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: Whoever broke into the room is not a member of law enforcement. They're here in an unofficial capacity.
Author's Notes: I am so grateful that people have been enjoying this fic and encouraging me along the way. It has been difficult to find inspiration during the he-ate-us, far more so this season than last season. You all make this so much more bearable and easier to get my butt back in gear to writing. The good news is that this chapter sets up some necessary conflict. Things are getting interesting for Hannibal and Will!
Thank you for being so patient. Enjoy!
Seven
Hannibal Lecter has never denied himself the pleasure of anything, so he takes his time with his ministrations to Will. He indulges in the act of taking Will apart, especially now that he has the opportunity to put the younger man back together. Will's back becomes a tiny testament to the contradictions of their relationship, their delicate negotiation between breaking and mending, even if it wasn't he who did the breaking this time.
The bullet fragments are miniscule. Lecter peels them out like fish bones. He abrades the tissue to be certain he's found them all, then gently bathes the wound with clean water and alcohol. He sutures the wound in a neat line, satisfied that though it was Pazzi's bullet that made the wound, it is he that Will will credit for the scar.
Speaking of scars, Hannibal administers another round of sedation after an injection of antibiotics. He then rolls Will and admires the scar on his abdomen. The surgeon was trying to minimize the damage, but there's no amount of skill that could keep a wound like that from scarring. Malice had prompted Hannibal to butcher, not dissect. He wanted torn flesh and ruptured organs, wanted to hack Will's insides into an unsalvageable mess. The result is a malicious track of scar tissue just below Will's naval. Will is another crooked branch of Hannibal's family tree, born – as so many members of the Lecter family are – in blood and vengeance.
Hannibal touches, has to touch, has to feel the aftermath. Like he's cataloguing the damage after a natural disaster. What repairs need to be made, what can't be salvaged, what has been washed away by the storm... Will has pulled himself together, but destruction always did cut deep with him. Scar tissue is just disguise. Will wears it as comfortably as he did the mask of a murderer. Under the skin is always a different story.
Almost immediately, Hannibal's satisfaction deteriorates into disappointment. Will's so heavily sedated that he can't register pain, let alone Hannibal's touch. One of his more attractive qualities is his reactiveness, and now there's no reaction. There's a vacancy in Will's musculature that the chemicals have ensured, one that allows Hannibal to return Will to his stomach, cover him with a blanket, and depart.
The killer's checklist is shorter than people expect. Hannibal keeps it that way. He can live luxuriously when he is hidden, but revealed, he lives simply. It's one of the reasons people have difficulty capturing him. Jack Crawford can't catch what he cannot predict, and Hannibal thrives on unpredictability.
He would like to destroy Will's cheap, bloody suit with fire, but that lacks the subtlety he needs. Instead, the suit makes a wonderful resident of the town's sewer system. Hannibal will purchase a replacement when the stores open.
He steals medical supplies from a local clinic by incapacitating the doctor. More bandages and gauze, another full course of antibiotics, some painkillers, syringes, a scalpel: the trip is fruitful and all too easy. This town does not receive visitors like him often.
The car is next. Hannibal parks where it will be swiftly impounded. He wipes down the interior, trashes the plates, and doesn't look back. The sun is coming up, the town is waking, and he is walking into a new life.
One with Will Graham.
Something is wrong when he returns to the room. Hannibal can smell blood from outside the door. He moves to insert the key into the lock only to find the lock has been tampered with. Someone has picked it clumsily with a sharp object. A knife perhaps.
Jack Crawford would have simply kicked the door down, not to mention brought an entourage of the Polizia with him. No, whoever broke into the room is not a member of law enforcement. They're here in an unofficial capacity.
Hannibal lets himself in and locks the door behind him.
The room is silent. Blood is so thick in the air that Hannibal tastes it on his tongue, along with the wet stink of unwashed bodies. He's smelled that particular brand of body odour before: Mason Verger's hired hands, the ones who insist on sleeping with their masters' pigs. Hannibal doesn't credit Mason Verger's hiring practices. No doubt they are as shoddy or shoddier as they were before. These ones must have just gotten lucky, or else stopping with Will has made him sloppy. Perhaps a combination of the two.
A trail of blood leads Hannibal to the other side of the bed despite his better judgment. Will was unconscious when he left the hotel room, deeply unconscious. Too unconscious to defend himself if attacked. Hannibal needs to see what they have done to understand what their punishment will be, but he does not want to see Will Graham unmade, especially by someone else's hand. He does not know what will cause him deeper regret: that Will is dead, or that Mason is too damaged already for Hannibal to adequately punish him.
The stink of unwashed human gets stronger as Hannibal rounds the corner of the bed, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief. One of Will's attackers, a giant, grotesque lump of a human, has been stabbed several times in the chest. He died poorly from a collapsed lung and wears a sour expression on his face, probably in anticipation of how much worse he'll smell in death.
Hannibal turns his attention then to the closed bathroom door. The smell of blood is overwhelming the odour of Mason's hired hand this time. Will's blood, perhaps? He was clearly conscious enough to kill one. Two seems like a tall order. Hannibal waits for a moment; there's no harm in waiting, in bracing for the impact. The bathroom is silent. The fight's long over. Hannibal is grateful. He is struck by the wild thought that Will is murdered, and that Will's blood does not actually smell any different from other people's except in Hannibal's imagination. Will might be dead. Will might be dead and Hannibal might not have known it was happening.
He opens the door. A pair of legs peek over the side of the tub, limp with death, and both are clothed cheaply by a meagre salary from Mason Verger.
Will is catching his breath in the corner of the room. He is still more drugged than not, but the adrenaline gives his eyes a savage clarity. He reacts to Hannibal now.
"I think it's time to leave," he says.
Hannibal surveys the damage once more. "I couldn't agree more."
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