AN- Hey, spoiler, they caught the dude. I thought the case in this episode was boring so I skipped ahead to the best part(at least in my opinion).
"We are her fathers now. We have to serve her better than Garrett Jacob Hobbs." Was about all the prelude Will got before he found out that he was having dinner with both Abigail and Freddie-fucking-Lounds. They were in the kitchen where Hannibal was fixing a salad of all things. Will was plowing through a remarkably good bottle of red with great determination. The details of how things like this came to be were lost to Will in his current state.
"Again with this? Abigail is a liability." Will snapped.
"She's stronger than you think." Hannibal admonished, unperturbed by the events he had set into motion because why the fuck not. Everyone knew how emotionally stable teenagers were, especially ones who were just horrifically lost both their parents, and oh yeah, daddy dearest had been a serial killer. What could possibly go wrong?
"You feel guilty about her parents? Great! Congratulations on having a normal human emotion for once in your life! This is a bad idea." Will said, fuming into his wine.
"We're just having dinner with someone who wants to help Abigail."
"That remains to be seen." Will said, making Hannibal wince by chugging what was left of the wine.
"That was a 1949 Domaine Leroy Richebourge Grand Cru." Hannibal said, "They only make about 700 bottles of that a year."
"Hah! Good! Serves you right for putting out expensive wine." Will said before pausing long enough to study the aged label. "It's really expensive, isn't it?"
"If you consider 6,000 dollars really expensive, then yes, it is." Hannibal said with a twinkle in his eye as he watched Will deflate.
"I hate you." Will muttered, going back to sipping the wine like any higher power intended.
"I know." Hannibal said, kissing the side of Will's head. The salad was complete so now it was time for fun and games with Will's least two favorite people.
"I feel terrible, Miss Lounds. Never entered my head you might be a vegetarian." Hannibal said as he placed the plate before Lounds. "A lapse on my behalf."
"Research always delivers benefits." Was Lounds's smart, and not so smart, reply.
"If it contradicts a good story, hell, publish it anyway." Will got to her first, the wine and discontent goading him on.
"Are you still angry I called you insane?" Lounds said as she set down her silverware to precisely hone in on him. "The libel laws are clear, Mr. Graham."
"Insinuation is such a grey area." Will shot back. The exchange made Abigail look uncomfortable and Hannibal intrigued. He loved a show with dinner.
"Insinuation isn't really black or white, is it? We're all pathological in our own ways."
"Yes, but the difference is that I don't publish my insinuations about you on a public forum. You also tend to choose the version of the truth that suits you best," Will said, "And pursue it. Pathologically."
"Everyone decides their own versions of the truth. I'm here because I want to tell Abigail's version of the truth." Lounds tried to get this exchange back on a different track.
"See that you do." Will said, definitely a threat lingering in the bones of that sentence. "Apparently, you get off on being sued, and I'm not here to kink shame."
"What you can do is dangerous." Lounds said, finally dropping any facade of being civil.
"So what?!" Will scoffed, "I can think like anyone, not just killers."
"Even me?"
"Even you." Will said, immediately regretting it. "No. Don't ask. You won't like it. No one does."
"You don't get off that easily. Tell me something. Anything." Lounds challenged, arching a brow at him.
"Think you can handle it?" Had Will been sober, he would have gotten up and left. As he was at the moment, Will just leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared Lounds down like they were two Wild West gunslingers arguing over who cheated at cards.
"Only one way to find out." Lounds wasn't backing down an inch so Will decided to unload full barrels on her.
"You were a loner in high school. Yes, you had alliances, but no real friends. That was by choice in the later years, still is today. Someone you once trusted betrayed you, someone you viewed as family, but who wasn't blood, someone you thought of as your best friend or kid. You never forgave them for that, or really trusted anyone afterward. You weren't popular, but you weren't bullied either. You made sure of that. You learned the power of the written word and whispering a secret into the right ear early on. Not athletic enough for cheerleading, not interested enough in theater, especially when you were so good at creating your own drama, you were a fringe kid, an outsider. You noticed things too quickly, more quickly than your peers. Then and now, you want, more than anything, above all else, is to be noticed. How am I doing?"
"Keep going." Lounds was beginning to get unsettled, but was doing an excellent job of hiding it. Anyone else would have been fooled by her bravado.
"The world can burn as long as you get recognition from your peers and a parking spot with your name on it." You don't just want to be famous. That's not the end game for you. You want to be truly seen for what you bring to the table. More than anything, you want to be respected, especially when it comes down to your work." Will said, "You don't necessarily understand the killers you write about. You don't have to. All you want and need is your career, it what defines you. Everything else, including the people in your life, comes secondary. Always have, always will be now."
"Anything else?" Lounds said tightly.
"You're a lesbian." Will smiled as he watched Lounds's reaction, controlled as it was. "You play for any team to get what you want because it's just sex, but your heart lies with the ladies. You're also a vegetarian because you were made to clean the Thanksgiving bird one year in your preteens, and you lost your taste for meat all together from that one experience."
"How the fuck do you know any of that?" It was such a thrill and joy for Will to see Lounds so damn unsettled.
"Told you. No one likes it." Will shrugged, "No one gets to keep their secrets with me, not even the people I love. That's my burden to bear in life. Always has been. Will be until the day I die." Will said, "Do you get it now, or should I keep going? You want me to talk about your parents, or more accurately, the lack their presence or approval in your life?"
"No." Lounds said quickly, taking a moment to regroup to fake some calm. "No. You're made your point."
"Oh c'mon, this is fun. I can do Abigail next." Will smiled lazily as the teenager paled.
"Is this how you catch killers? Dissect people in your head?" Abigail said tightly.
"If I want to. I usually don't, want to, that is. Bad luck that I'm the best, or so I've been told." Will shrugged, leaving off the verbal evisceration. "It's painful for me."
"How?" Abigail asked.
"I can't forget. Eidetic memory." Will said as he tapped the side of his head. "Anything I work out from someone else gets stored up here, and believe you me, most of it isn't pretty."
"How are you not insane?" Lounds was looking at him differently now. The distain was practically all gone, but it had been replaced with a hungry open curiosity.
"According to you, I am." Will pointed out, "Did you now I used to be a cop?"
"Yes."
"Do you know why I stopped being a cop?"
"You got injured on the job, but I don't know the particulars of why I you quit."
"I find research always delivers benefits." Will grinned in the face of Lounds's annoyed look, "Yeah, I got stabbed. I couldn't pull the trigger on someone trying to end my own life because of my empathy. So now, I teach because I can help others do what I can't and save lives. Teach them to know where and how to look. I occasionally consult on the…interesting ones."
"Any cases I would know?"
"Probably all of them. The Doll Maker, the Harlequin's Kiss, the Lovers, and Mr. Nobody just to name a few." The name dropping made Lounds's face light up from within.
"Why are you currently in the field if it's so bad for you then?" Lounds was fishing for something.
"Jack wants me to catch the Chesapeake Killer. I get to go back to my peace of sorts and my classroom after I do." Will lied at the end. He would never know peace in this life again.
"You could always quit." Abigail pointed out.
"You've met Jack." Will scoffed.
"So get a restraining order and then quit." Lounds said, warming up to the idea definitely for her own personal reasons.
"And do what?" Will asked, though he already had an idea of what she was about to say.
"Help me write a series of books. After I help Abigail, of course." Lounds had utterly no shame.
"Holy hell, you've got some brass balls." Will whistled between his teeth like his daddy had once done when he was blown away by something.
"So I've been told. That's not a no."
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was his damn empathy. Yeah, when Lounds looked at him, she saw fame and money tacked over his head like a halo, but at the very least, Lounds was blatant about it. She didn't try to dress up her desires as something for the greater good or a higher calling or a guilt trip. In that aspect, Freddie Lounds was better than most people. Christ, what was the world coming to.
"I tell you what." Will drawled out, because the odds of what he was about to say were so unlikely. "If I get fired from the FBI, I'll consider it. Don't take that as a yes by any means of the imagination, and if anyone asks me about it, I'll deny it."
"I won't tell anything you don't want me to." Lounds tried to sweeten the pot.
"Let's see how you do with Abigail on that." Will shot back.
"I don't have anything to hide." Abigail said, making Will wish he could reach across the table to smack Abigail upside her damn head.
"Everyone has something to hide." In a sense, Freddie beat Will to it. Her words held a "the grownups are talking" vibe to it.
"You must understand our concerns. We care about Abigail." The bastard butcher of Baltimore decided to rejoin the conversation now that the entertainment had fizzled out. He didn't react to be kicked under the table, not that Will was expecting him to. "Our only thoughts are to protect her."
"She's already exposed. Her silence until now has been taken as guilt. This book is about her innocence. I want Abigail to have a future, and she can only do that with money and positive public perception."
"Fine. Go for broke, but leave us out of it." Will said as he helped himself to more wine, pouring for no one else. "You have more than enough material to work with."
"Well, we all want what's best for Abigail." Hannibal said magnanimously as he rescued the bottle.
"This is possibly the finest salad I've ever eaten in my life. Shame to ruin it with all that meat." Made Will choke on his wine. Ignoring Hannibal, Will excused himself before he pulled something from trying not to laugh, or cry, or both.