Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Useful Hoops
I’m a good fisherman, Jack.
You hook him. I’ll land him.
When Will had dressed for the evening, he’d done it with fishing in mind. He wasn’t hunting the Chesapeake Ripper. The way to catch him wasn’t to track or stalk. No, it was to lure . So, he’d tied himself up in a metaphorical blood knot, decorating his body the way he would a fishing fly, customizing it to catch the exact species he was hoping to hook.
That fish, the sea’s apex predator, was Hannibal Lecter. Like a shark, he was born to be a perfect killing machine – no need for evolution. But Will could evolve. He was going to have to if he was going to survive Jack’s plan and not be swallowed along with the hook.
New clothes. New haircut and product. New cologne. He took one more glance at himself in the mirror before driving up to Baltimore. Just as important was how he presented himself – how he could attract Hannibal’s interest, inspire his trust, make him think that Will was on the way to not only accepting murder, but longing to study at the feet of the master.
He had to separate himself from his antipathy for the man that had falsely imprisoned him. Tried to ruin his life. Killed Beverly and Abigail. On the drive, he activated the ambient pulse in his head, trying to see himself through Hannibal’s point of view. What would tempt him the most? What would cloud his mind and encourage him to make a mistake?
He thought of Frederick Chilton’s words. “Why did Hannibal not just kill you?”
Will had said, “Because he wants to be my friend .”
Now, it was time to convince Hannibal that Will wanted the same thing.
Hannibal was in his office, waiting, it seemed, for Will. Had kept his standing appointment open. And Will was right on time, 7:00 on the dot. Hannibal valued punctuality, of course. Will promised he hadn’t come to stick a gun in Hannibal’s face this time, and was invited inside.
“Why have you come, then?” Hannibal stood with his hands in his pockets, watching Will carefully as he looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.
Will crafted his response deftly, the slight turn of his body, a calculated glance up into Hannibal’s eyes, an elegant motion of his head. “I’d like to resume my therapy.” He said it matter-of-factly, but with a touch of eagerness. Without waiting for a response, Will took his same seat and rested his arms on the chair. Hannibal’s face let a tiny expression escape – one of suspicion clouding over hope – before claiming his own seat and crossing his legs, lacing his fingers together to rest on his thigh. He looked at Will as if trying to read him. Will remained immobile, but let the flicker of a smile across his features.
“Where shall we begin?” Hannibal asked.
As far as a therapy session went, it was unorthodox, to say the least. What they discussed was benign enough; how Will was adjusting to the outside, what freedom felt like, how the dogs had fared under Alana’s care.
The mention of Alana made Will bristle; a strange reflex he couldn’t entirely explain. He thought back to his conversation with her on his porch after he’d been released.
Is Hannibal safe?
From me, or FOR YOU?
The furious silence that’d followed said plenty. Still, he’d broken it.
I suggest you stay as far away from Hannibal Lecter as you can.
Hannibal was looking at him now with those dark eyes. They glittered like pieces of broken glass. Will knew the look; Hannibal was curious. “Tell me, Will – what in particular bothers you about my relationship with Alana Bloom?”
“Nothing,” he lied, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in the chair.
“You told her to stay away from me.” Oh great, she’d described their porch conversation to him already.
“For her own safety,” Will said. “You’re like a black hole in the middle of space. Anything that drifts too close to the event horizon is sucked into chaos.”
“You’re here. Do you want chaos?”
Will shrugged. “Want isn’t the word I’d use. I’ve already, ah… crossed the threshold. I’m in your gravitational pull. Part of my therapy, I think, is… accepting that. Finding peace in it.”
“Insightful.” Hannibal leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him. Will noticed, a bit too keenly for his comfort, the way his hair fell over his forehead. “Motives can be complex. Was Alana’s safety all you had in mind?”
Will scoffed. “You want me to say that I’m, what, jealous? All right, yeah, sure.”
“Of me, or of her?”
Will scoffed again, as if the thought didn’t exist beneath the layers of his mind. He’d actually considered the question himself, but declined to answer it. Didn’t want to go there. “Look, you go right ahead, Dr. Lecter. I kissed her a couple of times. She wasn’t interested.”
“Because you were unstable.”
“Because I was unstable,” Will repeated. “And I don’t see that, uhm… clearing up anytime soon. So please, enjoy your little, ah… dalliance. Your character reference. Your alibi. I know from experience how helpful it is to have Alana Bloom in your corner. If she thinks you’re innocent, well – she’ll do anything to defend you.”
“That answers my question.” There was a hungry gleam to Hannibal’s eyes now, and the shadow of a smile passing over his face. It made Will’s blood boil.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hannibal leaned back and laced his hands over his curved knee. “You admitted you were jealous of some aspect of my relationship with Alana Bloom. You then went on to say – emphatically, in fact – that you are not jealous of me having a relationship with the woman you once expressed a romantic interest in. Therefore–”
Oh shit, Will’s mind whispered.
“You’re jealous of Alana.”
Will shot to his feet, a nearly unconscious action. He couldn’t look at Hannibal right now. His mind was a whirl of unspoken words – don’t be ridiculous, that’s insane, are you saying I want to be with you, are you saying that you think I want to sleep with you – none of which he dared to release. Instead he wandered as casually as he could over to the stag statue and reached out to touch the tines of its antlers.
Hannibal waited patiently for a time, but Will heard him get up after a while, felt his presence like a heat source moving closer. Will abandoned his position and went over to the ladder, resting a hand on one of the rungs. He had to say something. This was going off the rails.
At last, his thoughts became coherent. “If that’s the case,” he said coolly, leaning back against the ladder, letting his hips angle in a way that had to be perceived as inviting, “at least part of why you’re having an affair with Alana has to do with making me jealous. To hurt me, because I tried to kill you.”
Hannibal cocked his head, pausing where he stood. Then he closed the distance between them, coming to loom in front of Will where he was stretched out on the ladder. Will’s breath came faster, and perspiration beaded at his hairline. “Yes,” Hannibal admitted.
There it was. The truth, simultaneously exciting and terrifying. In so many words, they’d just declared it. They were both attracted to one another beyond the promise of deep psychological and spiritual connection, of understanding, of the Becoming. Beyond companionship and friendship was relationship.
They desired one another sexually .
And as shocking as that knowledge was for Will, left him reeling and… if he was being honest with himself, extremely turned on, he also saw it for what it was in the grand scheme of things. Another part of the lure. Hannibal’s desire for him was leverage . Because if Will could be jealous of Alana, Hannibal could be jealous of… someone else.
That idea was not only personally satisfying, but the distraction might cause Hannibal to make a mistake, leave some evidence behind, something that could at last incriminate him as the Chesapeake Ripper.
All this flew through Will’s consciousness like a flock of black birds over an empty field.
This was a moment .
Hannibal could feel it, too. Will knew because his therapist reached out and put a hand on the ladder frame.
Leaning in.
For a kiss…!?
No. Nah. There was–
Oh fuck – yes, yes, this was actually happening.
And part of Will, he was now forced to admit, wanted to kiss Hannibal Fucking Lecter, the Chesapeake Ripper, the craven monster, the cannibal.
At the last possible second, Will bailed.
He slid to the side just enough to get off the ladder and step away, turning his back, pretending to examine some sketches Hannibal had left on a nearby table. He could feel Hannibal’s eyes burning into his back, but he forced himself to stay facing the other direction. Meanwhile, a klaxon sounded in his mind, a blaring alarm of confusion, signaling dangers he couldn’t even imagine.
Anger grew in him now, once the waters within him slowly stilled, rising like a persistent mist from a pond in autumn. There was no way he was giving in to this. He and Jack were going to hook and land Hannibal and he was going to make his therapist suffer up until the very second they slapped the cuffs on those elegant wrists.
At last, he turned back to Hannibal, who was still standing in front of the ladder with his hand curled around the edge as if frozen, staring at Will. Looking, dare he think it, vulnerable .
Before he’d fully thought out what he was going to say, Will spoke. “Is that the time? I, um… I have to get going.”
This seemed to unfreeze Hannibal. He let go of the ladder and looked at his watch. “Need to let the dogs out?”
“No,” Will said with a confidence he didn’t actually possess. “I have… a date.”
Hannibal’s brow clouded over and Will was sure that somewhere in that mask of mildness and therapist’s concern, he saw a twinge of pain. “I see.” Then, “With whom, if I may ask?”
Ah fuck, of course he’d ask that. Will ran through a few ideas like a slot machine rolling over numbers, hoping to get a match. Someone he’d met online. No. Someone he’d met in the hospital? An orderly? No, that was too close to the whole Matthew Brown thing. Jimmy? No, he’d never put Jimmy in harm’s way. Peter Bernadone? Locked up still. His trial lawyer’s paralegal had been very attractive, but he didn’t remember her name. His neighbor Karla? Eew, no.
The name that came out of his mouth was, “Frederick Chilton.”
And in that moment, Will knew a complete and total victory. Hannibal Lecter, Mister Poker Face, master and commander of all emotions and reactions, professional manipulator… broke character. The look on his face was pure murder, and it sent a visceral chill through Will’s body that braided with a kind of anticipatory pleasure and, yes, he admitted it, sexual arousal.
“Dr. Chilton.” The words were razored ice.
Will was almost too overcome with Hannibal’s reaction to speak. At last, he found his voice. “Y-yeah.”
One facial muscle at a time, Hannibal’s expression relaxed back into his usual mask. “Interesting. I thought you had nothing but contempt for him. You implied he tried to keep us apart during your stay in his facility.”
“He did. He, uh… thought he was doing what was best.”
“For him, or for you?”
Will cocked his head with a daring smile. “Heh. I might not, um, consider him as someone at the top of his field. His therapy leaves… something to be desired. But that’s okay. Because he’s not my therapist. Which is good, because…” He shrugged. “Y’know, that wouldn’t be appropriate .”
Hannibal said nothing.
Will kept running his mouth. He knew, the way he knew why a killer killed the way they did, that beneath the veneer of calm, Hannibal was absolutely fuming. And it was more delicious to Will than anything he’d ever tasted in his entire life. “Something just kind of… happened when I was at the BSHCI. I dunno, we just sort of… realized we had feelings for each other. And I’m out now. Not his patient. So we can… explore that. Explore… each other.”
Oh fuck. If he wasn’t careful, Hannibal might just kill him right now.
He fled to the chair and picked up his coat. “See you next week,” he said.
“Please give Frederick my best.” Hannibal offered this through a benevolent smile, but Will could sense the poisonous undercurrent of the words.
“I certainly will.”
He left, shutting the door behind himself, and let his face break into a wide smile. Will laughed under his breath as he went outside and got into the Volvo.
He paused, the smile drooping. Hannibal was going to realize within a matter of a day or two that Will had been lying, just to get a rise out of him. And shit, didn’t that look pathetic and desperate? That was pure junior high bullshit. He was momentarily demoralized. What did this mean for his plan with Jack? How smug and insufferable would Hannibal be when he found out Will lied just to make him jealous?
Will put the car in gear and pulled into traffic. There was only one thing to do.
Make sure he wasn’t lying.