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“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Jack,” Hotch shook his head, “Reid’s barely starting to adjust to being back at work again. He’s not in a good place right now. After Emily -”
“I know, I know,” Jack nodded, “Losing Agent Prentiss was a bad blow and Dr. Reid’s already been through a lot, but I really think he could help us on this one, Aaron. We’re stuck.”
“You’ve got an entire team of profilers,” Hotch said, “They’re good at their jobs. Why don’t you let them do it?”
Jack took a deep breath, “Ever since Will Graham left, my team has been missing a valuable asset. My people are good, but they’re not the best. Hannibal Lecter was the best forensic psychiatrist we’ve ever used.”
“And he was also a serial killer,” Hotch said, “you need to let it go. You can solve this one without his help, Jack. If you’re so desperate for help, why not ask other agents?”
“Because people are dying, Aaron,” he stressed, “innocent families are being butchered in their homes and we don’t have enough to find this guy yet. Lecter can help. He’s good at that.”
“He’s also good at twisting everything to his advantage,” Hotch reminded him, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Jack nodded and steepled his fingers, pursing his lips for a moment. “Alright,” he said, “I understand… but don’t you think we should at least leave this up to Dr. Reid? It is his decision, in the end.”
“Absolutely not,” Reid was adamant as he stared at Jack, his hands shaking a bit. He’d been more than a little surprised when Jack Crawford asked to speak with him – calling him ‘Agent Reid’, no less – but now it made perfect sense. Crawford wanted Lecter’s help, but there was no way Hannibal would speak to him so he needed someone he knew he would be willing to talk to.
“Dr. Reid -”
“Do you remember what happened the last time I spoke with Dr. Lecter, Agent Crawford?”
Jack sighed, closing his eyes, “I know it’s asking a lot, -”
“My father was murdered,” Reid’s voice pitched high and he scowled, “and now you’re going to sit across from me with a straight face and ask me to go and ask the man who caused his death if he can help find another killer?”
“I don’t appreciate sarcasm, Reid,”
“It wasn’t sarcasm,” Reid spat, “it was the truth. I’m not going to talk to him, Agent Crawford. I’ve lost enough friends, wouldn’t you agree?”
His eyes shone with faint tears and Jack deflated a bit, his expression softening as he stared across at the younger man.
“I know you just lost a colleague, Dr. Reid,” he said gently, “I understand that you’re still trying to readjust to being in the field, but lives are at stake. We could really use Dr. Lecter’s help on this one.”
“Friend,” Reid’s voice was quiet as he stared at Jack, “Emily wasn’t just a colleague, she was my friend and she’s dead. I just returned from a very long extended leave and I am not willing to risk my life or anyone else’s by bringing in a serial killer as a consult. If you want Dr. Lecter’s help, use someone from your own team.”
“Will!” Reid blinked and stepped back, almost stumbling a bit as he took in the sight of the other man. It had been two weeks since his conversation with Jack Crawford and he’d expected that the other agent had probably gone to Will as a last resort. He’d never expected Will to actually show up.
“Dr. Reid,” Will inclined his head, but he didn’t actually smile or make eye contact. Not that Reid minded all that much.
“Are you helping Jack on the Tooth Fairy case?” Reid asked the question delicately, not quite sure how to phrase it.
Will nodded curtly, “Jack roped me into it,” he sounded a bit weary as he spoke, like he wasn’t totally sure this was the best thing for him to be doing – after all, the last time Jack had pulled him into the field things had gone horribly, horribly wrong. But he was resolved to see it through to the finish.
“I’m surprised you agreed to do this,” Reid said, knowing Will didn’t want to talk, but needing to have this delay anyway. He was supposed to be in Hotch’s office soon, for his ‘grief assessment’. Anything to stall that conversation was more than welcome.
“Yeah, well Jack’s a bastard, but he’s also pretty damn manipulative too,” Will muttered, his voice a bit dark as he eyed the corner of Reid’s shoulder.
“Maybe,” Reid agreed slowly, “but still, with everything that happened between you and Dr. Lecter I thought you’d never want to talk to him again.”
“What?”
Reid blinked at Will’s sharp tone and frowned a bit, “Jack wants Dr. Lecter’s help on the case… he didn’t mention that to you?”
“No,” Will sounded strained, his fists clenching a bit, “No he didn’t. Excuse me…”
He moved off toward Jack’s office quickly, fury burning behind his eyes as he did. Moments later, Reid could hear the slightly raised voice of Will Graham followed by the low tremble of Jack’s faux patience and concern.
He scowled and tried not to be too angry. Jack had a point about how helpful Lecter could be, but still, it seemed incredibly cold to rope Will into this without disclosing everything first. For Jack to even expect him to do this after what Hannibal had done to Will…
He shook his head and forced his thoughts to travel to other things. His headaches, which were still getting worse, Prentiss, catching Ian Doyle… They weren’t pleasant thoughts, but they were grounding thoughts at the very least. Things to keep his mind from wandering too far.
Will shakes with an intensity he’s never felt before. His entire body is taut, ready to explode. Vibrating with violent, chaotic energy. He feels like he’s on fire, like he’s about to explode with the feeling. It’s consuming. It’s terrifying. It’s wonderful.
Hannibal’s hand comes down on his shoulder, squeezing just slightly. Enough pressure to be friendly, but teetering into the threatening. His shaking stalls, slowing down enough that he can remember how to form words, thoughts and sentences that are more than cursory observations of vague concepts.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” his voice shakes, his words cracked and broken. Like his soul. “It’s always been you.”
“What is me, Will?”
Hannibal. Always so damn calm, even when he’s being accused of murder. Fucking bastard.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Will spits the words viciously, meaning for them to be violent, but they’re too shaky to be anything but a terrible plea. Please, please, please tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me anything but that it’s true. Please.
Hannibal doesn’t deny it. He sighs heavily and his hand falls away from Will’s shoulder. Will can hear his footsteps coming around the chair until he’s standing right in front of him. Even with his eyes clenched as tightly as they’ll go he can feel the warmth of Hannibal’s body as he leans down, caging Will in with his arms on either side of the chair.
“Will,”
The voice is soft. A gentle, coaxing sound to quell his panicked tremors. It doesn’t work. The hands move to his face, cradling his jaw gently.
“Will, look at me,”
Very slowly, he obeys, his eyes opening to find Hannibal right in front of him. He wants to look anywhere but at Hannibal’s eyes, but they’re all he can see. He’d always thought they were brown, but up close they look so red. Like blood. That’s exactly what they look like. Like they’ve been soaked in drying blood.
Will’s stomach turns.
“Will…” Hannibal is still speaking calmly, so slowly. Like he’s talking to a scared animal. Is that what he is? Is he a scared animal? He feels so trapped.
“Who am I, Will?”
Will swallows hard, his throat convulsing around the words, trying to shove them away. Trying to make them fade from existence forever.
“You’re him,” he says, “you’re the Chesapeake Ripper. You’re a serial killer…”
“What else, Will? Keep going,”
Will shakes, reaching up grasp Hannibal’s wrists. He doesn’t try to pull them away – he isn’t strong enough if he wanted to – rather he grips them tight, like a lifeline. Like they’re the only thing keep him afloat.
“Y-You’re the copy cat,” he whispers, “You killed Cassie Boyle. You killed Marissa Shore… You… oh my god.”
His stomach abruptly lurches as the next revelation hits him harder than he expected. “You’re a cannibal…”
Hannibal’s fingers stoke his face softly. He never breaks eye contact, forcing Will to look into his eyes the entire time. He nods carefully, his face impassive as ever.
“Yes, Will,” he says. It sounds strangely like he’s proud. Like he’s been waiting for this moment all along. Like a father beaming down at his son for a job well-done. Like a teacher praising a student. Will’s stomach gives another lurch.
“I am all of these things, Will,” he says, “…but you don’t need to be afraid. I would never hurt you, Will.”
“W-What?” Will’s breath catches, his eyes widening a bit.
Hannibal’s lips quirk, not quite a smile, but not quite the immoveable stone he had been a moment ago.
“You are special, Will,” he says gently, “We are equals, you and I. The same. The only question now is… Since you have figured it out, where do we go from here?”
Will’s mind races, staring into his eyes, torn between the voice telling him that this is Hannibal. This is his only friend in the world, the only person he truly trusts. The only person he’s ever allowed to see past his forts.
And the voice of morality, of reason and justice telling him that Hannibal is a monster. A liar, a shark, a snake. A wolf among sheep. A vicious god among men.
He swallows hard and lunges forward, desperation eking out of his pores as he closes his lips around Hannibal’s and shuts his eyes against the nightmares he can see while he’s awake.
Hannibal smiles and everything is alright.
Will jolted up out of bed, shivering against the cold air in the room. His breath came in hard, angry pants. The bed and his clothes were soaked through with sweat and he wrinkled his nose against the powerful smell.
He’d been to talk to Hannibal that morning at Jack’s behest. Despite his insistence that this was a very, very bad idea, Jack wanted the Tooth Fairy caught before he killed another family and what was Will supposed to do about that?
People were dying. They needed to find this guy and Hannibal definitely knew more than he was saying. Will just had to keep his distance. He could do that. He would rebuild his forts every day if he had to.
He got dressed slowly, carefully easing his aching body into movement. A night of tossing and turning on an unfamiliar bed left him feeling stiff and ill-rested. He thought wistfully of his dogs back in Florida, of the friendly couple next door who were watching them for him.
He kept his mind on the dogs the entire drive to the BAU, trying to keep all thoughts of the killer out of his head. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t get close this time. He would use whatever buffer he had at his disposal if he had to. He’d even call Alana, though he doubted very much if she wanted to see him.
The crime lab was cold, colder than the hotel room had been. Will didn’t shiver though, finding the cold bracing now that the last vestiges of his nightmare were gone. The cold helped him focus.
He smiled at Beverly as he entered and stepped up close to her, looking down. He never met her eyes and she didn’t comment, standing quietly there, watching him.
“Are these the fingerprints you found on Mrs. Leeds’ eye?” he asked, glancing up carefully.
“Yeah,” she nodded, “it’s only a partial, but it’ll be enough for us to get a match if we have something to actually compare it to. Thanks to you,”
Will frowned, “The evidence was already there,” he muttered.
“But you saw it,” Bev pointed out, “no one else did.”
Will frowned, keeping his eyes trained on the evidence in front of him. Bits of bloodied glass pulled from the victims’ eyes, a Petri dish containing the trace amounts of talcum powder found on the women’s thighs. Photographs of broken mirrors, children’s dolls splattered with blood.
Semen swabs and bloody clothing.
For a moment, he lost himself in the evidence, his mind going back to the crime scene in Atlanta. To the blood bedroom where two dead children had been posed to watch their dead parents. To a bathroom with a broken mirror and a dog that had to be put down because of a severe puncture wound to the abdomen.
“I’d say it’s good to have you back,” Bev’s voice pulled him out of the killer’s mind and he blinked several times. She didn’t seem to notice. “but under the circumstances…”
“Right,” Will nodded, “People are dying. Not really something to celebrate.”
“You are alright, though,” she said gently, “Aren’t you, Will? I mean… After -”
“I’m fine,” Will cut her off, “I feel 100 percent stable. Definitely not sick this time.” He looked at her face, but didn’t meet her eyes. She pressed her lips together and nodded, studying him carefully, like she could steal all his secrets if she stood there long enough.
Without warning, she stepped closer, invading his personal space and wrapping her arms around his neck. She wasn’t a big hugger. She was almost as surprised as Will was by the action, but she couldn’t stop herself.
After a long moment of wide-eyed panic from Will, he slowly relaxed and awkwardly returned the hug, swallowing nervously as she pulled back, a tiny smile on her lips.
“Sorry…” she said, “it’s just… You looked like you could use a hug,”
“How close did you and Dr. Lecter get?” Dr. Reid’s voice was searching. Honestly curious and obviously trying to keep his mind busy.
Will pursed his lips, picking at his food. He still wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to have lunch with Dr. Reid. It wasn’t really a work thing and it wasn’t really a sociable thing. It was somewhere strangely in between, where things made less sense and they weren’t colleagues, but they also weren’t friends.
“Did you ever get that second opinion?” he glanced up at the younger man, giving him a sharp look.
He looked away quickly, nodding, “I’m looking into it,” he said, “I found a highly certified neurologist, but I haven’t contacted her yet…” he bit his lip, “I’m not sure if I want to know the answer.”
“Any answer is better than no answer,” Will sounded bitter. Probably because he was. He pushed those thoughts away and glanced up at Reid again.
“Does he still write you?” he asked curiously.
Reid laughed a bit, nodding. “I keep trying to convince myself to throw them out without reading them…”
“But that’s impossible,” Will smiled faint, “I know the feeling.”
Reid nodded, clearing his throat and pushing his foot around with his fork. “He wrote to be after – after Emily…” he trailed off, his knuckles going white for a moment. “He said he was sorry she had to die. That he didn’t know her, but h-he knew it would upset me.”
Will only nodded. That definitely sounded like Hannibal.
They ate in silence for a long moment before Dr. Reid cleared his throat, “Can I ask you a question?”
Will hesitated before nodding, watching Reid’s expression carefully.
“You said you and Dr. Lecter had a sexual relationship…” he began, a bit awkwardly, “Did that start before or after you realized what he was?”
Will blanched, looking away from Dr. Reid immediately, “I don’t know what -”
“No, no, no,” Reid cut him off, “you don’t have to lie. I know you knew before you ‘caught’ him. I’m just curious which came first.”
Will frowned, looking back up and meeting his eyes for a sharp, tense second.
“Before,” he said, his voice cracked a bit. “It started before.”
“And when you realized…?”
Will’s smile was bitter, “And when I realized… well, he was the only person I thought cared about me, Dr. Reid. He was all I had. Can you imagine I’d let that go so easily?”
Reid lowered his eyes, frowning, “I’m just trying to get the entire picture. It never made sense to me… What changed your mind?”
Will made a face, his eyes going dark, “Abigail Hobbs,”
“You cared about her,”
“I felt responsible for her,” Will corrected, “And she didn’t deserve that, no matter – no matter what she did.”
Reid nodded to himself and they once again fell into silence, this time not speaking again until they parted and said goodbye.
“You seem tense, Will,”
“I am tense,” Will snapped, glaring at Hannibal through the glass. “There’s a serial killer loose out there and you know more than you’re telling me.”
Hannibal smiled, “You can’t expect me to supply you with the answers, dear Will,” he said, “you must solve the puzzle on your own if you want to learn anything.”
“Damn it!” Will snapped, jumping from the chair and just barely stopping himself from punching the glass, “I’m not here to learn anything, Hannibal! Put me next to him! Let me see his face! That’s what I want.”
“No,”
Will’s teeth ground against each other and he took several deep breaths, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against the glass. His mind drifted for a moment.
“You – You killed her!”
“I’m sorry, Will,” Hannibal croons in his ear, wrapping a hand gently around his shoulder. Will jerks away from the touch like it’s burning.
“She was getting too close, Will. It had to be done.”
“YOU KILLED HER!” Will screams and his throat hurts but he doesn’t care. He whirls around to face Hannibal.
“You cut her throat and you watched her bleed out…”
“You know what I am, Will,” Hannibal says, soothing and calm. Usually Will finds that comforting. Now he finds it insulting. Patronizing and manipulative.
“You killed her and you left evidence that it was me,” Will’s voice is strangled. “Do you… do you think I’m an idiot, Hannibal? That I wouldn’t notice that?”
Hannibal’s eyes darken, “I am a survivor, Will,” he says patiently, “Do you imagine that if it came down to a choice between my freedom and yours I would chose yours?”
Will’s blood feels like it’s boiling. Everything is tinged with red and black, like blood and night. Like fury and fire. His heart thunders in his chest.
“You didn’t care about me at all, did you? What the hell was I to you, Dr. Lecter? A plaything? Some fucking toy to screw around with? See how far you could push me? You bastard.”
His voice is warbling, thick with tears that he wants to badly to shed, but he can’t cry in front of Hannibal. He’d enjoy that too much.
“You are not just a toy, Will,” Hannibal speaks evenly. He hasn’t raised his voice once and Will hates him all the more for that. He wants the bastard to scream, to yell, to threaten him. Something to make him feel like the shattering that’s happening inside his soul is okay.
“You’re special.”
“You’re a liar,” Will snaps, “You’re a fucking liar. I can’t believe I – I thought I loved you… I was so stupid…”
He turns, his mind racing, his chest aching and his eyes burning. He feels constricted. He can’t breathe. He needs to get out. He is only partly aware of his feet moving and that’s when Hannibal strikes.
His grip is powerful. Fingers digging into his shoulder hard enough to bruise. A hand wraps tightly around his neck, nails digging into flesh like knives. Hot blood trickles out and Will gasps, kicking and hitting. His eyes bulge out and then there’s a sharp, fiery pain in his gut.
It’s ripping. It’s tearing. It’s too much and Will can’t concentrate and then Hannibal’s grip on his throat loosens and he leans forward, his breath hot against his ear.
“I’m sorry, Will… I didn’t want it to come to this…”
He yanks the knife out. Will feels himself slipping. Falling. It’s so soft. It’s like his pain is ebbing away and it feels so good that Will wants to get lost in the feeling. He gets lost in Hannibal’s eyes, locked on his. Glowing red and smiling down at him.
Mocking him.
The fucking bastard.
He fades away to the sound of doors being kicked open and thinks for a moment that Hannibal will never forgive Jack for ruining his office doors like that. Then there’s nothing and he’s grateful.
“Will,” Will heard Hannibal talking to him and his face scrunched up. “Will, are you alright?” The concern there sounded so real that for a moment Will let himself believe it.
“Will?”
He opened his eyes and jolted away from the glass, staring right into Hannibal’s eyes like he had been in the dream.
“Jesus!” he panted, blinking several times to try and bring himself back into the present. Hannibal seemed amused, smile at him and flashing just the faintest traces of teeth. Will scrambled back and picked up the folding chair from where he’d knocked it down, sitting gingerly and rubbing his hands over his eyes.
“You seem tired, Will,” Hannibal said, “have you been having nightmares?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Will muttered, looking up. He avoided Hannibal’s eyes, lest he be sucked into another horrible memory again. He had to fight the urge to touch the spot on his stomach where the knife had pierced him. The scare pulsed and throbbed as if it knew its maker was nearby.
Will cleared his throat and leaned forward, “The Tooth Fairy…” he prompted.
“Ridiculous name, don’t you think?” Hannibal asked, “Freddie Lounds is certainly becoming less creative of late.”
Will scowled, “She was creative enough to write an entire article about the FBI turning to killers to find killers again.”
“I saw that,” Hannibal nodded, “The section on Dr. Reid was a surprise.”
“Well he did kill Jake Napier,” Will said, reminding him off the killer Hannibal had gotten to murder William Reid. “I assume that counts as murder. He butchered the man.”
Hannibal smiled, “That he did. Spencer shows such potential… As did you, William.”
Will scowled, “Potential?” his mouth twisted around the word and his eyes darted around Hannibal’s cell, looking for anything to focus on. He picked a drawing of what he assumed was France and stared at it.
“You both exhibited ample aptitude in viciousness and violence. Interesting, especially when one considers how few people would assume either of you were harboring violent tendencies.”
“Neither of us are,” Will snapped. “Dr. Reid was attacked in his apartment. He was defending himself. And I… You were screwing around with my head for months.”
“You let me,”
“I was an idiot,”
“I disagree,” Hannibal said, “I was making progress. You were very close to finally accepting your true nature, Will…”
“Bullshit,”
Hannibal scowled and his features twisted. It sent a shiver down Will’s spine that he fought to conceal. The last thing he needed was for Hannibal to start prodding at him again.
“You’re steering me off topic,” Will said, “I’m just here to talk about the case.” He sighed, “Please. Just show me his face, Dr. Lecter. Put me next to him…”
Hannibal sighed a bit and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and carefully considering.
“We need to know what it says fast, Dr. Reid,” Jack loomed over Reid’s shoulder as he worked, chewing on his lip as he tried to piece together the message that Hannibal had sent to their killer.
“I’m working on it,” Reid insisted, “I’d be able to work a lot faster if you weren’t looming over me.”
Jack frowned, but stepped back, glancing at Beverly and Jimmy as they anxiously watched the younger man decode the message. They had decided to let the message go out and were hoping that Lecter hadn’t noticed that they’d discovered his letter.
Maybe he would communicate with him again and they’d be able to track him. It was worth a shot at least.
Reid’s eyes darted between the paper where the message had been carefully copied out by Jimmy Price earlier and the thick book that was the key to the code the message had been written in. He jotted down a word every minute or so in messy, almost illegible scrawl.
After several long minutes, he stopped, glancing back down at what he’d written, and then he paled.
He jumped up without saying anything to Jack and practically ran across the room to where his satchel was, pulling his cell phone out.
By the time Jack had deciphered Reid’s terrible handwriting, the young agent was already speaking frantically to Will Graham.
GRAHAM HOME IN MARATHON FLORIDA, the message read, SAVE YOURSELF. KILL HIM.
Will was, for the first time ever, truly grateful he had no family. He couldn’t imagine the terror he would have felt to have anyone actually living in his home when he heard the message Hannibal had sent to the Tooth Fairy.
His heart thudded in his chest just at the thought of his dogs. He’d demanded that Jack warn his neighbors and put a patrol on the house to keep his animals safe.
He suspected Jack only agreed because of the slim chance of the Tooth Fairy going all the way to Florida to try and kill him.
He had no idea how Hannibal had gotten his address, but it turned his blood to ice in his veins just to think about it.
He was edgy the next time he visited Hannibal at his cell, pacing and refusing to sit in the hard metal chair.
“Is something bothering you, Will?” Hannibal asked.
Will’s eyes shot up to his face and he scowled, “You must really hate me,” he said finally. “Which, since you keep insisting that I’m so much like you, means you must really hate yourself.”
“I don’t follow, Will,”
Will hated the way Hannibal used his name. He took a deep breath.
“You know what I’m talking about,”
Hannibal tilted his head and smiled a bit, “Ah, you mean my little message to pilgrim. Oh, Will, I thought that’s what you wanted. You asked me to show you his face. I merely obliged. I sent him to you.”
“To kill me,”
“Or for you to kill him,” Hannibal grinned, a truly terrifying grin if Will had ever seen one. “I would have been very eager to see the outcome of that particular showdown.”
Will glared at him and Hannibal’s grin faded. He leaned forward, studying Will carefully.
“I truly did not wish you harm, dear, Will,”
Will snorted and Hannibal continued as if he hadn’t heard,
“You like a challenge, don’t you? It’s no fun if you’re simply told what to do and where to go. No, Will, you enjoy the thrill of the chase. The adrenaline pumping through your veins. The uncertainty of the outcome, the danger.”
Will wanted to deny it, but it struck too close to true and so he changed the subject instead.
“Fine,” Will said, “then give me a challenge, Dr. Lecter. Put me next to him and let’s see which one of us comes out of it alive.”
“It doesn’t seem right,” Reid said, his voice lowered as he stared through the open hospital door at the shaken young woman staring off at nothing. Reba McClane was covered in blood and ash, her hair a horrible mess.
Reid thought it was probably better she was blind. The body they’d found in the house was utterly demolished – skull crushed in from the shot gun, skin blistered and scorched from the fire. Most of his face had been destroyed from the bullet and whatever skin and tissue that remained had been boiled and burnt into a bubbling, melted pile of disgusting.
“Which part?” Will’s voice was a bit louder, more bitter as he crossed and uncrossed his arms. He hated to agree with Dr. Reid, but something still felt so incomplete about all this.
Francis Dolarhyde – the Tooth Fairy – was dead, but it didn’t feel like it was over. He wondered if it ever would.
“All of it,” Reid frowned, “he was running. He was scared. She said he was going to kill them both and let the house burn down on top of them… But he couldn’t bring himself to kill her.”
“He loved her too much,” Will nodded, still staring at Reba, wondering idly if she’d ever feel normal again after what had happened.
“So why did he kill himself then? He couldn’t follow through on his plan… Why end it without finishing things properly?”
“He felt trapped,” Will said, his voice still gravelly from the smoke he’d inhaled at the site. “He wanted to stop, but he couldn’t stop himself so he ended it the only way he knew how…”
“Maybe…” Reid didn’t seem convinced, but Will tried not to let the worry nag at him. It was over and Dolarhyde was dead and his life could go back to normal again. He would never again let Jack Crawford pull him back into the field that much he knew.
Will sighed in relief as he unlocked the front door of his beach front house. It was small and a bit cramped with all the dogs, but it felt like home.
He pushed the door open cautiously, expecting to be knocked down by eager dogs, starved for his attention. When he wasn’t, his heart shot into his chest. He tried to stamp down the paranoia that was slowly building inside of him as he crept inside and wished desperately for his own gun. He had a revolver hidden upstairs, but that was so far away.
There wasn’t a sound in the house at all. No scuffling of nails on the floor, no panting breaths or quiet whines. No gentle barks. Nothing at all. Something was definitely wrong.
He eased his way into the living room and was hit with the smell. It hung in the air, putrid and thick and made his stomach roll as he flicked on the light.
He immediately wished he hadn’t. He closed and opened his eyes several times, trying to unsee what was before him. His mind reeled against it, his hands shaking, his palms sweating. He wanted to vomit, but nothing came up but a dry, choked sound as his eyes burned with tears.
His dogs – all of them – were laid out on the living room floor. Gutted. Their blood had seeped into the carpet, intestines and organs slipping out of the vicious, uneven cuts across their bellies. Their fur was thick with it – red and stained and clumping where the blood had started to congeal.
Oh god, oh god, oh god…
He stumbled forward, his legs giving out as he landed on his knees beside Winston. He reached out blindly, taking the dog’s limp head into his lap and racking his vibrating fingers through the thick fur, choking on sobs.
He heard the floor creak behind him, but he didn’t turn around. The voice that spoke had a slight lisp and his heart jolted with the revelation.
He always kills the pets first. Hannibal had said.
“Stand up, Gumshoe…”
“Spencer!” Hannibal smiled brightly whenever he saw the young agent. He hadn’t expected that he would ever see his Spencer again. At least not of Spencer’s own volition. He’d continued to write him, of course, but Spencer never replied just as Will never replied.
“I’m surprised to see you. I was under the impression that you never wanted to speak with me again.”
“I didn’t,” he said, his voice low and strained. He pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, glancing up at Hannibal for a moment.
“I came because I didn’t want you to hear the news secondhand or from one Freddie Lounds’ sensationalized articles.”
Hannibal raised a brow, leaning forward, “Has something happened?” he asked.
Reid’s lips twisted up into a sad sort of smile, his hazel eyes shining with faint tears as he nodded.
“Something happened,” he said, “Yes.”
There was silence for a long moment and Hannibal frowned, “Well?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he stared down at his hands for another long second. Finally, he looked up and locked eyes with Hannibal.
“Will Graham is dead,” he said, his voice ringing out oddly loud in the cell block. Hannibal blinked, sucking in a sharp breath and becoming very, very still.
Reid continued talking, “Francis Dolarhyde faked his death at the house. Forensics didn’t know until they tried to match dental records. By the time Jack sent a team to warn Will, it was too late.
“He cut him open with shards of the bathroom mirror,” Reid’s voice was choked, “Gouged his eyes out too. ME says it’s inconclusive whether or not Will was alive when that happened.”
Hannibal had gone very white, his lips pressing together in a thin line. He said nothing as Spencer stood and stared at him.
“You did that,” he said. “You gave Dolarhyde his address and practically gift-wrapped Will for him. I hope you’re happy. …At least in the end it was someone other than you who killed him.”
Hannibal still said nothing and Spencer didn’t seem to expect a reply. He said goodbye, though Hannibal hardly heard him at all, and his footsteps echoed down the hall as he left. It was several minutes before Hannibal moved, shifting from where he stood and moving to his small writing desk.
He sat down, pulled up a fresh sheet of paper and selected a pencil, the very faintest traces of tears in his eyes as he began to draw.
-end-