AN: I started writing this fic when Mizumono aired, and I was still in the middle of watching season 1. I finished writing it when I was watching Takiawase and I haven't really changed it since then. If you think anything in this fic might be triggering, please feel free to message me for more details.
The first thing that Will does when he gets back home- back to Wolf Trap- is give every single one of his dogs a giant hug. They whine as he pets them, and Will clutches them to him fiercely. He'd missed them much more than he'd expected to. The hospital wouldn't allow dogs in, and Will hadn't seen them since he made a call before he went over to Han-
He had called one of his neighbors before to stop by each day, to let the dogs out and feed them. Will feels a stab of sympathy for them, briefly; they'd probably had to undergo a lot of questioning when the agents found them going around Will's place. The second thing he does is grab the gun under the floorboards by the fireplace- probably the only one that the FBI sweep missed- and go out into the woods with his pack for a walk.
He ignores his hallucinations as much as he can. The ravenstag follows him through the woods, and two people tut disapprovingly at him as he eats standing up in the kitchen.
He dreams vividly when he sleeps.
A wendigo standing in front of him, black as night with pointed antlers that add another foot and a half to its height, reaching out towards him with a clawed hand, a bloody beating heart in the other. Abigail in a white dress, Hannibal in a dark suit, the both of them smiling at him over dinner. Garrett Jacob Hobbs- who had left Will alone for a little while- smiling at him, asking him, "see?" He dreams of the Florence sun spilling through windows and the heft of a knife in his hand, of blood spilling out between his fingers and the cold metal slicing through his skin.
He always wakes up, repeating to himself, "Not real, not real, not real notrealnotreal," until it doesn't sound like English anymore; words decaying into simple sound, just nonsense.
A dark huff of laughter, And when has that ever mattered, Will? Will tries his hardest not to fall asleep. He lies awake in his bed, trying not to think at all but inevitably going through all the ways it went wrong. If only Lounds didn't wear so much perfume, if only Alana hadn't come that night, if only Jack had waited a few more hours, if only Will had gone with Hannibal and Abigail.
He's not expecting any visitors, not for a while- everyone that would make the effort to come all the way out to Wolf Trap is dead or in the hospital or on the run. He's completely prepared to stay in Wolf Trap for the foreseeable future, only venturing out when Hannibal made his inevitable return.
Even so, Will's not that surprised when he comes back from walking with the dogs to find Freddie on his front porch, a bright splash of red that draws his attention as soon as he exits the woods. He's much more surprised that she didn't show up earlier. To the rest of the world, Will is supposed to be in the hospital for another month and should still be on enough painkillers to knock out an elephant, but he had checked himself out of the hospital AMA nearly a week ago, and he's been (hiding) at Wolf Trap ever since.
"Will," she greets him as he approaches his porch.
He doesn't say anything to her, just nods in her general direction, as he opens the door for the dogs to go in. They mill around his feet for a moment, brushing against him, before they're lured away by their food bowls. Winston stays right next to him and growls at Freddie when she moves towards Will, her hand outstretched like there was a chance that he would actually shake it. Will sees her other hand tighten on the straps of her purse, knuckles momentarily bone white, and makes a mental note to give Winston a treat later.
With a quick pat, Winston stops growling and Will makes no move to stop Freddie as she follows him into the house. It would take more effort than he's physically capable of at the moment and it doesn't really matter anyways. His sanctuary has already been violated, and Hannibal had done so much more than she ever could.
Hannibal Lecter had cut into Will so deeply that he wasn't sure there was any more room for anyone else. Or maybe it was that Hannibal had taken so much of Will for himself that there was none left for anyone else.
Freddie Lounds does not belong in his house- nothing about her does, from her designer high heels to her bright red hair. It's not her clothes- Hannibal, even in his three piece plaid suits, looked like he belonged in Will's house just as much as Will and his dogs did- she just doesn't fit.
Will doesn't think about what it means that Hannibal belonged in Will's house better than anyone else ever did.
Will doesn't look over to the kitchen where he knows he'll see the man at the stove. Hannibal first showed up at the hospital and came with him to Wolf Trap, and Will has been carefully not thinking about his presence and what it means for over a week and he's perfectly fine not thinking about him for some more time.
There are a lot of things that Will doesn't do now.
Freddie sits down on his couch, unable to hide her discomfort at the coat of dog hair on it, trying her best to appear at ease. Her nonchalant behavior is useless. Even without using his empathy, Will can see her rabbiting pulse in the soft skin of her throat, the fear in her tensed muscles.
Prey should know that it is prey, Hannibal says from the kitchen. Will can hear the smiling approval of Freddie's behavior in his voice. Prey should act like it is prey. Will ignores his hallucination, like he has so many times before.
"So, Will, how does it feel to know that you had been right and were falsely arrested and incarcerated?" she clicks her pen, like she's actually expecting him to speak, like she doesn't have her recorder on already.
Pretty fucking good, actually. Will smirks mentally.
Rude, comes the chastising voice from the kitchen.
Will says nothing.
"What are your feelings about the death of Abigail Hobbs?"
It was regrettable, but necessary. Even so, it happened several months before I cut her throat. Abigail was dead from the moment her ear emerged from Will's esophagus, Hannibal replies calmly from the kitchen.
Off limits, Will snarls.
There's nearly thirty minutes of this, Freddie trying to get a response- any response- out of him. He sits in silence, with Winston standing sentinel at his feet, staring blankly out the window.
The ravenstag paces in the shadows between the trees in the woods, never straying too far from the house. Will can see shafts of sunlight glinting off of the black feathers, can almost hear the snap of twigs beneath its hooves. Hannibal's moving around in the kitchen, just a few steps away. Will can hear the quiet clinking of plates and silverware and the sizzle of meat being cooked.
Freddie finally gives up, putting her notebook away and standing up. "The least I demand after you killed me is an interview, Graham, and I'll get the story one way or another."
Will can already see her planning the story in her head, the opening paragraph detailing his migratory childhood, never more than two years spent in the same place. There would be nothing overtly stated of course, but she'd throw in a few subtle hints of antisocial personality disorder and the development of psychopathic traits. There'd be a paragraph or three about the body that he found when he was twelve and the police investigation that followed (with a delicately worded suggestion that he may have been the one who was responsible for it).
The next few would cover Will's career, from how he worked his way up the ladder as an officer in New Orleans, only to completely drop off the grid after one too many public breakdowns. Freddie already has the names of several officers who would be all too happy to provide details of Will's numerous off-the-record breakdowns- his refusal to participate in departmental politics and his record of closed cases didn't win him any friends within the department. She'd talk about the classes that he taught at the Academy- most of his students would probably be willing to go on record about how weird Professor Graham was, how odd he was, how unstable he was.
The finale, of course, would be about the Chesapeake Ripper, how Will was framed for his crimes, and Hannibal Lecter's presumed escape from the country.
She would cast him as a fragile china teacup, already showing cracks when Jack Crawford plucked him out of his teaching position to track down the Chesapeake Ripper, broken beyond repair by the time that Hannibal Lecter got access to him.
(She'd omit the fact that the only reason that Will had been so easily framed was because of her countless articles calling him a killer. She wouldn't mention the tatters that his reputation was in after his release because of the articles that she'd released while he was in the BSHCI.)
The article would be well written and widely read- it would probably double or triple the usual traffic to the Tattle Crime site. It would make Hannibal out to be every single one of the things that went bump in the dark and would cast Will as his easily manipulated victim.
Will imagines the story being published on the Tattle Crime website, knows that he'd probably have to lock himself in his house for a few days- a few weeks -because of the renewed media scrutiny.
Inconvenient, but not a hard task for you, Hannibal reminds him.
Will imagines Hannibal reading the story wherever he is with Dr. Du Maurier.
Will knows the bodies that he would create in response.
I'd pick someone with bright red hair, and use their ribs as a basket to hold their organs- I'd take the heart with me, not to eat, but because it's not fit to be displayed. The tongue would be placed on the top of the pile, and I'd use the intestines to blindfold it- the pig had made too much sound and would be as blind as truth should be when it dies. It would be gorgeous, the contrast of the white bones with the red blood and bright hair. Would you get to it fast enough to see my design, Will? It wouldn't matter if you didn't. I would make sure to repeat it again and again until I did it perfectly, Hannibal croons savagely from the kitchen, making up Will's mind for him.
He clears his throat, stopping her on her way out.
Will speaks, his voice slightly raspy from disuse. "Would you like to know Hannibal Lecter's victim profile, Ms. Lounds?"
Freddie knows it's a trap and freezes instinctively, and Will might feel bad if it was anyone else.
(Freddie Lounds, however, has been so unspeakably rude to absolutely everyone, that Will thinks she almost deserves it. Hannibal certainly thinks so- Will can see him with a knife slash of a grin from where he's standing just behind Freddie.)
He lets just a little bit of the Chesapeake Ripper- of Hannibal Lecter - out from his head, just enough to color his tone and mold his expression.
He waits until Freddie's turned around completely, body tense and alert in the same way that it was when she was when she was covered in Chilton's blood and had seen the shape that his organs made when they weren't inside him, when she broke into his house to find Tier and had seen what limbs looked like when they were detached from the person they used to belong to.
(Freddie's not thinking of either of those events at the moment, though. She's remembering the absolute terror that filled her as Dr. Lecter chastised her for recording Will's session.)
She has good instincts, Hannibal purred from the corner of the room. It would be fun to run her to ground. Would you like to take on the role of the fox this time, Will? Will doesn't look.
Will raises his eyebrow, waiting for her. It's a chess game, like everything else is in his life. Will's been a pawn and a queen and every other piece on the board. It's her turn to move and he's not going to break the rules, even though this game is massively stacked in Will's favor. She visibly swallows before asking. "How?"
"He chooses those that he finds rude and discourteous." Hannibal recites the second half of the sentence along with him, looking bored.
He can see the moment that she understands what he's saying, her face paling several shades as she yanks open the door and walks (retreats) to her car. His visitors wait until she's inside the car to speak.
The rabbit is confused to be alive, Hannibal stands at the window, watching the car quickly disappear, Are you going to make your lie to me into reality after all, Will?
Will lets himself indulge, skimming the top of the darkness in his mind, seeing Freddie covered in her own blood, stabbed, strangled, presented, eaten.
That was creepy, Abigail declares, slumping onto the floor in front of the fireplace, and not nice. She pouts at him, making her look impossibly younger.
Will feels a smile, unfamiliar, tug at his face. "I am creepy and not nice. Just ask any of my students."
Even so, you could have been more polite. Hannibal stands right in front of him.
"I don't have to worry about you eating me if I'm rude. I didn't ever have to worry about that, did I, Dr. Lecter?"
Never, Mr. Graham, one of Hannibal's hands run through his hair, before he sits next to Will. Do you forgive me Will? He asks again.
Will rolls the word around in his mouth before saying it, lets himself feel the truth of it. "Always."
He doesn't look up. He doesn't want to see his blood on Hannibal's hands, the bruises that had already been blooming from his fight with Jack or the look on his face as he gutted Will. The expression on his face could have been described as love.
He doesn't want to see the scar on Abigail's neck, her blank expression as he held her as she bled out, the reopened wound that went so much deeper than the one her biological father gave her. The expression on her face could have been described as love.
Will knows that the expression on his face included love. Even as Hannibal cut his abdomen open, even as Will tried to hold Abigail's neck closed, even as he got soaked in their mingled blood -even then, love was on his face.
Will doesn't look up, and continues chatting with his hallucinations, pretending that his world didn't shatter a few weeks ago. He indulges himself with his domestic fantasy, pretending, just for a little while, that the teacup came back together.