Chapter Text
There’s an acrid smell in the air when Will steps out onto his porch that morning to let his dogs run, the sun just starting to rise over the tops of the trees surrounding the property. It's gotten colder the past few nights, the leaves have almost all fallen by now, leaving the trees bare and skeletal. He can’t quite place the smell, bitter and heavy on the back of his tongue. Breathing in too deeply makes his lungs ache with the cold anyways, but it sets him on edge. There’s frost lining the wood of his porch, creeping along every surface in an icy blanket. His slippers leave thawed out prints where he stands.
The change in weather hasn’t seemed to have phased his dogs in the slightest though, leaping through once raked piles of decaying leaves. He watches his breath come out in short puffs of nearly tangible spirals. He should have put on his coat first, goosebumps lining his exposed arms. He still lets his dogs wander a while longer before calling them back in, watching them chase each other, tails frantic and excited as they skid across still frozen earth.
Once they’re all back inside, Will pours himself a generous cup of coffee. It doesn’t do much for him anymore, never able to pull him out of that unending sense of fatigue like it used to, but old habits die hard and he likes the bitter taste on his tongue. When he returns to the living room the dogs are piled up on the ragged old carpet in front of the fireplace, content and warm. He joins them, just cozied up on the couch beside them, though it's equally as coated in fur as if he was to curl up directly on top of them. He pulls a blanket over his lap and lets himself doze between awake and asleep, sipping on his coffee and watching the flames lick at simmering coals as he listens to his dog's snore.
He’s probably more on the side of asleep than awake when his dogs perk back up, suddenly alert. It only takes a moment after that for them to sprint into action, all of their bodies crowding the doorway, barking and whining. Will sighs and pulls himself off of the couch, setting his coffee aside. He really doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now, he’s still in his pajamas, hair tangled and messy, but ignoring them isn’t really much of an option when he has a full pack of alarm systems barking and dancing around the door. “Alright, back up, come on,” Will sighs, nudging them all back with his foot as he skirts around them to the door. He can see from the window in his door that there’s a car in his driveway, one he knows.
He pulls the door open, closing the door behind himself before any of the dogs can weasel their way out. “I’m not interested.”
Jack laughs as he makes his way to the porch, though it's not an amused sound. “Good Morning to you too, Will.”
“I don’t care what it is, I’m not interested,” he says again, folding his arms over his chest. He feels suddenly and ridiculously exposed, standing there in a white t-shirt and some old pajama pants. Jack on the other hand looks the epitome of professionalism, dark slacks and a neatly ironed out shirt under his coat.
“Oh come on, Will,” Jack presses, making his way up the few steps until he’s standing on the same level as Will. “at least hear me out.”
Will doesn’t say anything but he can feel the start of a headache at his temples with how tense he is. He used to like Jack, he Likes Jack, but there’s been too many mishaps and gained trauma that falls back onto Jack’s recklessness that it's left a bad taste in Will's mouth.
Jack apparently takes the silence as an invitation to continue because he smiles slightly before saying, “We found another one.” he doesn’t have to explain anymore for Will to know what he’s talking about, it's been all over the news for weeks. Several murders, quick succession, all mid-twenties, dark hair, differing genders, all missing their ring finger. They’d been strangled to death before careful, neat incisions had been made across the body to bleed it and string them. They strung up the bodies in their room like a fucking banner.
“This one’s different,” Will guesses mildly, though his defense is still up.
Jack nods. “We want you to take a look, see what you can find,” he says, though Will wonders if there’s really a ‘we’ or if Jack just wants his personal lapdog back. “Honestly right now we’re at a loss, you’re our best bet.”
Will isn’t surprised that Jack’s fallen right back into his not-quite-guilt-tripping habits, but it eats at Will nonetheless. There’s a part of him that twists uncomfortably at the thought of saying no even though he really should. There has always been a deep desire to please Jack in Will, wanting to do right and make him some semblance of proud. Jack is a friend and a twisted father figure, even if Will wishes his brain wouldn’t make that connection. Still, the knowledge of what happened last time Will helped on a case isn’t something Will has forgotten. He can't forget no matter how hard he tries, it lives with him daily. Even if Jack doesn’t know the specific reasoning for why Will quit so abruptly after that case, refusing to ever set foot on another crime scene again- he wishes he would have respected it.
“I told you before, Jack, I’m done,” Will sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose to try and ease some of the tension building in his head. “I don’t think it would be a good idea, anyway.”
“Why?” Jack presses, and it’s not the first time he’s asked that. Jack had been furious when Will had told him he was done. He’d tried to get an explanation out of him, something Will had still been too raw about to even begin to explain. Now he knows he simply can’t explain. “You’re good at what you do.”
“That isn’t what I do, Jack,” Will hisses. “I did it for you because you asked me- because I was helping-”
“You could help again, Will!” Jack interrupts, stepping closer. “You could stop people from dying.”
“I can’t,” Will bit out, refraining from taking a step back. “Not anymore.”
“Why, Will? Why can’t you tell me?”
God, that was a loaded question. He wouldn’t even talk about it alone in his house with no one to hear it but his dogs.
“Are you worried about going too far? Getting in too deep?”
That used to be it, or at least a large part of it. Will used to lay awake at night, choking on his own breath, the actions of every man he’d investigated so deeply twisting around in his head. He could feel his hands sticky with blood that wasn’t his own, the feel of a blade pushing into the taut blanket of skin, just under the bow of the ribcage. He could feel their struggle, the life leaving their bodies as he closed his fists around their windpipes. He used to spend his time worrying about becoming one of them, unable to discern the difference between reality and the dusty not-memories of what he allowed his mind to see.
It still haunts him sometimes, waking up choking on a scream, sweat-drenched and shaking. Not as much anymore, though. Not since he left the FBI and Jack behind, anyways. He has other things that eat at him now, plaguing him at all hours.
“You almost sound worried,” Will says dryly and Jack looks at him seriously, lips curling into what almost looks like a frown.
“I’m not going to do this carelessly, I’ll have you evaluated before you go back into the field,” Jack says and Will wants to laugh. All this has ever been is careless, Jack seeking his next high of a job well done while Will sits back behind to pick up his pieces again.
“I won’t pass,” Will says honestly. There’s a reason this has always been done in an unorthodox kind of way. He couldn’t be real FBI even when he’d wanted to.
“Let a psychiatrist decide that,” Jack says. “If he thinks it's too risky, I’ll leave you alone.”
Will doesn’t even know what makes him agree, really. His heart is pounding in his ears, fingers digging into his arms where he’s kept them folded. He doesn’t like the idea of someone psychoanalyzing him, never has, it’s always been off the table and everyone knows it. Yet, here he is.
“Thank you, Will,” Jack says honestly, dripping with sincerity that still doesn’t make Will feel any less sick. "here, give him a call, Alana recommended him herself.” he hands Will a sleek looking business card. “Tell him I sent you.”
Will takes it, turning it over in his hand a few times, watching the matt black reflect dully in the sunlight. Hannibal Lecter, Psychiatrist.