Disclaimer: I do not own Hannibal.
Do you know who I am?
Hannibal opened the door to his office and simply gazed upon Will for a moment. The man in question was stood in the middle of the room, coat folded over one arm whilst fidgeting nervously whilst his gaze flickered around the room anxiously as he waited. Hannibal cleared his throat to gain Will's attention and much to his surprise Will turned and looked him in the eye. If Hannibal had been a lesser man, he would have taken a step back in horror and the darkness those eyes held.
For a moment Hannibal felt a sensation of unease creep up this spine.
He was in presence of a predator, a predator greater than he.
But before Hannibal had a chance to study that darkness, Will's gaze dropped to the floor and Hannibal almost shook his head and he stepped back and held out an arm, inviting Will into the room so they could begin their session, certain he had imagined it. Maybe it had simply been the reflections of the minds of the killers that Will looked into which had stared back at him. A pack which had his own predator uneasy. Or maybe it was the thrill of having the one man capable of catching him in such a close proximity.
Shutting the door once Will had entered, Hannibal turned and watched as Will walked around the room. Will rested his coat over the back on one of the armchairs and began to walk around the room taking in every detail as his flickered from floor to ceiling. However, gone was Will's nervousness. He stood tall with his back straight and head held high. If Hannibal hadn't known better, he would have said this wasn't the man who had walked into his office seconds before. Will reached up and took off his glasses and brushed his hair back from his face.
"Is it true," Will said as he passed Hannibal's desk. "That I could confess I had killed someone right now, and you wouldn't be able to tell anybody?"
"I believe that is your reason for being here right now, isn't it, Mister Graham?" Hannibal asked, moving to sit in the seat opposite the chair Will had placed his coat over.
Will snorted, "Just answer the question. And call me Will."
If it wasn't for the fact Hannibal found himself so fascinated by Will, that alone would have been enough for Will to be appearing on Hannibal's table.
"Yes," Hannibal looked over his shoulder at Will, who had come to a stop in front of a stage statue. "It is true."
"But if I told you I planned to kill someone, you'd have to contact the authorities, right?" Will turned and made his way over to the chair opposite Hannibal.
"Yes," Hannibal nodded. "Do you plan on killing someone, Will?"
Will let out a laugh and sat down, stretching out and crossing his legs at the ankles.
"I was simply curious, Doctor," Will smiled.
"Please call me Hannibal," Hannibal studied Will, who meet his gaze head-on.
Hannibal couldn't help but feel intrigued by the man he saw before him, so completely different from the man he'd first been introduced to in Jack's office.
"Do you know who I am, Doctor Lecter?" Will asked, raising one eyebrow.
Hannibal stared back at Will, the intrigue turning to unease as he once again saw the darkness which lay within Will.
"You are Will Graham of the FBI," Hannibal answered.
Will smiled again and Hannibal got the feeling he was missing something important.
"Why do you believe I am here, Doctor?" Will glanced around the room.
"To discuss whether you are ready to return to the field," Hannibal replied. "You killed a man, Jack wishes to know whether you are stable enough for the field."
"He's not the first person I've killed," Will shrugs one shoulder. "He's not the second or the third. Hell, he's not even in the double figures if you count the assisted kills and indirect deaths I've caused."
Will let out a laugh and Hannibal remained silent as he processed this new information. Will was a killer.
A serial killer.
"I was nine the first time I hid a body," Will continued. "My father killed my mother and I helped him hide the body. After that my father made me help him every time he had to dispose of a body. By the time I was ten, I knew how to clean a crime scene, so no evidence was left behind and serval different ways to kill a man quickly and quietly. The first person I killed was my father. I was fourteen and he was drunk, it was easy enough to make it look like a drunken accident. You see, my father was a poor man. He fished, and he fixed motors, but it wasn't making enough money. He quickly learned, if you did the dirty work of others, they'd pay you. He'd killed more people, disposed of more bodies and beaten up more people than I've had hot meals.
"The second time I killed, I was sixteen. I had left school late and as I was fetching my bike I saw one of the school football players raping a girl behind the bike shed. I called the police and he was arrested. I stood up in court and I told them what had happened. But you see, he was the son of the mayor, he'd already been offered scholarships. He had a future, so the mayor pulled a few strings, paid money into the right hands and the court dropped the case and the sheriff let him go. He came after me, he cornered me in the workshop by the docks. They found his body three days later, half eaten by a croc fifteen miles downstream. He'd been dead before he entered the water. Police concluded someone had been angry he'd been let off without charge…
"They were right, I'd been furious. It's what inspired me to join the police force. I thought I could stop something like that from happening again. I could get justice. It didn't take me long to realise how wrong I'd been to believe I could make a difference. I have an Empathy Disorder and working the streets exposed me to all sorts of horrors and I realised I wasn't going to make a difference, at least not by being a law-abiding citizen. I had certain skills, so I put them to use. It started with cold cases and it wasn't long before I became one of the FBI's most wanted. I started killing when I was fourteen years old and I haven't stopped since.
"Because, you see Doctor, I'm not just your everyday run of the mill serial killer. I'm, as the FBI have so fondly taken to calling me, The Killer of Killers. I'm sure you've heard of me. Freddie is always sprouting her usual tripe about me, a killer who kills other killers. But not just killers, rapists, paedophiles and any other scum of the earth who cross my path too. I play the part of the unstable profiler quiet well, don't you think? But that's not the reason I'm here."
A sensation run up Hannibal's spine, but he couldn't work out whether in was of fear or anticipation. Will uncrossed his legs and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he grinned.
"Shall we play a game, Chesapeake Ripper?"
)o(
Hey! I hope you enjoyed that. Thank you for reading!
Blessed be,
TreeOfLife1997.