Chapter Text
Edric Graham slowly opens his eyes as his son slips inside the hospital room.
“Hey, kiddo,” he rasps, smiling faintly.
Will Graham, with two cups of coffee in his hands, can only stare in shock.
When his father called to say he was sick, Will hadn’t thought too much about it. He realizes now that he should have. Edric Graham is not the type of man to complain about minor ailments.
He looks old, skin jaundiced and wrinkled. His hair is white and sparse. He’s lost close to thirty pounds. He looks like a man going on seventy rather than fifty.
Will doesn’t have to be a doctor to know that his condition is serious, and he feels a lump grow in his throat. “Hi, Daddy.”
Edric laughs, but it quickly turns into a pained cough. “Jesus, I must look like hell if you’re calling me that.”
Will doesn’t smile. He takes a chair next to the bed. There’s an IV running into the veins on the back of his hand, so Will touches his arm instead, feeling his lip start to quiver. “What did the doctor say?”
“A lot o’ mumbo jumbo that I didn’t pay attention to.”
“Dad.”
Edric falls silent for a moment. “He gave me a week. Said my liver’s shot. My fault, of course. I shoulda cut back on the whiskey years ago.”
Will sniffs, and then lets his forehead fall against the bed as unshed tears burn his eyes.
Edric reaches up to pet his dark curls. “Hey, it’s okay, kiddo.”
“You’re dying. How is anything okay?” he sobs.
His father doesn’t answer. He just continues smoothing down Will’s curls until his shoulders stop heaving.
“Have a drink, buddy. I got something to tell you.”
Will sits up and wipes his eyes, then downs a cup of tepid coffee.
His father doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. He just stares at Will as he gathers his thoughts.
“You know I love you, right?”
Will nods, unable to speak.
Edric sighs. “I’m going to tell you something, but just remember, I love you more than anything in the world, no matter what. You’re my son, okay?”
Will stares at him, confused, but nods again.
Edric inhales deeply, and closes his eyes. “In 1981, just before your mother and I started dating, she went to visit a relative of hers in Paris for two weeks. I was a goddamned fool for not telling her I loved her before she left, but I don’t regret that.” He licks his lips. “Emmy, Emmeline, your mother, she met someone while she was there. He was only sixteen, but he was already a medical student at a university. She said he had this Old World charm and sophistication.”
Will feels his stomach twist into knots as his mind puts together the pieces before his father can even finish speaking.
“They slept together,” Edric states. “Just once. It was a fling. Didn’t mean anything.” It sounds rehearsed, and Will wonders how many times his mother used those exact phrases.
“When she came back, I finally told her how I felt about her. We started going out, and we were married before your mother started…showing.” He clears his throat, blinking his watery brown eyes slowly. “I knew you weren’t mine. We talked about…about abortion, but she didn’t want one, and I didn’t want to put her through that. We decided…that you would be ours. Emmy didn’t want to mess up the med student’s life, so we didn’t contact him.”
Will can only stare at his…not-father. He feels indignant – humiliated. How could they keep this from him?
Edric plows forward, desperate to finish his confession. “We tried to have another baby when you were three or so. Took us almost a year to figure out that it wasn’t going to happen. Broke your mother’s heart. I think that’s when she started pulling away. I was so terrified that I’d wake up one day to find the two of you gone.” He swallows. “I was half-right. I don’t know why she left you with me, but I’m glad she did.” He reaches for Will’s hand, determination giving him strength. “Just ‘cuz you ain’t my blood don’t make you any less my son, you understand? If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.” He smiles weakly then. “Well, maybe I’d drink a little less. God, your mother’d kill me for unloading this on you. She never wanted you to know.”
Will sucks in a breath, trying to remain calm. “What was his name? The med student?”
Edric shifts in the bed, grunting in pain before settling into a more comfortable position. “Hannibal Lecter.”
Will doesn’t search for him.
Even after the man who raised him is dead and buried, Will doesn’t seek out the man who sired him. It feels too much like a betrayal. In spite of everything, he still loves his dad, blood or not.
There’s no point anyway. All he has is a name and a possible occupation. He doesn’t even know if those two things are accurate.
He stops being a cop just months later, after a routine domestic disturbance ends with his partner getting shot and him getting stabbed by a coked up suspect. He applies for the FBI. Doesn’t get in. Too unstable. They give him a teaching job, and offer a not-so-subtle suggestion that he should get some psychological testing done.
Will spends all of ten minutes in Frederick Chilton’s presence before storming out of his office. He refuses to even consider a new psychiatrist.
Five years pass. He spends his time rescuing stray dogs. They fill his empty house with eager barks and lolling tongues and coat every surface with their hair. After a while, he convinces himself that he can be happy.
And then he sees his father on the news.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter – dubbed Hannibal the Cannibal by the press – stares back at him. His face is largely hidden by a white, plastic mask. He’s trussed up in a straitjacket and strapped to a dolly. At least two guards are stationed with him at all times.
Will knows he shouldn’t, but he watches every interview about the deranged doctor. His spends hours on his computer, even lowering himself to adding to the hit count of Freddie Lounds’ articles on TattleCrime.com as he digs into the cannibal’s past.
Most of his life is a mystery. He immigrated to America in his twenties and became a successful surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was everyone’s favourite socialite, throwing spectacular dinner parties several times a year. He was a connoisseur of fine arts. A gentleman.
He had the perfect camouflage, until Miriam Lass, an agent-in-training stumbled upon one of his drawings and recognized the face of one of the Chesapeake Ripper’s victims.
She was lucky. If she’d been a bit slower on the draw, she would’ve ended up on Lecter’s table during one of his fancy dinner parties.
Weeks go by. Summer arrives, and his classes end, leaving him with far too much time on his hands. He spends most of it googling Hannibal Lecter, hoping against hope that there’s another man with his name buried somewhere online, if only so he can convince himself that this monster in human form is not his father.
He finds other Hannibals, other Lecters, but no one else has that exact name, and none of them match the age that his mother’s mysterious lover would be.
Unless she lied about his name, and his age, and his schooling. He doesn’t remember her well enough to determine what the truth could be.
When Will finally realizes how to put his mind at ease, he nearly smacks himself. He’s lounging on the couch, flipping through the channels on his decade-old television when he comes across a rerun of The Maury Show. It’s daytime talk show drivel, but he pauses when he hears those oft-repeated words, “You are not the father.”
The crowd boos and hisses, a woman starts sobbing, a man gets out of his chair and marches off the stage, humiliated, and Will Graham sits up, finally realizing that there’s an easy way to find out the truth.
He’s not planning to go on any talk show – though Jerry Springer would probably trip over himself to interview the man who claimed to be Hannibal the Cannibal’s long-lost son – but he is in a position to get a sample of Lecter’s DNA. He has enough pull at Quantico to ask one of the lab techs to order a cheek swab for scientific purposes.
He looks up paternity testing online, finds a lab that’s highly praised for its accuracy – and privacy – and orders a home kit.
Will actually has to wait in line to get a sample of Lecter’s DNA. It’s rare to find a serial killer with his particular brand of cruelty, at least not alive. He’d be more annoyed if he wasn’t grateful for the extra anonymity. Lecter’s cheek swab is delivered to his office by a pretty, but rather shy lab tech. Her hand trembles when she gives it to him. He forces himself to smile like a normal person, and to thank her for her help.
She’s too nervous to ask any questions, and quickly scurries away, peeking longingly over her shoulder once she enters the hallway. Will doesn’t notice, too busy twirling the glass vial with the buccal swab inside.
When he gets home, he collects his own swab – it doesn’t hurt at all, though it does tickle a bit – and carefully places them in their proper packaging to be dropped off at the post office in the morning.
It takes a long, nail-biting week for the results to be mailed back, and he steels himself before opening them.
There’s a letter reassuring all customers that the lab uses the best DNA testing technology to give the most accurate results possible. At the very least, even if Lecter isn’t his father, this test will prove it to him without a doubt and finally put his mind at ease.
Taking a deep breath, he finally looks at the results.
Will doesn’t know how long he sits on the couch, but eventually his dogs start whining from hunger, and he comes out of his fugue state with a start. He stands up and robotically fills their food and water bowls. His stomach growls, but he’s never felt less hungry in his life.
His eyes keep straying back to that number – 99.99997%. That’s how likely it is that Dr. Hannibal Lecter is his father, but unless the man has a secret brother or something, it might as well be 100%.
The results list the genetic markers they share, called alleles. He can’t help but wonder what else they have in common.
Will’s classes resume, and he’s almost relieved to be back. Anything to distract him from his thoughts.
That relief lasts until the day he sees Alana Bloom – a dear colleague, and the closest person he has to a real friend – standing outside his office door one morning. She gives him a soft, strained smile when she spots him, and that’s the only warning he gets before Jack Crawford barges over.
For a moment, Will is sure that he’s somehow learned about his relationship to Lecter, and he’s here to take him into custody, ‘as a precaution’. Of course, it’s illogical, but it makes his heart race, and he has to swallow down his fear as the large man approaches him.
“Will,” Alana says in her sweet voice. “This is Agent Jack Crawford.”
“I’d prefer to speak with him alone. Thank you, Dr. Bloom.”
Her mouth twists in displeasure, and she gives Will a sympathetic look as she leaves. Will isn’t too worried. He knows she won’t go far, and she’ll be back in a second if things get to be too much for him.
Sometimes he thinks he could fall in love with her so easily.
They enter his office together, and Crawford gets straight to the point. “I’m told you have an interesting way of looking at crime scenes, Dr. Graham.”
Will frowns. “I’m not a doctor.” He adjusts his glasses so Crawford’s face is cut off. “And I don’t do that anymore. It’s not good for my mental health,” he says bitterly.
“How about just looking at some pictures?” the agent prods, holding out a manila folder for him.
Will takes it automatically, but gives Crawford a hard look. “Pictures aren’t the same as the scenes themselves, but you already know that. Why are you really here, Agent Crawford?”
The agent falters for the first time, then smiles. “I see they weren’t exaggerating about your perceptiveness, Mr. Graham.”
Will says nothing, waiting for the man to continue.
Crawford’s smile fades, and he gestures towards the folder. “Just take a look and tell me what you think.”
He bristles at being ordered around, but his curiosity is growing by the second. He flips the file open and his breath catches in his throat at the sight.
His mind is already rebuilding the crime scene without his consent, and after a moment, he flips the folder shut again with a shudder.
“Someone’s copying Lecter’s work?” he asks. His voice sounds very distant to his own ears.
Crawford’s mouth snarls, and Will catches doubtguilt flash across his face.
“Lecter killed Jeremy Olmstead, I’m sure of that,” Will states, mostly to silence his own doubts that his father might just be an innocent man locked away on faulty evidence. He knows what Lecter is.
“It’s a perfect rendition,” Crawford says.
“The Ripper doesn’t repeat himself. His victims are pigs, but they are all distasteful in their own unique ways, and therefore their deaths must be unique as well.”
Crawford is a little wide-eyed. Perhaps he hadn’t expected Will to know so much about Lecter. He’d been careful to never show more than a slight academic interest in the man. He didn’t even include his crimes in his lesson plans. Maybe he never will.
“Only the bare details of Olmstead’s death were released to the public. Certainly not enough to recreate the murder.”
“Then it’s someone on the inside. Or maybe Lecter told someone. You should ask him.”
“I’d rather you did.”
Will wonders if he misheard the man. He stares at him for a moment. “…Sorry?”
Crawford takes a step closer, crowding him. “Would you be willing to interview Hannibal Lecter?”
His first instinct is to say, no. He shouldn’t want anything to do with someone like Lecter. The man is a sadist, lacking any conventional morality. He’d skin someone alive for chatting on their phone during a movie (although really, who hasn’t thought about doing that?).
His second instinct is buried much deeper, but it’s surprisingly powerful. This may be the only chance you get to talk to your father.
Will scowls. He had a father. His name was Edric Graham, and he loved him until the day he died. Lecter is nothing more than a glorified sperm donor. He probably has half a dozen illegitimate children running around Europe. Monsters like him use people and throw them away without a thought to compassion or decency. Perhaps his mother realized what he was, and that’s why she wanted nothing to do with him.
Still, the primal desire to know where he came from only grows, and his mouth opens of its own accord.
“Fine, I’ll talk to him, but that’s it.”
Crawford doesn’t bother to hide his triumph, and he saunters out of the room, calling over his shoulder that he’ll make him an appointment with Lecter for that night.
Will swallows down a mouthful of bile and goes to his classroom.
The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane (BSHCI) is a large, depressing building. Will hates places like this. He’s always afraid he won’t be allowed to leave.
It doesn’t help that the administrator is none other than Frederick Chilton. Will almost pities his father when he finds out that Chilton insists on treating Lecter himself. The death penalty must be looking pretty appealing right about now.
“It’s so good to see you again, Will. I was so concerned when I found out you’d decided to discontinue your treatment,” Chilton says in his slimy voice.
Will barely looks at him as they pass through a security station with a slouching guard whose gaze follows them with surprising alertness. “Well, I haven’t gone on any murder sprees lately, so I’d say I’m doing just fine without your…treatment.”
Chilton takes it as a friendly joke, and not the slight that it is, but Will doesn’t bother to correct him.
“He’s just down the hall? Last cell on the left?” he asks, indicating with a nod of his head.
“Yes, quite. I try to minimize his contact with the other patients. He has a way of upsetting people. Miggs – the patient who used to be in the cell next to him – nearly bit through his tongue last week after Lecter spent a few minutes whispering to him.” Chilton sounds far too eager to discuss the details of Lecter’s misconducts. Will wonders if the administrator let something slip about Olmstead’s murder. It’s a possibility.
Chilton starts to walk down the hall, but Will grabs his shoulder to stop him. “I can take it from here. I know how to handle myself.”
He looks affronted. “With all due respect, Will, I doubt you’ve ever handled someone like Hannibal Lecter.”
“I’ll be fine,” he says, striding forward before Chilton can protest. He hears the man huff and turn away, muttering under his breath.
His nerves start to act up just before he reaches the cell, but he grits his teeth and bares it. Five minutes – ten tops – and then he can leave.
Lecter is behind a thick sheet of glass. Definitely shatterproof. It also offers little privacy. Will almost winces. The man is treated like an exhibit in a zoo. It’s disgusting.
There’s a curtain that wraps around his toilet, but everything else is exposed. His bed, his chair and desk, his books, his artwork. It’s all on display. He wonders if Lecter appreciates it on some level. The man always did enjoy putting on a show.
There are two cameras pointed at the cell. One is probably for the guard’s station, and the other for Chilton’s office. Will does his best to ignore them.
“Well, you’re certainly not a reporter,” Lecter says. His accent is hard to place, but sounds like something Eastern European mixed with French. He sets down the charcoal pencil he’d been drawing with and gives Will his full attention.
Will looks at him, finally, and can’t stop himself from comparing his face to his own. There’s little similarity, thank goodness. Lecter is pale with salt and pepper hair. He looks gaunt, like he’s lost weight, and his sharp cheekbones are probably his most prominent feature. His lips form a perfect cupid’s bow, and they turn up in pleasure as he looks at his guest.
With Will’s dark, curly hair, round face, and long eyelashes, it’s clear he takes after his mother, though he has his grandfather’s jawline. There’s hardly a trace of this man in him, except on a chromosomal level.
“I’m a teacher,” he says, keeping his gaze on Lecter’s pale eyebrows. “Will Graham.”
“And what do you teach, Mr. Graham?”
“Criminal Profiling, at Quantico.”
Lecter leans back in his chair and tents his hands under his chin. “I used to mentor young doctors back in my surgery days. I’m always willing to help out a fellow teacher. Would you like to hear my life story so you can parrot it back to your little agents-to-be and make them think they can truly understand what kind of monsters they’ll be hunting?” Lecter’s voice is lilting, mocking. His smile is just a bit too sharp.
Will smiles back, mimicking the expression unconsciously. “Sorry, you didn’t make the lesson plan. Maybe next year. I’m actually here on Jack Crawford’s behalf.”
Lecter’s eyebrow arches just a bit. “He sent a teacher to dig up all my little secrets? That seems rather desperate.”
He scoffs, thinking that the man must be desperate indeed to come to Will for help. “Probably, but I’m not here for that either. I understand you well enough.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“You’d be surprised.” He redirects his gaze to the bridge of Lecter’s nose. There’s usually a procedure for this type of interrogation – being courteous, establishing trust – but Will’s never preferred doing things the conventional way.
“Did you tell anyone how you killed Jeremy Olmstead, in detail?”
Lecter’s eyes widen in mock-surprise. “Ah, so you’re here to learn about my admirer.” He gets up from behind his desk, coming to stand directly in front of Will, back straight and hands clasped behind him. He sniffs the air, and his nose wrinkles. “You have awful taste in aftershave, Mr. Graham. I suppose that – along with the wrinkled clothes and the lack of a wedding band on your finger – means you have no one waiting for you to come home.”
It almost sounds like a threat, the way he says it, though what exactly he’s threatening, Will doesn’t know. It’s not as if he poses any threat to him. Chilton might be an idiot, but he knows better than to let security slack off too much around a man like Lecter.
“I have dogs,” he says, because he’s not sure what Lecter is implying, or if he’s just trying to distract Will from the copycat.
“They hardly count.”
Will glares, a little offended, and redirects the conversation. “Your admirer was eager to learn everything about you, well enough to recreate your work. They don’t really understand you, though.” He frowns thoughtfully. “You’re humouring them, sitting back and enjoying the chaos, all the while finding the execution…dull.”
Lecter’s eyes brighten just a bit, and Will can’t help but notice the flecks of red surrounding his pupils. “Excellent deduction, Mr. Graham. I may have underestimated you.”
“People often do,” he replies, unnerved. Something isn’t right, but Will can’t seem to put his finger on what it is.
“I’m sure my young admirer faces that same problem – being underestimated, overlooked. I can appreciate imitation when it is done with the hope of bettering oneself.”
“You appreciate creativity more, rather than someone simply parroting you.”
Lecter tilts his head. “That is true, to some extent.” He then licks his lips, startling the profiler.
Will pulls himself away from the glass, unsure how he came to stand so close to it in the first place.
Lecter merely looks at him, eyes trailing over his face almost hungrily.
Will suddenly wants to be anywhere else. “Thanks for talking to me. Have a good night,” he says out of habit, then turns to leave without waiting for Lecter’s reply.
“Oh, I certainly will. Do be careful driving home, Mr. Graham,” the doctor calls, mocking once again.
Will bristles, and his steps quicken just a bit as he walks back to the front desk to hand in his visitor’s pass. He notes that the guards must have changed shift when he sees the slouching guard from before has been replaced by a black man with a thick beard. The new guard gives him a friendly smile and a wave on his way out. Will nods at him, too unnerved to smile back.
He hurries down the stairs to the parking lot and gets into his car.
Lecter’s parting words are still ringing in his ears when he spies movement in his rear view mirror, and later he’ll kick himself for not checking the backseat before getting in, but at that moment he feels something wrap around his neck, choking him, and he reacts.
His hands don’t touch the rope. He has no leverage to pull it away, but he does have thumbs, and he feels no remorse when he reaches back to where his attacker’s face is and manages to plunge one into his soft, vulnerable eyeball.
His assailant screams and drops the rope to clutch at his wounded eye while Will twists around and lands a punch to his temple. It sends the man sprawling across the seats, and his whimpers of pain finally cease.
Will recognizes him immediately, and mentally smacks himself for not seeing the obvious.
It’s the guard from earlier – the one with the attentive gaze. No wonder Lecter had been so amused. Will had passed by the very man he came to question the doctor about. And of course the doctor knew. He’d just as well assured that the copycat would know Will wouldn’t be missed at home. If he’d been a little less eager…had waited until Will let his guard down a bit…
Very sloppy. My father wouldn’t approve.
Will grits his teeth as he tries to rid himself of that thought. He grabs his phone with shaking hands and calls the number Jack Crawford left for him in the casefile.
“Agent Crawford? It’s Will Graham. I just found your copycat.”