DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership of Hannibal NBC or affiliated branding (sadly).
SUMMARY: Still shaken from Baltimore, Will is thrust into the midst of a horrific new case: a killer targeting close to home. He struggles between clinging to personal morality and fighting new influences. He reaches his breaking point and, horrified by the aftermath, becomes desperate for emotional stability. Solace is found in the only person he knows will understand. Set mid season two.
NOTES: See chapter end.
Chapter Five: Malignità
"Graham, I'm finding it difficult to focus on the road with that gun pointed at me."
"Too bad. Keep driving."
The car rumbled underneath them. The wheels slipped on the ice at irregular intervals, diverting Dr. Spencer's attention back to the road. To be truthful, Will wondered how useful the gun actually was; her laser focus and unshaken attitude deemed the situation more in her hands than in his. As if she was holding the gun, not him. Even so, he kept it levelled somewhere near the joint of her jaw, just above her neck.
His fingers found the cool of his phone. It was buzzing, buzzing and buzzing, stabbing his eardrums until his head threatened to implode. He pulled it from his pocket and angled the screen away from the driver's seat next to him. Three missed calls. Far more text messages. He silenced it.
Dr. Spencer smiled cordially. "Popular man." She adjusted the car's heating and Will readjusted his position in a fluid jerk. "I presume by the informality that Jack hasn't sent you."
"Jack is… refusing to see straight."
"Mm," replied Dr. Spencer, noncommittally. "I don't doubt that. But I do doubt your own purchase in this situation."
"I know who you are. I know what you've been doing. I saw right through you."
"It's not your perception of me I'm questioning."
Will quietened.
The drive flew after that, in relative silence. Will didn't tell her where to go. She didn't garner direction. He was surprised, however, when she pulled into her front drive. She switched off the ignition and, ignoring the gun shoved in her face, opened her door. "Tea? You look like you could use it."
Will stared at the bridge of her nose, eyes glassy. Her pupils fixated on his own like an owl. He resisted every urge to reciprocate the gesture, twisted into knots like wrung clothing. If he fell into her mind again it would be disorientating. Disastrous. He didn't have Jack and Hannibal to force him back up to breathe this time.
"I'll put the kettle on. We can have a chat."
She unlocked her front door. Will followed, sizing up the stakes, cat-like in his methodical approach. She was a tall woman, but medium in stature compared to him, her shoulders thin and wiry under her woollen coat. He could knock her down in a second.
The snow wet his hair and settled on his lashes. His feet left ghostly imprints in the fresh sheet on the ground.
"I'd be quick," she called. "I imagine our friends are not long behind us."
Will tensed his hands. His arm ached from holding the gun up. "They're suspicious of my absence. Not about the genuine whereabouts of my person. Or my intention."
"Of course," Dr. Spencer smiled, "but they'll figure you out soon enough." She pushed back the door.
"Don't," Will ordered. His voice ran hoarse. "Pick up the landline and throw it outside. Your mobile too."
Dr. Spencer obliged. She wore her smile like the soft down of a mask. A mother placating a toddler's demands. "Now, tea. Make yourself at home." She raised her eyebrows. "And put the gun down."
Will's arms dropped. They shook at his sides. He balled his hands into fists.
She guided him into the living room. Will held down acid at the recent memories floating dead at the surface of his mind. "You're not surprised that I'm here," he stated. "You're not worried."
"Agent Graham, I did not waste my years working with frightened people on personal worry."
"You think I'm a frightened person."
Dr. Spencer filled her kettle with water. It was electric, and hummed to life with a loud rattle. "I think outwardly you are such. Inwardly you may be more certain. Or less. I haven't decided yet."
Will stood centrally. The room span and blurred. He swallowed but his mouth was dry and his throat tore. "Why did you choose to work with younger people?"
"I was a victim of a tumultuous childhood. I felt I could bring humanity to the system."
"Is that your motivation then," Will said. "Granting some kind of… some kind of sick mercy to kids you deemed untreatable?"
"If by motivation you imply what I think you imply, then no. I claim no involvement in this case beyond my forensic and psychological analysis. I chose this career because I wanted to help people in similar situations to myself. And, if I might be so crude, to yourself."
Will stilled. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes. "Myself?"
Dr. Spencer sighed, gaze softening as she poured steaming water into the two mugs. "I hesitate to inform you, as I do not wish to sow distrust, but it might help you believe me. You suffered an anxiety attack when we last met. I grew quite worried about your emotional state and approached Jack the morning after to discuss you."
Will shook his head. His vision tunnelled. His bitten nails sliced through his palm. He opened his mouth, wordless.
"He directed me towards Dr. Lecter, who kindly offered an insight into your… your more peculiar situation. I was upset to hear of your case, but it gave me a better understanding –"
"Stop. Stop talking." Will rubbed his head, digging at his eyes. The gun slipped further from his grip, lost in his pocket. "You - you know Hannibal? Hannibal talked about me. With you."
Dr. Spencer nodded. "Of course. He's a close colleague of mine."
"No. No. He's not. Don't - don't lie. Don't…" Will tailed away.
Dr. Spencer spooned out the teabags. She raised her eyebrows at Will, holding the cup of sugar. Will ignored her. She shrugged and put one cube in. She cupped her hand around the mug and offered it to him. "Will. I think you're tired. And I think you need someone to listen to you. Your mind is tangled and, for some reason, you think I am a serial killer."
"No. No. You're manipulating me. You're - you're covering for yourself. I saw the evidence."
"Will -"
"You're connected to all the victims. You - you work with the department. You know how we operate."
"So does Jack. And so do you."
Will clutched his gun. His aim was skewed, tilted. "No. I didn't do this. Don't even -"
"Please, Will." Dr. Spencer offered him the mug again.
Will's gun slipped from his grip. He set it aside before he could drop it. He took the mug warily. Tea slopped over the side and scalded his fingers. One sip and it was sickly sweet and burnt the roof of his mouth. He slid the cup away.
"I want to help you. You're scared I'm not the killer because that means you're wrong, and that means the deaths to come will be your burden to bear."
"I'm - I'm not scared of that," Will stuttered, catching himself. "I'm scared of what this case has done to me. Is doing to me. What you're doing to me."
Dr. Spencer's lips thinned at Will's last comment, but the corners of her eyes crinkled. "And that is?"
"I - I feel out of control. I feel strained. Like - like elastic pulled thin." He turned his back on Dr. Spencer. He half-hoped she'd pull out a knife, or a pistol, or a bloodied head on a stick. Anything he could use to prove her guilt. "I take one step away from Baltimore and I'm dragged back in. It's in my head. I struggle to separate the parts of me that are Chilton's and the parts of me that are Jack's, and the parts of me that are Hannibal's."
"What about the parts of you that are yours?"
Will smiled. It split his face like his skull cracking open. "I don't think any of those parts are left. I'm strung together out of bits of other people and… and I don't know - I don't…"
He stopped. He turned back to Dr. Spencer, his mouth set in a hard line. "You're picking me apart."
"Means to an end, when I wish to put you back together." Dr. Spencer's voice was sad. Will still couldn't meet her eyes. "I can help. Or, if you would like, I can call Hannibal. You may be more comfortable -"
"No."
Dr. Spencer's nails rested against her countertop. Will faced her and the metres between them grew in silence. "Is there… is there anything I could do to help? Or would you like to go back to the station?"
"Why did you bring me here? Why not somewhere quiet, where you could speak freely?"
"I could never speak freely while you are recording every word I say."
Will's blood rushed to his head. He schooled his face, but his hands were unsteady. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He showed her the screen, switching off the recording app he'd kept running throughout their conversation. "You knew."
"You're smart. And you're an FBI consultant. It did not take much brain power to consider the possibility."
Will inhaled. And he exhaled. And he inhaled again. His teeth felt fuzzy and his stomach turned and turned, overflowing with bile and anxiety-induced nausea. Dr. Spencer stood, warm and yellow-tinted in the forefront of his vision. "Why -" his voice cracked, "why did you kill those kids. They were young. They were vulnerable."
"I will say this, and I speak freely now and my answer is the same: I did not kill those children. I am not a murderer."
"Was it… was it a power trip? Or… or was it some sick cleansing? A purge of all deficiencies you deem too insurmountable for life to continue."
"Will -" Dr. Spencer said. She raised her hand, open and placating.
Will stepped forward. "I can't figure you out. I can't get in your head without getting lost. Did you see them as lesser or more? Prizes, rarities to be collected, like trophies you could put on a shelf. Murdering those who people would consider protected property."
"Will, please. We can talk this over when Jack gets here."
Will stepped forward. "When Jack gets here there won't be a discussion. He'll defend you with his life and cart me off to whatever madhouse he can find quickest. No. We're doing this now."
"Will, I know this is personal to you. You're scared. You see your missing parts in those children. I talked to Dr. Lecter. He's worried you're losing yourself."
Will stepped forward. Dr. Spencer took her first step back. Her hip hit the countertop. Will's face was all creases and confusion. "And you know about me. You've probably read my file. You've seen everything. That's why this feels personal. You drew me in and chewed me apart. Did Hannibal put you up to this?"
"Dr. Lecter is my friend and my colleague. He informed me to the best of his ability how I could help you if you came looking for me."
Will stepped forward. Dr. Spencer shuffled away. Words fell from his tongue before he processed them, before he heard them. His eyes filtered out colour and he was in Baltimore; the walls crushed him into various shapes that suited Chilton's satisfaction, his mind moulded to the templates Chilton laid out for him, the drugs and the sleepless nights collapsed in on his head and clawed his mouth, suffocating his cries as he gagged on the rubble — and it was Hannibal Lecter on the outside of the bars and on the inside and his fingers down Will's throat and his thoughts and his glee and his joy seeped into Will's head in place of sorrow because Will had too much sorrow to spare and -
"Will, please listen -"
"Shut up. Stop - stop. I can't - I can't get out of my head. Stop. You're lying." Will's fingers found the edge of her coat. He clutched it, like he'd done Hannibal's two days before, but this time he clutched not for balance but for reassurance. He need to know Dr. Spencer. He needed to see her.
His eyes found hers and there was nothing. No blood leaking from the corners, no children's faces dead-eyed in her pupils, no evil intent in the skin of her eyelid. There was nothing.
Another person has died. Another person has died. Another person has died. Another person -
Will fell through nothing and came out the other side whole. He came out aware and alive, and more awake in his head than he'd ever been. "No. No." His fingers tightened. "No more deaths."
"Please, Agent Graham. I think you need to call someone. You're dissociating."
"No." Will's voice was solid, and surged with grit. "I know who I am." His eyes let light through, the sheen gone. Will drew back his arm.
His knuckles found flesh. Will revelled in the contact, his hand snapping back with a dull ache. His ears rang silent. He couldn't hear Dr. Spencer. He couldn't hear himself. But he was alive and he was aware and he was, for the first time since Baltimore, himself. He was himself.
Fist found flesh again. And again. And again.
And Will was alive.
Hannibal noticed the through-draught before he pulled his key out the front lock. He tilted his head to better catch the cold waft of air shifting through his front corridor. It was tentatively that he set his keys on the table beside him. He pressed them flat to avoid extra noise.
He had no weapon, but he needed none on his person. He'd memorised the layout of the building; the knives in the wooden chopping block, the coat stand at the back door, the sharp scissors above the herb garden. So, though he stepped softer than usual, he didn't falter at room entrances.
Hannibal followed the cold until he reached his back door. It hung wide open, swinging slightly in the wind. Deep, misshapen footprints imprinted on the snow, trudging up to his house through the storm. Blackened red stains shaded the ice of each print, like a smear of gore on the terrain. Hannibal shut the door and it clicked firmly. He rested his hand against the handle and turned his head to the side. "Hello, Will."
Will lay limp behind him, head propped up against the dining table leg so his neck was askew, twisted into an uncomfortable position. His eyes fixated on the ceiling, unblinking. Blood soaked every fibre of his person and the skin of his clothes. Specks of snow drenched his hair and stuck to his forehead. His shoulders trembled with the strain of holding his head up.
Hannibal knelt, one leg on the floor, and waited as Will's eyes carefully moved toward his own.
"Hannibal," Will said, in a way of greeting. It sounded more like a plea. A stream of blood leaked from his temple and over his brow. Hannibal stretched out a finger and wiped it away before it reached Will's eyelid. Will's eyelashes fluttered, pupils glassy and cavernous, corpse's eyes set within skin too alive to look natural. "Hannibal," he whispered again.
Hannibal exhaled quietly. He half-stood, stooped over the broken figure on his floor. He outstretched his arm, hovering his hand over Will's torso: an offering.
"Tell me."
A/N: I'm like ninety percent sure my traffic graph is broken because there's no way zero people have read the last two chapters. Shout at me in a review if you're around! (If anyone knows how to fix it, please also shout at me :D)