilt makes a home in my throat and refuses to budge.

It’s just past 7:00 a.m. when they finally hand me my blood stained clothes and release me with a stack of prescriptions and a slip of paper that says SELF-HARM RISK NOTED in the corner.

I ball it up before I get to the truck.

The drive back is cruel. The early sun cuts across the windshield like a blade.

My arm throbs with every bump in the road, but I barely feel it.

All I can think about is the door.

The mess.

The ones I left behind.

They’re barking before I even turn the key in the lock.

I open the door and

The smell hits me first.

Shit.

Piss.

Wet fur.

They got into a bag of kibble from the pantry. A trash bag was also torn open. A mess I didn’t plan for, because I didn’t plan to fall apart.

They’re all over me the second I step in, whining, pawing, barking with a frantic relief that makes my chest ache. Their tails wag, but they’re confused, anxious. One of the old ones limps. Another has clearly been howling for hours.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, over and over, as I kneel into the chaos.

No time to rest.

No time to fall apart.

I start cleaning. The kitchen tile where the mug shattered still bears the dried, rust-dark imprint of what I did. I wiped it clean. Not because I want to, but because I have to. Because if I stop, I’ll think about what it means.

After that, it’s food. One scoop, then another.

Rinse the bowls.

Fresh water.

Let them out the back one by one so they don’t trample each other.

By the time they’re all settled, I can barely keep my eyes open. The pain meds from the hospital haven’t worn off yet, and my stomach churns from moving too much too fast.

But the dishes are washed.

The blood is gone.

The shards from the mug are gone.

The dogs are fed.

I collapse on the couch like something discarded, twenty-four hours older and lifetimes more hollow.

My mind lands on the card. Still stuck on the kitchen counter.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Crisp letters, expensive cardstock.

I told the doctor I had an appointment.

I lied.

But the thought lingers.

Like a seed under my skin, too deep to pull out.

And I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’ll water it.

Just once.

Just to see what grows.

#hannibal #hannigram #will graham #hannibal nbc #archiveofourown

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