08: Encephalitis
"Alana, I'm afraid I have some bad news." He waited until the beautiful woman was seated, dressed down in a casual pull over and jeans she had obviously intended for a day in out of the cold, a steaming cup of coffee on her side table evidence of his assumption.
"Did they find Will?" Because a body was better than nothing, closure better then wondering if they were trapped and waiting for rescue.
He would always relish the strength he found in her. "No, though we now have confirmation that he is alive." There was only a moment of fleeting hope before she stilled as a mouse might before a snake. She knew the blow that was coming.
"You think he's the killer." She said and he could have applauded her intuition.
"We found evidence supporting he is responsible for two accounts of murder." The barest tremors began to shake her and he watched her step into the first stage of grief, denial.
"No, Will isn't a killer. He's a good man, he would never hurt anyone." The oceans of her eyes began to shimmer with the swell of tears, voice began to quake with the rejection of truth.
He took her hand in his and softened his features in a soothing gesture, "We've identified the Angel Maker as Elliot Buddhish, Will's clothes were found in the trunk of his car. Mr. Buddhish was found displayed as one of his angels in the ditch next to it." He squeezed her hand when the shaking in her fingers grew, a tremor quaking her shoulders as he continued, "this morning another body was discovered, a replica of the Chesapeake Ripper's Wound Man displayed in a dog park. Will's fingerprints were found on the knives."
A sob, quiet, almost a hiccup from her full lips as she bowed her head and cried. It was easy to comfort her, offer himself as a shoulder for the missing man's fiancée to cry on. "I'm sorry Alana, truly I am, if there is anything at all I can do to help, please, don't hesitate to ask."
"He can't be a killer Hannibal, he can't," she hiccupped into his shoulder, soaking the fabric of his jacket in mascara and tears, "he would never hurt anyone, he hated what he did, having to look he didn't want to go."
"But Jack made him. You said he bullied Will into it." And with that the second stage was found, denial to anger, she turned glossy eyes to face him and sniffed. "You told me before that an ultimatum had been offered. Jack pressured him to go."
"He knew Will was sick and harassed him into going. Will had declined and Jack bullied him until he relented." The gears of her graceful mind began to turn and she pulled from his arms, released her friend to search the door of her side table, pulling from the small wooden piece a red phonebook. She began flipping though the pages, "Will is innocent, he's been suffering a fever for an extended period of time, hallucinations; he was scheduled for a CT scan Monday."
Hannibal raised a brow as though in question, "You're going to press charges against Jack?"
"I'm going to build a law suit against him and take him to the board." She turned to him, eyes shining bright with the ruminants of tears, "He ruined Will's life. I need to repair as much of it as I can."
"I agree." Because he was curious, "you have my full support in this endeavour," She smiled at him, a lamb blind to the wolf who stood before her in sheep's clothing.
"Thank you Hannibal," she looked to the book again, the numbers scrawled in neat penmanship inside, looks Hannibal was more than familiar with from his time as the woman's mentor. "I'm just going to call my lawyer, see if I can make a case, what they can do to help, what I need."
He looked at the name, recognized it, a respected attorney but not nearly as good as his own. "If I might recommend a lawyer, I could get you an appointment with my own, Harvey Specter. He's never lost a case."
She looked at him, "Never?"
He smiled, taking the phone easily from her hand, "Never."
OoOoO
It was late afternoon when he returned home, mild concern for Adam's waking at last drawing him away from the rueful woman so interestingly plotting Jack's end. Another move in the game he was playing toward checkmate.
When he returned the house when quiet, lights off to fill the rooms with long evening drawn shadows he broke with the switch of the light, illuminating his kingdom as he slipped off his shoes, hung his coat and made his way upstairs to greet Adam.
However, ire touched him when he found his bedding dishevelled and room empty of that which he sought. If this were to become habit he would have to bring a few of the restraints from the basement upstairs and bind the man to his bed.
He approached the bed, running his hand over the mound of dishevelled covers to feel the lingering body heat on rich bed sheets. It was still warm, very warm; he hadn't been gone for long.
But with the main floor of the house in darkness upon his arrival and no sign of the man's presence there, it only left the upper floor for his guest to have climbed to. He was fine the man's exploration; it was his disappearance that he found troublesome.
A creek of floorboard called his attention at once, the sounds out of place in his quiet home and he made haste to find it, moving on silent feet down the hall to the second flight of stairs and the man who climbed them. "Adam," he gained no response from the languid moving body, each step taking with slow clumsy feet as he scaled to the third storey.
He would have thought the man already on the upper level by now. Curious, Hannibal followed, "Adam, where are you going?"
He continued to ignore the predator who followed at his heal, his focus entirely upon the shadow he followed through the house, a specter only he could see. Hannibal walked with him in stride, examined his glassy half-mast eyes and the soft part of lips. It came to him then that his Adam was sleepwalking, roaming his house to follow a dream through its corridors.
Another thought formed in the killer's keen mind, a moment to see how much of the man was truly left stirring inside, if he wouldn't answer to Adam, "William Graham?"
The footfalls stopped, silence continued and for a moment nothing happened. Had he not been listening, had he not been born with the keen hearing of a predator, Hannibal might have missed the broken, murmured, almost drunken words that slipped his angels lips, "Will…" a simple correction, as though by instinct, a reflex to correct to his preferred name.
The FBI profiler was still in there, buried beneath Adam, but waiting to return all the same.
"Will," he corrected himself and the silent walking continued. The padding of drunken footsteps over stairs and through his hall toward the window, "What are you following?"
"Stag…" Another whisper of vowels and syllables before he stepped into the window and stopped, falling back onto his ass with a yelp as he startled himself awake. He blinked at the softly glowing reds and gold's of the evening twilight through the hall's grand window. "Hannibal?" He asked turning to face the man at his back.
"Adam," The doctor smiled at the return of his beloved Adam, his waking mind returning the searching profiler to the depths which he belonged. "You were sleepwalking." He explained, offering a hand to help him to his feet.
"And you let me walk into a wall?" He corked a brow and earned another smile.
"I thought it best to allow you to finish your course, how are you feeling?" He touched his forehead and cheeks, letting the relentless heat of his fever warm his fingers. He was pale, flesh colored by the heat of his sickness rather than health.
Adam snorted, turning into the hand that touched him to kiss his palm. "You drugged me too." He turned accusing stormy eyes to the killer once more, less love revealed in their depths for his deceit.
"The police are looking for you, I didn't want you feeling inspired and taking another walk." A non-committal hum was Hannibal's answer to the explanation of his actions, another habit of his own being picked up by the malleable man. He wondered how many of those habits would remain should Will awaken.
When Will awakens.
It was becoming more and more apparent that it was not so much a matter of if but when.
A thought Hannibal wasn't sure he wanted to contemplate and knew he must if he wished to keep the creature before him at all. He needed to be treated if he was going to keep the man for longer than a fortnight. The fever burning his mind would eventually consume him if he left it to continue the way it was.
"So you drugged me to keep me here, and left me to walk into a wall out of curiosity to see where I was going and what I would do?" He accused more accurately, earning a broader smile from the older man.
"I'm afraid you've caught me. I had thought you would stop or turn. Had I realize your final destination would be the window I would have stopped you." That admittance Adam found more honesty within, leaning in to kiss the man at last and enjoy the press of lips against his own from a lover both caring and controlling.
He opened his eyes and was sitting at the dining room table.
Delicate curls of meat decorated his plate, a disc of fine china, drizzled with a red reduction sauce of some kind to adore the protein; crisp steamed vegetables to their side. Though Adam was sure the flavors would all meld wonderfully on his pallet as all the meals he'd partaken of before at Hannibal's hands had balanced so perfectly, he couldn't recall getting there. To that table, to his seat, having dinner set before him, having Hannibal talk to him while preparing their meal.
His plate was even missing a few choice bites, his tongue holding the lingering taste of smoky steak and zingy pomegranate.
It made him want to vomit.
Adam stared in utter confusion at the assortment of partly eaten food and tall glass of half drunken water at his side. No wine for him tonight it seemed, most likely thanks to his fever. "Is something the matter Adam?"
"Did you drug me again?" He asked, setting down his knife and fork to touch his head as though to feel the heat of his own boiling mind.
"No." He took in the disturbed man across from him, "What's wrong?" Setting his own knife and fork Hannibal stepped around the table to once again feel the temperature of his lover. Though he seemed to be no warmer than before their meal had begun his Adam seemed to be especially bewildered.
Brow furrowed, stormy eyes searched for answers within himself as he looked at Hannibal's tie, "I don't remember coming downstairs. I don't remember anything after the kiss we shared when I woke up."
He found that concerning, "It's been two hours since then." He told the man beneath his hand, watching as fear unfamiliar to this being began to flood his eyes. The memory of his old self had been one thing to lose; to cut free for him to begin anew, but to lose his new self too, forget his life until nothing but an existing husk remained. It scared Adam in a way he hadn't thought himself capable of.
Hannibal didn't like that.
"I will make an appointment for you to see a doctor in the morning." He told the fearful man, combing back the locks of curls from his face as one might a child, pressing lips to his forehead in a silent reassurance he had seen countless mothers give their sons when weeping was involved. "I will not leave you to drown in the confines of your own mind."
Drown...as he'd tried to drown Will...
"I know my name." He admitted, gaining look of milk surprise from his lover whose brow rose minutely at the comment, "Who I used to be." He recalled the man who'd scratched the flesh from his hand as he held him beneath the river of their mind. He'd been trying to kill him, to end the part of him determined to wake.
Perhaps his survival had forced his mind to begin rejecting Adam as well; if Will could not exist then neither would Adam.
It was a game he couldn't afford to lose, one he was willing to cheat to win.
"When did you remember this?" He asked, coaxing stormy eyes to meet his own. It was never easy though, the man hating eye contact as much as his true self.
"Not long ago." He didn't feel like describing his dreams to the curious psychiatrist, he would take far too much from a simple dream of death and disorder. Understand more than Adam was looking to understand himself.
"I would have liked to know." He told him, but was not angry; it didn't appear that Adam had been hiding his discovery from him. He wasn't ashamed that he had recalled the small step towards the profilers awakening; only that it was something he didn't wish to talk about.
Many truths could be denied so long as they weren't spoken. Words gave power and life to unwanted situations, circumstances one could pretend weren't real or problematic until forced to face them. He didn't want to face the possibility of disappearing and becoming Will Graham again.
"It didn't cross my mind to tell you." He shrugged, letting the doctor tug him to his feet, "I wasn't trying to hide it if that's what you're thinking."
"Not at all, I would simply like to know what you discover about yourself in the future." He kissed the hand he held before leading the man away to his study. Dinner would be left to cool and ruin, but his Adam was more important than the efforts of a meal. He could always make them something later if they found themselves hungry for more.
He walked them to his study, his favored for sketching and work thanks to the large bay window and ample natural light. "Where are we going?"
Adam was still learning the layout of the large house, the home easy for the amnesiac to lose himself within. "To one of my studies," He informed the slighter man, opening a door at the halls end for Adam to step through. Unlike the other studies that held books, hearths and grand windows, this one included a large dark hardwood desk and leather chair.
"What about dinner?" Adam knew the man was proud of his culinary, didn't care to waste his efforts, he didn't want to ruin the man's dinner on himself.
"I'll make us something fresh in a bit. For now, I have an exercise I'd like you to try." He pulled out the desk chair, urging the man to sit before pushing the seat in and laying a pen and thick piece of stationary before him. "I would like you to draw me a clock please, one to twelve on its face."
Brow furrowed at the odd request he looked back at his lover before accepting the pen. "I don't understand, what is this going to accomplish?"
"There has been an alluring scent of spicy heat about you since we've met. An unusual, though pleasant, odor to find on another man when not wearing any particular cologne," he urged him to place pen to paper. "I had thought it might have been associated to your fever upon discovering you were sick. But that seemed unlikely, of my experience with numerous hospital patients in the past I have never encountered that particular scent of heat and spice upon anyone else."
He watched the hand draw a quick circle, one solid line creating the clock, "So there is something more to your illness than simply a flu or cold. But if we add your fever to the hallucinations," his Adam's hand stilled, unwilling to admit to the monster behind him that he had been seeing things beyond his imagination. "And now the lost time," he squeezed his Angel's shoulder, reassurance to continue. As the pen fell and the he at last he understood.
The extended amnesia, the fever and lost time, the hallucinations and what was yet to come. He watched as a shower of numbers fell down the clocks face, pooling at the side and base where it's needles pointed as lost in their time as William within his mind.
"I believe you may be suffering from encephalitis."
OoOoO
TBC