Chapter Text
Hannibal had known from the moment he met him that something was different about Will Graham. Not wrong, exactly- no, he certainly wouldn’t call it that- but just strange. At first he’d thought it was just a side effect of his general social awkwardness and his empathy. But as time went on, Hannibal became more and more convinced that he was missing something.
The first clue was when he brought Will breakfast the very next morning. It was only a day after they’d met, and he knew he was acting overly familiar, but Hannibal couldn’t bring himself to care. If he wanted to worm his way into Will’s life, he had to be bold. Thus, breakfast.
Will answered the door in nothing but a white undershirt and a pair of boxers, blinking in surprise as he recognized Hannibal. Still, he allowed Hannibal to come in, however reluctantly, and took the ceramic container of food when Hannibal slid it across the table to him.
He took one bite of the protein scramble Hannibal had prepared, paused, and gave Hannibal the oddest look. It was hard to categorize the emotions flitting across Will’s face, but Hannibal did his best regardless. There was shock, confusion, realization, and- most unexpectedly- amusement. It was almost as if he knew. But that was completely impossible; there was no way the FBI’s star profiler knew the taste of long pig well enough to recognize it, not only at a first bite, but also underneath the flavors of the herbs and eggs. Still, Hannibal couldn’t imagine why else Will would be giving him that look.
Then the expression vanished as quickly as it had come. Will gave Hannibal a small smile and continued on with their conversation. “Tastes just like something my Grandmama used to make,” Will said, and Hannibal accepted the compliment demurely.
(If anyone else had said that to him, Hannibal would have killed them for the insult, but this was Will. And besides, a protein scramble was a rather simple comfort food, so he couldn’t be too offended by the comparison.)
***
The next thing Hannibal noticed came later that day. He’d set things up with Garret Jacob Hobbs so that Will would be put in a position to kill him. It was a gift, although he was sure Will wouldn’t see it that way at first. But to his surprise, when they’d gotten to the house, Will barely gave Hobbs’s dying wife a second glance as he’d rushed inside of the house.
Hannibal followed after, only to freeze in shock at what he saw inside. Will hadn’t shot Hobbs like he had anticipated; no, he seemed to have lodged a kitchen knife in his throat instead. The daughter was on the floor, eyes wide, bleeding from a small nick on her throat but otherwise alright. Will kneeled beside her murmuring comforting words, not a drop of blood on him.
“Will?” He asked cautiously, mind racing as he tried to work out what exactly had happened.
“She’s hurt,” Will told him, his voice breathless. There was no other indication in his expression or his posture that anything had happened at all, but his voice gave it away. That and his eyes, which kept darting between the shivering girl and the still-alive Hobbs who had by now collapsed to his knees.
“So is he,” Hannibal pointed out evenly, although he crouched down beside the girl anyway. Hobbs would be dead within a few moments anyway, already showing signs of choking on his own blood.
Will spared a glance for the dying man. “No amount of stitches are going to cure that. Trust me, I’d know.”
Hannibal took a moment to take in that statement before resolving to unpack it later. For now, he pulled a clean dish towel from where it was hanging and pressed it to the girl’s wound gently.
Behind them, Garret Jacob Hobbs’s distressed gurgles died out. A quick glance confirmed that he had, indeed, passed away. Hannibal felt a small smile curling on the edge of his lip and fought it back. Now was not the time to gloat, and besides, taking a life clearly hadn’t affected Will in the way he had expected it to.
“What exactly happened here, if you don’t mind my asking?” he questioned the both of them. The girl’s eyes darted over to Will as if looking for answers.
“Hobbs had a knife to her throat. I reacted.” This statement was punctuated by a shrug as if it hardly mattered. Hannibal’s surprise and confusion must have shown through his carefully-constructed mask, because then Will decided to elaborate. “He told me he’d kill her if I didn’t put my gun down, so I did. He relaxed his hold a bit too much, I grabbed the knife from the counter, and you can see what happened next.”
Hannibal nodded. The story made sense, covered all the bases, but it didn’t quite ring true. Will’s gun was still in his belt. Of course, he could always have picked it up again after Hobbs was no longer a threat, but that would hardly have been his first priority. And besides, Hannibal could only have been thirty seconds behind him. It would have been almost impossible to have such a confrontation in such a short amount of time.
And then, of course, there was the most damning evidence of all. The girl was good at masking her surprise, but her eyes had widened as Will spoke. The story was as new to her as it was to Hannibal. She nodded after Will had finished speaking, backing him up, but Hannibal knew what he’d seen in her expression.
Will was lying. All Hannibal had to do was figure out why.
***
After that, there were no more odd occurrences around Will for a few weeks. It was almost unnerving how normal Will was around Hannibal. Sure, he was still socially awkward and didn’t like eye contact, but there were no more moments like the ones on that day in Minnesota. Hannibal almost suspected that Will was toning it down on purpose.
Then came the incident with the spiders. They were in the lab at Quantico, talking with Beverly about one of their cases, when an intern tripped. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as she fell, arms flailing like limp noodles, and crashed straight into one of the lab tables. This wouldn’t have been a problem at all- the tables were built to be quite sturdy, after all- except for the fact that there was a rather large glass jar balanced precariously on the edge of the table. It hit the floor and shattered, sending glass shards across the room.
There was a moment of silence and then Beverly cursed. Hannibal usually detested the use of such language in his company, but at the moment he rather shared in her sentiment. Because among the glass shards was a single large, hairy brown spider.
Hannibal had never been particularly afraid of spiders, but he knew enough to know that if the scientists were afraid of one, he should be, too. And the scientists were afraid; Beverly rushing over to the wall to initiate a lockdown, the intern backing away slowly with a look of terror on her face, the handful of other people in the room watching the scene with wide eyes.
All except for Will. Will took one look at the spider and a small smile spread over lips. He looked rather enchanted, to be honest, and Hannibal couldn’t help but wish he was looking at Hannibal like that rather than a probably-venomous spider on the floor. And then Will moved, stepping forward without regard for the glass on the floor, and knelt down beside it.
“Will, don’t!” Beverly warned, but it was too late. They could do nothing but watch in horror as Will extended out a hand to the spider. It crept forward on cautious legs, climbing onto Will’s fingers and staying there. Will made a noise not dissimilar to a coo and reached out with his other hand to pet it gently as he straightened back up.
It was only then that he seemed to notice everyone else’s eyes on him. “What?” he asked self-consciously, cradling the spider close to his chest.
Beverly swallowed nervously. “Will…” she said. “Please don’t freak out, but that’s a funnel-web spider.”
Will blinked. “Yeah, I know.”
“That’s the most venomous spider in the world,” she warned him.
Will sighed. “Well, as long as it doesn’t bite me, I’ll be fine. Does anybody have another jar where I can put this thing?”
The intern pointed at a nearby shelf with a shaking hand. Will strode over calmly, looking completely in his element as he unscrewed a jar and gently brushed the spider inside. He put the lid back on and offered the jar to the intern with a smile. “See? Crisis averted.”
“Will.” Beverly still sounded like she was in shock. “I don’t think you understand just how- please tell me you didn’t let it bite you.”
“Of course not.” He sounded offended. “And if you’re worried about that, you might want to be more careful with where you leave jars of potentially-deadly spiders.”
Hannibal, as a medical professional, probably should have offered to check Will’s hand over for bite marks, but he allowed Beverly to do so instead. He was busy thinking, trying to fit this new element in with the picture he had already formed of Will. He had extreme empathy to the point of distress, liked to fish, and had a pack of seven dogs. He’d seemed to recognize the taste of human flesh. He hadn’t batted an eye when killing Hobbs, and had lied about the circumstances after. And now, apparently, he was familiar with and comfortable handling venomous spiders without even a pair of gloves to protect himself.
By the time Will had managed to extract himself from the situation, Hannibal had made up his mind. Clearly, manipulating Will wasn’t going to work the way he had intended, not when Hannibal seemed completely incapable of figuring him out. He was going to have to take the direct approach with this. It was time the two of them had a conversation.
By the look in his eyes, Will clearly knew what Hannibal was going to say. He brushed past Hannibal and into the hallway, muttering, “My house, 5:00,” as he walked past.
Hannibal didn’t move, staring after Will as he went. This was going to be an interesting night.
***
He arrived in Wolf Trap just before five, a cooler full of groceries in the backseat in case Will didn’t have anything. As he turned onto Will’s driveway, he noticed a tidy-looking black package on the ground beside Will’s mailbox. There was a tulle ribbon- also black- wrapped around it and tied in a bow.
Slowing his car to a stop, Hannibal got out to inspect the package. It was well-wrapped, a perfect rectangle with no wrinkles or tears and all of the corners tucked in just so. The wrapping paper looked heavy and luxurious despite it’s plainness and he found himself wondering who could possibly be sending Will such a gift. Still, the driveway was long and Will probably wouldn’t appreciate having to walk back out here to retrieve the package; perhaps he wouldn’t be too offended if Hannibal brought it in for him.
Mind made up, Hannibal picked up the surprisingly light package and set it in the passenger seat of his car. Then he got back in the other side and continued his drive, keeping a careful eye out for anything else strange on his way up to Will’s house.
He didn’t spot anything else, so he pulled up in front of the house at 4:59 exactly. Hannibal got out of his car and approached the door, taking a moment to grab the package from the passenger seat. Will opened the door before Hannibal got a chance to knock and welcomed him inside with a strained smile. His eyes darted to the present in Hannibal’s hands.
“I’m assuming you didn’t get me that yourself?” Will questioned, taking the package and setting it down on his kitchen counter. Hannibal followed him into the kitchen.
“No,” he admitted, “it was under your mailbox when I arrived. I thought I’d spare you the trip.”
Will nodded in understanding, leaning against the opposite counter and watching Hannibal calmly. Hannibal’s eyes flickered from Will to the package and back to Will; Will rolled his eyes with a wry smile.
“You can open it, if you’d like,” Will offered. “If I’m going to be telling you everything anyway, there’s no point keeping secrets. It probably won’t even kill you.”
Strangely enough, he didn’t sound like he was joking. Hannibal raised one eyebrow and reached for the box, sliding the ribbon off and carefully unwrapping it one corner at a time. His eyes stayed fixed on Will.
Once the paper was completely removed, Hannibal lifted the lid off of the box. Inside, he was surprised to see what appeared to be a very high-quality knit sweater. He reached out to touch it gently, pulling it out of the box with care. It only took one touch to determine that it was almost certainly hand-knit. The yarn was a dark gray. Something, however, felt odd about the way it hung in his hands.
Hannibal turned the sweater around to look at the other side, wondering where the extra weight was coming from. He got his answer right away; there was, for whatever reason, a third sleeve sewn into the front of the sweater. He stared at it for a long moment, brows furrowing slightly, before looking back at Will.
Will just sighed. “She must have put down the wrong address. I’ll send it back in the morning.”
“You don’t seem surprised by the appearance of a third sleeve,” Hannibal noted.
Will shrugged. “Like I said. Wrong address. That one’s clearly for Cousin Imar, someone must have switched the packages by mistake.”
“...I take it that your Cousin Imar has a third arm in the middle of his chest?”
“...Appendage, yes. Not sure I would call it an arm.” Will suppressed a grimace, averting his gaze. Hannibal wondered if Will was aware of how he seemed to switch between a quiet confidence and a nervous awkwardness at the drop of a hat.
“I think,” he said measuredly, “that you should probably explain that a little bit more.”
Will seemed to consider it for a moment before nodding. “All right. Come on, we can sit on the back porch. It’ll be more comfortable that way.”
Hannibal left the sweater in the kitchen, following Will out the back door and sitting down in the offered chair. He looked at Will and waited for him to speak.
Will took a deep breath. “Okay. Where do you want me to start?”
“The beginning, I find, is usually a good place.”
“Right. Okay. I was… I’m not… damn, I’m really bad at this. In my defense, I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve actually had to explain it to someone.”
“Take your time,” Hannibal encouraged him, although he wanted nothing more than for Will to hurry up and say what he was going to say. He hated an unsolved mystery, after all.
Will gave him a look as though he knew what Hannibal was thinking. “How much do you know about my family?” he asked, seemingly changing the subject.
“I believe I recall asking you about them during one of our appointments. Your exact response was, ‘I have one.’ Jack once mentioned to me that you ran away from home for a time in your teenage years. I don’t know any more than that.”
At that, Will let out a startled half-laugh. “I ran away from home three times by the time I was ten years old. The third time, I picked the right backyard to hide in.”
Hannibal considered that for a moment. “The people who lived there took you in?” They could get into why Will had run away later, but for now he wanted to understand why Will was such a mystery, and he had a feeling he was getting close to the answer.
Will nodded. “They looked after me for a long time. It was… an unusual childhood, but I loved it there. I didn’t really venture back out into the ‘real world’ until I was nineteen and wanted to go to college. It made it a bit hard to fit in, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“I have,” Hannibal admitted, “but you shouldn’t strive to fit in. I’ve only seen glimpses of your true self, but what I’ve seen of it is beautiful.”
Will arched one eyebrow but said nothing.
“Why is it, I wonder, that you’ve allowed me to see you?” Hannibal mused. “You made it over a decade without slipping up, and yet here I am after knowing you for hardly more than a month.”
“It’s easy to be myself around you.” Will admitted. “You aren’t normal, either, and I’ve never felt pressured to fit in. I just… most people would run screaming if they caught a glimpse of the real me. Some people have. I’ll never be able to be ‘normal’, but people are generally more accepting of a socially-awkward disaster than they are of, well. Me.” He gave an awkward half-smile as he finished speaking, as if he expected Hannibal to suddenly change his mind and agree with everyone else.
“And yet here you are, talking to me, and you’re still not allowing yourself to be yourself.”
Will paused, considering it, before closing his eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath and, when he opened his eyes again, there was a subtle shift in his posture. “It’s like my empathy. I’ve constructed an entire personality that I borrow from when I’m in public, but sometimes it can be hard to clear my head of it after.” The difference in his voice was subtle, but it was there. Confidence wasn’t quite the right word, but there was no longer any hint of shyness or hesitation in his tone.
Hannibal smiled slightly. “There you go. That’s much better.”
“I’m sure you have more questions,” Will told him, tilting his head slightly as he studied Hannibal.
“Indeed. I must confess, I’m hardly sure of where to start. Perhaps a brief overview of your family?” Hannibal suggested.
Will nodded once. “I should probably warn you, if you try to hurt them I will have to kill you. Assuming you survive them, that is.”
“I have no intentions of harming your family,” Hannibal assured him.
“Good. My parents’ names are Gomez and Morticia. I also have an older brother named Pugsley, an uncle, a butler, and Grandmama. There’s also a disembodied hand that collects the mail.”
Hannibal blinked, feeling like he should laugh but knowing that Will was being dead serious. “Interesting. A disembodied hand?”
“We call him Thing. He’s very helpful. There’s more people in the extended family, as well, but that’s everyone who lived with us.”
“And part of that extended family is your cousin who has an extra appendage on his chest.”
“Cousin Imar. He’s my mother’s cousin, not mine, but yes.”
“Many people experience a feeling of displacement when they leave their families for the first time. I can only imagine how amplified that must have been for you, considering how unique your experience was.”
“It was a rather unpleasant experience, but it worked out well for me in the end.”
The two of them sat in silence for several moments before either spoke again.
“You had no fear when you held the funnel-web today,” Hannibal noted.
“I’ve always had an affinity for spiders. I used to breed them and keep them as pets. I hadn’t encountered the funnel-web specifically before today, but I’ve never been bitten by a spider before and I doubt I ever will in the future.”
“...Clearly, you had a very exciting childhood.”
Will smiled. It was a small smile, but a genuine one nonetheless. “You have no idea. When I was thirteen, I fed my school guidance counsellor to a lion.”
Hannibal blinked. Well, that was interesting. “I hesitate to ask, but where did you get the lion?”
“She was Mother’s favorite pet. Her name was Kitty Kat.” A moment of silence, and then, “She died a few years back. Mother was distraught.”
“How upsetting. Whatever did your guidance counsellor do to deserve such a fate?” Hannibal questioned. He could hardly judge Will for a habit that Hannibal, himself, often partook in. However, he was curious to see what Will would have to say.
Will’s expression shifted into a scowl. “He wouldn’t let me take a high-school level psychology course. I thought that was ridiculous, especially seeing as how I just wanted to understand my own empathy.”
“And?” Hannibal prodded, guessing that there was more to the story. He might kill someone based on such a slight, but he suspected that Will most likely had stricter standards.
“And when I asked him why I couldn’t take the class, he told me I should stop bothering him and go join the cheer squad with all the other stupid little girls.”
There was a half-second of silence before Will seemed to realize what he said. His face went pale and his shoulders tensed. His eyes, however, stayed on Hannibal’s, daring him to say something about it.
“Will,” Hannibal said softly. “It’s all right.” He hesitated for only a moment before adding, “I already knew.”
Will blinked, the tension not leaving his body. “How?” he asked, his voice going a bit raspy.
“I have a very good sense of smell,” Hannibal admitted. “Testosterone has a very distinct scent. I believe you’d just taken your shots the first morning we first met.”
Will blanched further, but managed to nod.
“Beyond that, it is listed in your file with the FBI. I didn’t see the file until a few days after our meeting, but I did see it. It makes no difference to me, Will, truly.”
“This whole time, then. You never mentioned.”
“Why would I? I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. It was no business of mine.”
Will considered that for a moment before nodding, some of the tension melting out of his shoulders. “Thank you, then, I suppose. In the interest of not keeping secrets, I should probably tell you that I know you’re a serial killer. The Chesapeake Ripper, I suspect, although I don’t know for sure.”
“A very astute observation. I presume you recognized the taste of the sausage that day at the hotel? I had wondered.”
“Mmm. It was easy enough to figure out from there that you were the Copycat Killer. I wasn’t sure about the Chesapeake Ripper, but since you didn’t deny it I’m going to assume I was right.”
“You wouldn’t be wrong.”
The pair of them sat in silence for another few minutes before Will’s stomach growled. He glanced over at Hannibal, unapologetic.
“I hope you brought food. I haven’t gone grocery shopping in awhile.”
Hannibal smiled. “But of course. Would you like to sous-chef?”
“I’d love to. Who are we eating?”
“A professional golfer with a penchant for being intolerably late.”
“Never did like golfers,” Will commented as he stood up and walked back inside the house.
Hannibal took a moment to gaze at him before he followed suit. Will was even more unique than Hannibal could possibly have imagined, but he was… breathtaking. He could feel all his desire to manipulate him slipping away as, instead, he was drawn in by this captivating specimen.
Oh, yes. Hannibal was smitten. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and followed Will inside, wondering where they would go from here.