Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: You can take the man out of the psychiatric hospital, but you can't take the psychiatric hospital out of the man. Will recovers from Baltimore after his release. Post-Savoureux.
Author's Notes: Phew! It has been a busy week for me, and it will continue to be a busy month. I am looking forward to settling into my new place and job soon. Thank you for your continued readership! I hope this chapter has been worth the wait!
The title is an earlier iteration of the phrase 'between a rock and a hard place'. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus ends up between a monster called Scylla and a whirlpool (Charybdis). Will empathizes...and not just because he has an empathy disorder.
"Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain"
~The Wasteland (V 339-342)
Chapter Eleven: Between Scylla and Charybdis
"We could walk inside."
"I'm fine."
He's not. His body is buzzing. Will doesn't know with what. Panic and rage are operating in pretty equal measure. He buries himself behind the collar of his jacket and then quickly unburies himself. Hannibal already knows whatever he's trying to hide. He says as much in the next breath with barely a glance in Will's direction.
"You're trembling."
"I wasn't expecting you."
"I understand if you are not prepared to visit with me," Hannibal's eyes weave over his skin like daggers, "Our last exchange was rather tense."
Will's mouth sets itself into a hard line. "Baltimore or the trial?"
"Both."
In both cases, Hannibal had sat on the outside of the cage and wove lie upon lie about Will's mental health, psychological status, and character. All carefully masked as passive observation, of course. Hannibal is just so much more believable than Will.
"Are you going to send me back to Baltimore?"
Will feels Hannibal mulling over his response as he would a fine wine. Not because he sees any reason to lie; only because he hasn't considered the answer. His reply is perfectly and characteristically double, as much one thing as it is another. "Baltimore is not my first choice of psychiatric facility," he allows himself to say. Will reads between the lines: Chilton is not Hannibal's first choice of psychiatrist. "Would it displease you to go back there?"
"Yes," Will says. There's no reason to lie.
"Because you don't deserve to be locked up or because of Dr. Chilton?"
"Both."
Hannibal's smile is invisible, but Will knows it's there, under his skin, along with the rest of him. "I had hoped that Dr. Chilton would, at the very least, remedy your delusions of persecution," the exasperation in his voice is tempered somewhat by the bitterness sharpening every consonant. Casual listeners wouldn't identify it, but Will can. Hannibal doesn't like that other people have been able to mistreat his things. "However, his decision to submit you for electroconvulsive therapy was careless and vulgar. A pity he was not treating you at full strength or in good health."
Will expects some barb about Chilton's intelligence but none is forthcoming. "What do you mean?"
"Dr. Chilton has suffered a severe relapse. His wounds from Abel Gideon succumbed to a long-standing infection. He has been re-hospitalized."
"Something he ate?" Will suggests acidly.
Hannibal doesn't take the bait, but the temperature between them enters free fall. "Injuries like Dr. Chilton's are prone to infections regardless of diet," the doctor's pause is significant. Will's ears perk up; his blood floods with fresh adrenaline. "Then again, one can never be too careful."
"Something you cooked," Will says lowly.
Hannibal's silence is as much a confirmation as it is plausible deniability.
(Will isn't ready for this.)
He's been making a point of staying close to the on-duty staffers populating the area, but that just seems to tighten the wrought-iron control Hannibal has over his own tongue. They could go inside. Closed doors and privacy might tempt the good doctor into dropping his carefully crafted facade for just a moment. But then Will would be left alone with whatever monster lurks beneath Hannibal's well coifed surface, the same monster that got him wrongfully imprisoned and set the whole world against him.
He opts for a compromise then, taking a left at the fork with Hannibal following him towards the trees. They won' t be overhead from there but can be clearly seen by the staff members.
(The spectre in the shadows has vanished today and taken up residence in the good doctor's blood brown irises.)
Will glares at the sidewalk. "You can't keep pretending that what I know isn't real."
"What you know is highly questionable," Hannibal reminds him, "if not entirely doubtful. But I will humour you, Will: what is it you think you know?"
He sees the trap now that he's not fever blind. "Why don't you tell me what I know? You seem to know my thoughts better than I do."
Hannibal's eyes wander, searching for an audience. There isn't one. Will still feels him tightening up underneath his skin. "You believe that I killed Abigail Hobbs."
"I know you killed Abigail Hobbs."
"You believe that I have killed before."
"I know that you have killed before."
"Who have I killed, Will? Cassie Boyle? Marissa Schurr?"
"Dr. Sutcliffe, Georgia Madchen..."
Hannibal's lips have all the makings of a smile now. "You believe I am responsible for other unsolved murders as well."
"Cassie Boyle was not your first murder, and Abigail Hobbs won't be your last."
The smile broadens into a wicked, thin Cheshire grin. To everyone else, Hannibal just seems entertained by wild allegations, but Will feels the expression gnaw at his insides, confessing with every bite that I will kill and kill again. "Why would I commit these murders, Will?"
"You like committing murder, Dr. Lecter."
"Tell me who I am, Will," Hannibal dares him.
Will shakes his head. Fear and anger override his fine motor skills, so the action comes off looking like one of his tics. Still, his voice is steady when he demands, "You tell me who you are."
"I want to hear it in your voice, Will."
"I'd much rather hear it in yours."
They come to a halt just shy of where the path meets the trees, and the two men regard each other for a very long moment. It's the longest Will has maintained eye contact with Lecter since Baltimore. His eyes sting, but he doesn't bury himself from the strain. "Do you dream much, Will?" Hannibal asks without really asking. He already knows the answer.
"Sometimes I dream I'm you," Will answers.
"What do you do in those dreams?"
"I apologize to Abigail before I kill her."
"Because you feel sorry for her?"
"No," Will says, "because I feel sorry for myself."
Hannibal's veil thins ever-so-slightly. For the first time, Will catches a glimpse of what lies beneath: a dark presence, neither human nor animal, but something in between. "Why kill her, then?" the doctor asks.
"Because she would expose me," Will answers quickly. He only realizes his error a second later when Hannibal's eyes start gleaming. "I mean...you. She would expose you. For Nicholas Boyle. But not...not just for Nicholas Boyle." His imagination starts to spiral wildly. Jack Crawford would be hard pressed to believe her testimony that Lecter helped hide Nicholas Boyle's body, but he wouldn't be surprised to learn that she was sneaking off to visit Lecter late at night.
"There were others," Will sees them – blurry at first and then clearly, "Others that she...knew about. That she..."
His next breath catches in his throat. He isn't sure what sickens him more: that Hannibal has killed and will kill again, or that Abigail helped him do it sometimes.
(After everything, Hannibal had been more her father than Will could have ever aspired to be.)
Will has to stop himself. He has to bury his hands in his pockets to keep them from flying forward, has to swallow back the cries looking to punch their way out through his teeth. His jaw throbs against the fury of sound just aching to make itself known. Hannibal sent him to Baltimore (to Chilton and gospel music and lights on light off weak sick alone). Hannibal has killed at least five people (Cassie Boyle, Marissa Schurr, Dr. Sutcliffe, Georgia Madchen...) and Abigail...watched him? Helped him? Liked it? Enough that Hannibal couldn't let her live when the FBI came to call.
(He apologizes because he couldn't save her from herself, because of what the FBI intends to do to her, because she doesn't deserve to die.)
"Should I call for assistance, Will?" Hannibal asks.
Will wants to call. He wants to scream it all out in one long confession. He wants to beat the disguise off Hannibal's face, wants to see that black skin and horned creation that hovers in his peripheral vision. There's no one to call who will offer assistance though. Will's more unreliable now as a witness than he was in Baltimore, and he hates himself for it. He hates how tightly Hannibal has managed to lock him away: first in Baltimore, now inside himself.
Hannibal starts to turn for an orderly when Will's fingers knot around his coat lapel. His voice emerges from beneath the deep, dark twisted curtains in his mind, down with all the monsters he's collected over the years. He looks at Hannibal through Hannibal's eyes and speaks to Hannibal in Hannibal's voice. "That won't be necessary, Dr. Lecter," he says. "I'm fine."
Hannibal wraps a hand tightly over Will's wrist, but he doesn't pull. He holds Will to him, binding them together. "You're absolutely sure."
(I should have shot you when I had the chance.)
"Yes," he dies from having to say it, and no matter how many pieces of Will have died during his incarceration, this is the first time he's felt alive enough to perish in recent memory. He's been released from Baltimore only to find himself imprisoned by expectations orchestrated by Hannibal's careful planning. He almost vomits when he says again, "Yes, I'm fine."
"You dream of killing the other victims," Lecter says, tightening his grip on Will's wrist. He's exploring. Like a child who's just discovered that other people feel pain. "Tell me about those dreams."
He's not going to give Lecter the pleasure, not after giving up so much of his soul already. Will releases his grip on the doctor's lapel. His wrist is released in return, and he returns the hand to his pocket. "Tell me how it felt to mount Abigail Hobbs's body on a stag's head."
"You already know, Will," Hannibal reminds him.
And it's true: he already does. Will grieves for himself as he mounts Abigail's fragile body atop the antlers. He doesn't want to humiliate her this way, but she's the only card left to play.
"You are not going to get away with this," Will promises. He's still finding it hard to speak with his jaw cramping up. "They are going to let me out of here eventually."
"I don't doubt it," Hannibal says pleasantly. "In fact, I am looking forward to your release."
"I'm coming for you, Dr. Lecter."
"Of course," his excitement is intoxicating in that moment. Will is swept up into the dark, slick gleam in his eyes and lost amidst a sea of sweet anticipation. Hannibal has missed him. It has taken every ounce of the doctor's not unsubstantial self-control to stay away, to bide his time, to wait for an invitation. "I feel, however, that I must warn you. If only out of respect to our friendship," Will tastes bile at the sound of the word. Hannibal's eyes smolder. "I am very difficult to catch, Will."
"Then out of respect to our friendship, Dr. Lecter," he is going to be sick the second Hannibal leaves, "I am very difficult to stop."
The sight of Lecter's smile is enough to make Will attack. He knows exactly what that smile means now: he wasn't so difficult to lock away the first time. Hannibal can and will do it again. The thought of Baltimore sobers Will somewhat, keeps his fists buried in his pockets and his scowl from jutting across his face. The saner he appears right now, the harder it will be for Lecter to put him away again.
(He hopes.)
"The staff is more suspicious of visitors than the staff at Baltimore," Hannibal notes, though Will hasn't seen his eyes move in the slightest. He turns back towards the building. "I wonder what the turnover rate is for employees."
"Faster now that you're here," Will chides as they begin to walk back towards the building.
"Dr. Chilton has already done sufficient damage to your psyche, and I do not want your release impeded any further. The staff of Bethesda may keep their job security." Hannibal's posture changes slightly now, just enough that an itch breaks out under Will's skin, "This Dr. Lampman is intriguing though."
He tries to hide how defensive he becomes by sounding casual. "I don't find her that interesting."
"As I recall, you didn't find me interesting either."
"That was before I knew you," Will growls. "You have my full and complete interest now."
The monster under Hannibal's skin settles contentedly. All is right with the world.
They make their way slowly towards the building. Their silence speaks louder than words. Will is a billowing rustle of storm clouds, thunder and lightning and kinetic energy. Meanwhile Hannibal is cold metal buffered until transparent, but the storm clouds brewing on the surface aren't a reflection of Will. He's as much a storm as his companion; he's just better at hiding.
"I'm sorry to cut our visit short," Hannibal says when they reach the door, "but I'm afraid I'm having company for dinner tonight."
"Give my regards to Alana," Will mutters glumly. She will sit at Hannibal's table and love every second.
"Dr. Bloom will not be joining me tonight. Some colleagues are attending a conference in Baltimore today."
Will's blood goes cold. "A c-conference?"
The stutter is unintentional. He wishes he had been more careful. Hannibal notices. "Yes. I'll be entertaining tonight. Perhaps I will bring you some leftovers tomorrow, if you'd care to see me."
There's not enough room in his chest for air or maybe there's not enough air for him to breathe. Conference, colleagues, leftovers, Hannibal, killing...he hasn't seen Lampman for two days. Will's mouth hangs open, throat dry, caught between anger and terror.
"Good day, Will."
Hannibal walks briskly through the building towards the exit: comfortable, secure, victorious. Will can only watch him go. Saying or doing anything else will only confirm his diagnosis and extend his time at Bethesda.
"Everything okay, Mr. Graham?" Neil asks.
"Where is Dr. Lampman today?" he demands.
"A conference."
"What city?"
Neil shrugs. "Baltimore."
Will feels faint. His eyes roll back in his skull. He scrubs his face to keep from passing out. "I need a phone," he blinks rapidly, focusing up for the task at hand. "I need a phone now."
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