"Will, you're home."

Hannibal sounded genuinely surprised, enough so Will felt guilt flare up in him. He often didn't return home on Friday nights, choosing to send his weekends in Wolf Trap with his dogs. It apparently had become habit enough for Hannibal not to expect him back in time for dinner on Friday nights.

"Yeah, sorry. I guess I should have called or said something this morning." Will mumbled, rubbing the back of him neck. He had just really wanting to see Hannibal, and sleep in their bed. The young lady that Hannibal had hired who looked after Will's dogs did a wonderful job of it, so he knew they would be well taken care of in his absence. "I can leave if you want me to, and grab something to eat."

It was a reasonable offer in Will's mind. He knew how much time, effort, and planning went into every entrée so it was unfair to assume Hannibal would prepare enough food for two on a night he didn't expect Will to show up. Hannibal's answering expression said otherwise, the Alpha frowning at him.

"I never want you to leave, but I believe it has to be your choice to stay. This is your home, Will." Hannibal said. "I am only hesitant because I believe you will not find this evening's company to your liking, at least not half of it."

"Why? Who else is here?" Will asked to have his question answered as Chilton entered the kitchen with full wine glass in hand, followed closely behind by Alana.

"What an unexpected surprise. Hannibal said you wouldn't be home this evening. I'm happy to see that he was wrong." Chilton said in greeting, looking every bit the rodent Will attributed him to in his head.

"Hello Will. It's good to see you." Alana smiled warmly at him, though she looked weary. Talking to Chilton for extended periods of time could do that to a person.

"Doctor Bloom and I have often spoken with each other about you, Mr. Graham, or should I call you Doctor Graham." Chilton sleezed, his form of greeting oily and full of fakery. The expression on Alana's face told an entirely different story in that matter, her appall not as well hidden as she would have liked.

Even if she hadn't been there, Will didn't need her to confirm the presence of a lie. He knew Alana would never discuss anything about him with another person, especially someone like Chilton. "No, I'm not a doctor." Will strove to sound indifferent.

"You're not FBI either." Chilton observed, reminding Will that he was still dressed for work, wearing his badge. He was also armed, but Will doubted that Hannibal would appreciate murder in his kitchen. Then again, Hannibal had the air of a man contemplating strange thoughts, though not that the look as he appeared to be completely relaxed, mixing together mysterious ingredients while tenderized meat. "That's a temporary identification badge."

"Will holds a teaching position at the academy. He lends his services to the FBI as a profiler." Hannibal intervened, gritting his back teeth. The dish was tricky and needed his attention if he wanted to execute it properly. Will had chosen to come home at an inopportune time, though the fact that he had unexpectedly come back to him filled Hannibal with an odd comforting sense of wholeness.

"A teacher…" Chilton looked positively giddy upon learning something else about the empath. "….and a profiler. Oh yes, that thing you do. You're quite the topic of conversation in psychiatric circles."

"Am I?" Will said softly, low and tense. He quite sure of who led such conversations. Chilton been hounding him for years, always on the edge of his peripheral. The man was an Alpha in the sense that his predator was a scavenger of opportunity, a hyena at best. It must of killed him when Will slipped through his fingers at the Auction, Hannibal outbidding while he pulled rank and intimidated any other buyer.

"Ah yes, A unique cocktail of personality disorders and neuroses that make you a highly skilled profiler." Chilton was practically leering, Will feeling disgust run up and down his spine. He had dodged a bullet at Auction. If Hannibal hadn't been there….

"Will's not here to be analyzed." Alana snapped, bodily putting herself between Will and Chilton.

"Perhaps he should be. We are woefully short on material on his sort of thing" Chilton smiled, the expression greedy. "Would you mind coming in to speak with some of the staff, Mr. Graham?"

"No thank you. I have a bad feeling that you would never let me out." Will said coldly, reminding himself where he was and who he belonged to. Chilton wasn't a threat to him, held no power over him in anyone's eyes.

"No, no, no. Not right now of course." Chilton pressed. "Soon. Maybe a special visit then…."

Everyone jumped as an oven door was slammed harder than necessary, all three turning to look at Hannibal who stared stonily back at them. "My apologies. Accidents happen even in my kitchen." He said, the inflections of the wording odd. For some reason, it frightened Will, who suddenly become very aware of every sharp object in the well stocked kitchen. The array of knives at hand alone was impressive. What was strange though was he was frightened not for himself or even Alana, but for Chilton. There was warning there in that fake apology.

"Alana, Frederick if you would like to retire to the dining room, dinner will be done soon." Hannibal more ordered than suggested. "Will if you'd like to clean up before the meal, there is plenty of time to do so."

Sighing in relief, Will nodded, making for the stairs in the back instead of following Alana and Chilton out. He was finally getting to know the house well enough to navigate it without aid. The little map he kept in his wallet helped to. Will's arm was caught before he could escape though. "I can make an excuse for you if you wish to remain upstairs for the remainder of the evening. I'll bring dinner up to your room." Hannibal offered, this sounding more like an apology than the polite deceit from before.

"I'm not going to let someone like Chilton dictate where I go in my own home." Will snorted, Hannibal responding oddly by growing very still as he stared at Will who quickly reviewed his words. They both knew what had been said, what had been admitted, though Hannibal was trying very hard not to make a big deal about it.

Will freed himself from Hannibal's hold on him but leaned in to dryly brush their lips together in a quick kiss. "I'll be down when I'm done. Is there anything you want me to wear?" Will asked.

"You can wear whatever you feel most comfortable in." Hannibal said but even that sounded bizarre to Will, like a test of some kind. "Go into my closet if you'd like." he added before turning back to the preparations of dinner.

Will contemplated the Alpha's words as he showered quickly, toweling off as he padded toward the ridiculously large rooms deemed as closets. He knew it had something to do with his collars, that much was obvious. The invitation into his closet was an interesting anomaly. They both knew that Will won't enter Hannibal's clothing space willingly unless under pain of death. So it made it the most opportune place to hide things from Will, the empath reasoned out Hannibal's thinking as he let himself in. He found what he was looking for easily enough, the velvet boxes on the same shelving as all the rest of Hannibal's jewelry. Among the glittering array of cufflinks, heavy watches, and rings Will never saw Hannibal wear, there were the cases that could only contained collars, the shape of the boxes unique in size and brand marking. To Will's disbelief and mild horror, there were over a dozen there. Will made himself look through them all, one after the other more beautiful than the last.

The gold one must have cost a small fortune, the collar thick as three fingers and designed to be more like a bangle than a collar. It was engraved with a delicate yet complicated design Will had only seen in pictures of temples found only in India.

Out of all though, Will chose a silver choker style collar, the metal filigree of it made so delicately and with such skill it could have been metallic French Baroque lacework. The stylized blossoms were decorated with tanzanite, making the flowers a glittering purple blue. It reminded Will of forget-me-nots, the Omega trading out his leather collar for it. It was expensive, looked it, but still felt comfortably enough to wear, its bandwidth slim compared to some of the others. It would be a bright shining mark of ownership across his throat, one that would taunt Chilton till the end of his stay. Will dressed himself simply in black jeans and a black dress shirt left untucked, its top three buttons left wide open. He padded down bare foot though he usually wore at least socks on his feet. It was statement, all of it. The casual clothing was for him, the collar for Hannibal, and all of it an insult to Chilton. That he belonged here and belonged to another.

Instead of shrinking away from the thought of possible confrontation, Will felt himself actually looking forward to it. With the weight of a collar heavy around his neck and the feel of cool tile beneath his bare feet, Will discover that he didn't feel weak.

He felt powerful.

oOo
Will came down in time to see Hannibal place the dishes on the table, but missed the informative introduction to the meal. To Will, it looked like tongue in some kind of sauce though. The Alpha was an excellent cook, but if Will was hard pressed to complain about something, it was that Hannibal seemed to have a deep love for offal. Will had eaten more organs in the last few weeks than he had in the entirety of his life, and that was saying something considering that he had grown up on the bayous of Louisiana where Cajuns ate anything that dared to poke its head out of the mud. Will was not especially enthused about it when the meat was confirmed.

"It was a particularly chatty lamb." Hannibal said with a slight smile. He looked amused about something. Will assumed he missed the earlier part of the joke though Alana and Chilton didn't seem to be on it either or notice for that matter. "Ah Will. You're just in time." Hannibal said as he pulled out Will's chair for him, the Omega accepting his seat without complaint as it was pushed in for him as well. They had to establish a unified front before Chilton. Being argumentative about petty things would not be conducive toward that effort. And if Hannibal's hands lingered over his shoulders a few seconds longer that usual as the Alpha, his Alpha, admired his new collar, all the better.

"The Romans used to kill flamingoes for their tongues." Chilton was trying to sound worldly. Will observed it was his defense mechanism, the man intimidated by his dinner companions. He was well aware of Chilton's gaze being drawn to his neck. Alana's own was too, but Will didn't mind if she looked.

"Don't give me any ideas. Your tongue is very feisty." Hannibal's words making Will look over at him. "And as this evening has already proven, it's nice to have an old friend over for dinner." There it was again. That strange sensation that those words intended far more than what was initially being offered by their owner. There was a joke there but it seemed like Hannibal was the only one in on the punch line.

"To the Chesapeake Ripper. Dr. Gideon is going to provide us with a singular opportunity to analyze a pure sociopath. It is so rare to fine one in captivity." Chilton's toast was met with a mixture of emotions, amusement masked by a placid expression, aversion, and flat out disbelief.

"He's not the Chesapeake Ripper, merely a plagiarist." Will said bluntly. He almost felt sorry for Gideon to be in Chilton's ham handed clutches, even if he did brutally murder his wife, her entire family, and most recently, a nurse. It had been all over the news. Will's right-to-work papers were still in transition, though he had been re-approved to carry a firearm and a badge. He had been spared from having to recreate the mess Gideon had made of the night nurse in his mind. The pictures had been bad enough to look at. "You'd better pray that the real Chesapeake Ripper doesn't find out what Gideon did to that nurse."

"Excuse me?" Chilton challenged while Hannibal looked on in fascination at Will. He had been careful not to discuss that particular case with Will, though he did enjoy conferring with Will over some of his past cases, his unique take on their killers. "Why would you say that?"

"Because he would find it rude, and make it a point to prove you, and anyone else who believed it, wrong. The Ripper has been quiet for two years. Announcing that someone else was claiming his work would be unwise. The Ripper is not one to take insults lightly." Will said, looking into his glass of wine like it would give him all the answers to life's questions.

"And how would you know? I've been working exclusive with Gideon since his incarceration." Chilton sneered, obviously becoming unsettled.

"You've forgotten about my unique cocktail of personality disorders and neuroses that make me such a highly skilled profiler." Will threw the doctor's words back at him. "I know what the Ripper can do because I can think like him."

Caught up in that admittance, Hannibal fell a little bit more in love, or least his version of it, with Will. He was far too intrigued to halt the conversation though it was running dangerously close to him.

"Oh, and just how do you see the Ripper? How does he think?" Will thought that Chilton really didn't know when to shut up. The man would save himself a lot of embarrassment if he just learned to stop talking.

"He'll want us to know that Gideon is not the Chesapeake Ripper. That he's better than him. He is an intelligent psychopath. He's a sadist. That he'll never kill the same way twice. That he is evolving his victims to art." Will expanded, letting his mind slip backward into that space he kept exclusively for the Chesapeake Ripper, a place that the killer had hollowed out for himself within Will's skull. It was only fair. He had stayed longer with Will than any other killer so he deserved the room.

"From what Jack has shown me, I can tell you I can see the Ripper in the nurse, but I don't feel the Ripper. Like I said it's plagiarism and rather blatant plagiarism at that." Will said with disgust at the slight, his thinking shifting past his own, the emotion not all his in origin. "Plus Gideon isn't fitting the pattern. The real Chesapeake Ripper kills in sounders of three. I use the term sounders because it refers to a small group of pigs. That's how the Ripper sees his victims. Not as people. Not as prey. Pigs."

At this point, everyone had grown quiet at the table, though each for very different reasons. Chilton sat with a growing fear worming up in his belly that he was about to be found out. Alana watched Will with a worried look in her eyes as Will's face became too blank and his eyes vacant while he spoke of the Ripper and as the Ripper. Hannibal grew unnatural still on all different levels of being, spellbound by the observations of himself from his mate.

"There is a distinct brutality to his killings." Will breathed out the words, their letterings sound tinged with awe and reverence. "True to his pattern, the Ripper has remained consistently theatrical. He's an artist. He wants to perform. Every brutal choice has elegance…grace…"

"Be careful. They will say that you are in love." Hannibal found his voice again when Will trailed off, seemingly lost in his own mind with the Ripper as company. It was lovely to think about in its complexity. Hannibal had never had the opportunity to be jealous of himself. It was an interesting sensation. "Displaying one's enemy after death has it's appeal in many cultures."

"These people aren't the Ripper's enemies. They are more like pests he has swatted." Will said softly, more playing with his food than eating it. The tongue looked too much like tongue for his liking. Will didn't see the appeal of eating it.

"Their reward for their cruelty." Hannibal misdirected to see where Will went with it. This was a dangerous game, but he was driven to play it.

"He doesn't have a problem with cruelty." Will snorted, amused at the thought even though it really wasn't funny. "The reward is for their undignified behavior. The dissections are to disgrace them. It's a public shaming."

"He takes their organs away because in his mind they don't deserve them." Hannibal spoke in truths for once. It was refreshing to do so in front of witnesses.

"In some way." Will muttered, his brow furrowing in agitation. Something was trying to get his attention. There was a clue running through his mind, the missing piece to everything wandering off to places unknown. It looked an awful lot like the ravenstag Will kept dreaming about. Damned if he could figure that animal out though. Was it a metaphor for the Ripper or for him?

"I see three possibilities. Gideon is the Chesapeake Ripper, or he just think he is, or he knows he isn't." Alana summarized, looking thoughtful. She reminded Will that other people were here.

"He is, he knows he is, and so do I." Gideon said, looking tense while trying to come off as aloft. In Will's uncharitable opinion, it made him look constipated.

"Did you discuss the Chesapeake Ripper's crimes with Doctor Gideon before he murdered the night nurse?" Hannibal asked. Chilton was novice pretending to be a master. An amateur sculptor of the mind who tried to copy one of his betters for fame and attention with poor material and worse skill, presenting his childish attempt to the world as a masterpiece.

"Yes when I began to suspect what he was. Hearing he might have been exposed might have spurred him into action." Chilton admitted, not seeing fault with his actions though it was becoming blatant what had actually happened.

"Is it possible you inadvertently planted the suggestion in Gideon's mind that he was the Ripper?" Alana pointed out what everyone else was thinking as she carefully chose her wording.

"You not suggesting coercive persuasion?" Chilton prickled anyway at the implication.

"No. I said inadvertently." Alana amended with a slight smile, taking a sip of her wine.

"Psychic driving is unethical." Chilton was trying to claw his way back to the higher ground he had never had in the first place.

"But reasonable in certain circumstances." was a shock to hear from Hannibal, Alana and Will turning to stare at the Alpha who continued to eat like he hadn't said anything unusual.

"What circumstances?" Alana finally asked.

"It may have been useful in reminding Gideon that he was the Chesapeake Ripper, especially if he was repressing those memories. But he seems to have come to that awareness all by himself." Hannibal said smoothly in the face of aversion. If Gideon thought he had an ally in Hannibal, it would be all the more easier to manipulate him later on. As inept as Gideon was, he did hold an interesting place of power. It could have its uses later on.

"Well, I don't need Gideon to become anymore famous that he already is. The volume of his mail is already a nuisance. Sometimes I feel more like his secretary than his keeper." Chilton complained fake, lamenting as he bragged about his lot in life, and entirely too grateful for the segway in conversation.

"Any specific correspondences that might have set him off? Anything that stands out?" Alana asked curiously.

"No. It's mostly researchers or PHD candidates requesting interviews. A scattered dozen lonely hearts, seeking his hand in marriage." Chilton grinned, the expression making him look even more hyena like in Will's opinion as he gave up on finishing his dinner. Hannibal would just have to live with the fact that he didn't like tongue.

"He butchered his last wife and her family on Thanksgiving." Alana said dryly.

"There is no accounting for taste," Chilton shrugged. "Or intelligence."

"Murdering his wife was impulsive. The Ripper is methodical, meticulous. It is why he's so hard to catch." Will sighed, looking up at he ceiling. He had never noticed the dark metallic blue accents speckled throughout the lighter hued paint. He wasn't sure if he was impressed by the attention to detail or should be worried about it. Seriously, who paid attention to how ceilings looked? It seemed like Hannibal did. Will wondered if all the rooms were like that, planned from rafters to floorboards. It said something about the Alpha. Will just wasn't sure what.

"Was. So hard to catch." Chilton snapped at Will before turning back to Alana when it was obvious Will wasn't going to respond. "You talked to Gideon that length. I have to say that he is very familiar with you. He's given you a lot of thought after your sessions."

"How many have you had?" Hannibal asked though he couldn't have cared less. He wanted to hear more from Will, but the empath seemed more involved with deciphering paint patterns than the Ripper's own. With slight irritation he kept off his face, Hannibal wondered what the hell Will was staring at. He also noted that Will didn't seem too fond of tongue. That or his appetite was put off by the conversation. Hannibal preferred to believe the later, finishing off his own portion of the rude bank teller.

"Two, a couple a years ago when he was incarcerated, and another one recently after the nurse." Alana clarified. The encounters weren't her fondest memories.

"Yes, I read your notes of course. They were more or less helpful as I conducted my own interviews with him over the years." Chilton said snidely, becoming full of himself again as he regained mental footing.

"Well I'm glad I was helpful." Alana smiled, more amused than insulted. Insults hurled by ants at the shoe descending upon them didn't bother the foot.

"More or less." Will muttered, rejoining them all. Whatever clue or notion that was traveling through his skull was sticking to the far perimeters of it. Trying to catch it now was a tiring exercise of mental patience.

"Doctor Bloom, if Gideon has been unethically manipulated somehow, I need to know. I would love your insight." Chilton offered, wanting to seem magnanimous while still making a show that he had nothing to hide.

"Gideon aside, I'm more worried about what Jack will do. He'll want to push the Ripper." Alana mused aloud. There were other concerns here besides unethical treatment. She worried for Will and what course of action Jack might chose next to contend with the Ripper. The agent was starting to get reckless in his quest to apprehend his enemy. She didn't want Jack to begin seeing casualties as an acceptable loss in his own personal war with the Ripper.

"He'll kill again just to prove his point." Will promised, though he didn't know it, for them both. "Baiting the Ripper would not be wise. He's not a killer you can just lure out. He doesn't make those kind of mistakes."

"Then how will he be caught?" Hannibal asked, daring to run the risk. Will was edging toward the truth even if he wasn't fully aware of it yet. Hannibal didn't want witnesses to this revelation, but it was to happen now, he would kill both Chilton and Alana without hesitation. It was a small price to pay for the truth.

"Pride." Will answered after a long moment of thought. "He's not greedy. He's not lazy. He's not controlled by anger, though it does motivate him. The Ripper is proud though. Proud of his art, proud of his skill."

"So pride goes before the fall and all that?" Chilton smirked.

"It's actually 'Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall.' Proverbs 16:18." Will corrected in a flat tone much to Chilton's displeasure. "But the point is still the same. Yes, I believe pride is and will be the Ripper weakness and ultimately his downfall."

"An interesting observation. I guess we will just have to wait and see if it pans out." Hannibal rose to clear the plates, needing a moment to himself in his kitchen.

It was a lot to digest.
oOo

TBC