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Jack almost didn’t believe it when he got the call. Three years had passed since the Dragon, since he had found the corpse of a serial killer and copious amounts of blood staining the edge of a cliff. In his mind, everything was over that night. Will Graham had kept his word, taking two serial killers to death with him. That was the end.

But the call said otherwise. A call from Alana, her voice tense and hoarse over the office phone. Three simple words that demolished the walls he had built against the guilt of the past. “They found Hannibal.” No more words were necessary. Jack hung up the call, his gaze staring blankly at the walls of the office he should have retired from long ago. For a brief moment, he didn’t move at all, thoughts whirling in his head. Then he stood and strode out of his office, slamming the door fiercely behind him.

-

It was almost unbelievable. Through the grainy lens of the camera in the cell stood Hannibal Lecter, looking like he had barely aged a day apart from his once more immaculate hair. Jack felt an irrational urge to smash the screen in front of him, as if he could banish the man as easily as the image. Taking a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm his rage, Jack turned to Alana. “Where did they find him?”

Alana tapped a finger gently on her desk, the only display of fear passing through her icy façade, “Florence. Where else? He was caught in the middle of a murder. A woman recognised him in passing and called the police, who found him in a nearby alley.” Her tone was bitter.

“So, dumb luck?” Jack scoffed. Alana gave a grim nod. Tension stretched throughout the room; a question pervading both of their minds. Finally, Jack gave word to the thought. “Was there any sign of Will?”

Alana flinched, but shook her head, “Not that we are aware of. The only way to know what happened to him is to ask Hannibal.” She spat out the name like it was poison on her tongue. Jack had to restrain a growl.

“I’m going to talk to him,” he said. Alana didn’t even try to protest, simply stepping aside to allow him to exit her office. He brushed past her, making the unfortunately familiar journey to Hannibal’s old customised cell. He pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the sight of Hannibal Lecter lounging on the cot of the cell, looking for all the world like he hadn’t disappeared three years earlier with Jack’s best profiler.

“Hello, Jack. You are looking well. Tell me, have you found a new hobby? Perhaps one that doesn’t leave broken bodies and minds in your wake?” Hannibal greeted, giving him a small smirk and not even bothering to stand up from the cot.

“Tough words coming from you, Lecter. Your trail of bodies practically led us to you,” Jack spat in return, seething at the ease and contentment that seemed to ooze from Hannibal. How he could seem at home in a prison cell, Jack didn’t even want to know.

Hannibal laughed, and it was a surprisingly light sound. “Now, I know that is not true. I have been especially careful recently. I needed to be. We could not have you interrupting the ceremony, after all.”
Jack entire body tightened like it had been struck. “Ceremony? We?” he demanded.

Hannibal’s eyes sparkled with mirth. “Ah, I am afraid I have already said too much. He would not be pleased to know what I have revealed. Or maybe he would. I still find him delightfully difficult to predict,” Hannibal mused, an unsettling adoration coating his voice.

Jack’s fists clenched as he stared down Hannibal. “Are you talking about Will Graham?” he ground out.

Hannibal’s smirk widened. He finally stood from the cot, stalking his way forward until he stood opposite to Jack. “Why, Jack, do you still see my dear Will as your broken teacup? He has long since gathered himself up and he is spectacular. I do wish you could see him in his element, finally becoming what he was always meant to be. Then again, I may have to rip out your eyes if you do. You are nowhere near worthy enough to witness Will in all his elegance.”

Hannibal’s eyes were alight with emotions Jack couldn’t even begin to name. Despite this, he scoffed and shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You’re being unusually open with me, Lecter. I think you are taunting me, trying to cloud my vision with rage. Will sacrificed his life to kill you. It’s only a shame it didn’t work.”

“Is that so?” Hannibal hummed, “Well, I suppose you always were blinded by stubbornness. Tell me, Jack, have you ever read the tale of the Iliad? Achilles and Patroclus were such a fierce team it took divine intervention to bring them down. And you are no God. If anything, you are Agamemnon. So driven by your own desires that you lost your most valuable soldier.” Hannibal’s eyes narrowed. “Though I must admit, your lack of foresight has greatly benefited me.”

Jack took another deep breath, trying and failing to calm himself down. He had forgotten how skilled Hannibal was at riling him up. “Well, we’ll see how you feel after a few years of wasting away in your cell.” He turned on his heel and began to stride away, fury caught tight in his chest. He couldn’t bear to stare at Hannibal’s self-assured smirk for another second.

The sound of Hannibal chuckling followed him out of the room. Despite the fact that Hannibal was the one imprisoned Jack had the feeling that, somehow, the killer had come out of their conversation with the upper hand. His tightly wound fury snapped, and he launched a fist into the concrete wall, ignoring the sharp pain that flashed up the nerves in his arm. Hannibal was lying. Will Graham was dead. He would be stuck in that cell for the rest of his life and Jack would have the satisfaction of having finally caught the Chesapeake Ripper. He had to be.

-

It was only five days later when Jack got another call. He brashly picked up the phone, so assured of his own belief that he didn’t even stop to consider if it could be related to the newly caught Hannibal Lecter. He almost dropped the phone in shock when Alana’s voice, harsh and sharp, declared Hannibal’s escape.

“How?” he demanded, to which Alana sighed in return.

“You’re going to want to see this for yourself,” she replied. Jack give a stiff acknowledgement, and then slammed the phone down. Hannibal Lecter had escaped. In five days. He got into his car and drove faster than was legal to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Alana greeted him at the front door, her face tight with rage and, perhaps, a tinge of fear.

Alana began leading him to the command centre, explaining, “There was a brief power outage at around eleven last night. By the time the power returned, Hannibal was gone from his cell and by the time he was noticed as missing, he had presumably left the hospital. One guard has been discovered dead; his uniform stripped. The security footage from before the power outage… well-” Alana cut herself off, gesturing for Jack to watch the footage on the monitor.

Jack turned his attention to the footage, which was currently paused on the hallway outside of Hannibal’s cell. As Alana began to play the footage, a guard appeared on screen, casually striding down the corridor. A standard hat was placed on his head but peeking out were some wild, chocolate brown curls. Some very familiar curls. Though the face of the guard was shadowed by the angle of the hat, Jack could see a large scar curling down the side of his cheek. Jack could barely believe his eyes. It was Will. Will was alive

Jack watched in horrified fascination as Will entered the room of Hannibal’s cell, the footage switching to the camera inside the room. Hannibal gazed at Will as he entered, an unbelievably fond smile stretching his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but Will cut him off.

“If you say a word about my aftershave, I’m leaving you in here,” Will said, and there was no denying it was Will’s voice.

“I would not dare, my dear. Besides, your scent has remained delightfully entwined with mine despite our temporary separation. Such a scent could never be disparaged,” Hannibal practically purred at the profiler. Jack was astounded at Will’s reaction, a blush visible even through the grainy camera lens.

“I… may have been wearing some of your clothes. For convenience only,” Will admitted, crossing his arms defensively.

“Now, my dear Will, I believe we have a promise not to lie to each other?” Jack couldn’t comprehend Hannibal’s tone. Was Hannibal Lecter, prolific serial killer, teasing Will Graham?

“I thought we also had a promise not to get captured on our honeymoon?” Jack choked on his own spit. His gaze zeroed in on Will’s hand and he, indeed, had a golden ring on his finger. Before he could fully comprehend this news, however, Will continued on, “I was able to retrieve your ring, by the way. You’re welcome.”

Will strode forward and slid his arm through one of the air holes in the glass, holding out a ring that seemed identical to the one on his own finger. Hannibal walked to meet him, his entire face softening with adoration, and gently slid on his ring. Will went to remove his arm, but Hannibal gently caught it and pressed several loving kisses onto Will’s fingers. “Thank you, mylimasis,” Hannibal murmured, Will’s blush visibly deepening at the foreign word.

Will’s entire body relaxed, as though the touch was the solution to any problems that plagued him. He lifted his hand to gently stroke Hannibal’s cheek in return, Hannibal also relaxing with a tender sigh. They remained like that for several seconds, gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.

Finally, Will broke the gentle silence with a whisper so quiet the cameras only just picked it up, “I’ve rigged the power to go off soon. I’ll get you out of here, and then we can get back to our previous activities.” A mischievous glint entered Will’s eyes; Hannibal’s eyes darkening in turn.

“Of course, my dear,” Hannibal promised, “Let us not waste another second here, and I will be sure to please you greatly.” His tone was quiet, but undeniably seductive. A savage smile split across Will’s face, and as he began to remove his hand, the camera went to black. Jack turned to Alana, who took in his shock with a grim look on her face.

“When the cameras came back online, they were gone. The guard’s clothes were dumped in a nearby trash can,” Alana informed him, giving him time to process what he had just watched. “What are we going to say, Jack? Hannibal told you Will was alive, but we still didn’t prepare for him.”

Jack glared at her, spitting out, “We’ll say that Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham are alive and allies in crime. We couldn’t have known this, but we will capture them again. And this time, they won’t escape.” Jack turned his back and stalked out of the room, ignoring Alana sighing behind him. Will had once again betrayed him for Hannibal Lecter, and he wasn’t going to rest until they were both back in custody.

-

It was around two months later that Jack’s dogged pursuit finally paid off. He had visited Will’s ex-wife to tell her about the situation before the media got hold of it, when something caught his eye. “You still have his dogs?” Molly gave him a glare and a steely nod, before demanding he get off of her property. But he couldn’t get the dogs out of his head. Maybe, just maybe, now that the world knew he was still alive Will would risk stealing his old dogs.

Almost unbelievably, he was correct. He had dedicated his spare time to observing the house from afar, especially when he heard that Molly would be going on a week-long vacation with her son. When a man dressed in black with familiar curls began to pick the lock of the door, Jack had to stop himself from yelling in victory.

Instead, he pulled out his gun and crept up behind Will, pressing the barrel of his gun into the back of the man’s head. Will froze, before murmuring out a quiet, “Hello, Jack. I suppose you’ve been well?”

“Turn around slowly, and show me your hands,” Jack growled. Will turned, dropping the lock pick on the ground. He allowed Jack to handcuff him, his lips twitching slightly before returning to a solemn frown. Jack scowled, roughly pushing his gun into Will’s back to prod him forward. Will complied, allowing himself to be led towards Jack’s car while Jack phoned in to the FBI about his capture.

When Jack hung up his call, Will began to speak, “I suppose I do have to give you some credit, Jack. Though, I have to ask, why didn’t you get the FBI to stake out here if you thought I’d come back?”

Jack glared at Will but, instead of flinching back as Jack expected, Will met his eyes head on. “Ah, Molly refused to humour you, didn’t she? I do feel bad for her, but I could never have stayed with her. It was for the best that I left before anything too serious happened.”

Jack’s glare deepened. He had forgotten how Will’s gaze could pierce through your defences if he wanted it to. “She thought you were dead, Will. How could you do this to her?”

“How could I do this to you, is that what you truly want to ask? If so, rather easily. Hannibal actually cares about me for one, even if he took awhile to convince me of that. Or even realise it himself.”

“I don’t want to hear about your marital issues,” Jack scoffed, and Will gave him a smirk in return.

“Actually, our marriage is going rather well, thank you. Would you prefer to hear about our date nights? Hannibal cooking the finest pigs we hunted together, tenderly kissing the blood off my lips-”

“Enough!” Jack interrupted, horror and disgust clear on his face. “What happened to you, Will?”

“I happened. If you can’t believe that, however, maybe you can believe this: I love him.” Jack shook his head in disgust, pushing his gun harder into its new position on Will’s cheek.

“Then you are no longer the man I knew.”

“You never knew me, Jack. You only knew your useful tool, your profiler of fine china and glass.” Will’s voice was bitterly cold. “And in the end, you couldn’t even care less if I shattered.” After that statement, Will no longer responded to Jack’s attempts at questioning. He sat in stony silence until Jack’s backup arrived.

-

Six days later, when Jack’s office phone rang, he was reluctant to pick it up. When he finally did, Alana’s voice, even tighter than before, informed him of Will’s escape. This time, he didn’t even bother waiting for Alana to finish talking before he slammed down the phone and started his journey to the Baltimore State Hospital.

Once again, Alana was waiting for his arrival. She led him to the same control room as last time, her expression so pinched it would be almost comical if not for the circumstances. She didn’t bother with any preamble, only bringing up the correct camera footage and letting it play.

Through the grainy camera lens, Jack saw Hannibal Lecter, not disguised as a guard but rather covered in blood. He strode towards his old cell, which was where Will was being kept. Will turned to Hannibal with an amused smile, standing from the cot where he had been sitting.

“They put you in my cell,” Hannibal observed. Will nodded, raising an eyebrow, questioning where Hannibal was going with this. “I cannot complain. It is rather novel to be on this side of the glass.” Will rolled his eyes at Hannibal’s teasing.

“Haha, you’re a comedic genius. On to more important matters, did you get them?” Will asked, taking an eager step forward.

Hannibal’s eyes softened at Will’s display of emotion. “Of course I did, dear Will. Your plan worked surprisingly well.”

Will gave a sardonic smile in the direction of the camera. “Well, I guess the FBI should be more thorough in their investigating. Perhaps then they would realise that we are smart enough to know my dogs would be monitored, and to keep checking in on them to see if the other half of our pair came to get them.” Jack cursed even as Will and Hannibal laughed on the recording.

“Now come closer and get me out of here, honey. I’ve missed you,” Will drawled in a Louisiana twang that caused Hannibal’s eyes to darken and the killer to take a predatory step forward. This was the expected result, if Will’s wide smirk was anything to go by.

“I have missed you too, my dear. I would have loved to have you by my side as I killed the undeserving pigs who tried to keep me from you,” Hannibal crooned, padding forward and reaching into his pocket to retrieve a set of keys he had clearly taken from one of the murdered guards. Will’s pupils dilated, and he moved to right in front of the door to the cell.

As Hannibal clicked open the lock and pulled the door open, Will leapt at him, pulling the other man into a fierce kiss which was returned with fervour. When the two men finally pulled back from each other, Hannibal lifted his hand from its place on Will’s back to cradle his cheek, smearing blood over the pale skin.

“You are at your most beautiful when your desires are so clear, my dear Will,” Hannibal pulled the other man back into another kiss, this one gentler but no less loving.

“And to think, you could have had me sooner if you weren’t so late,” Will teased, brushing a hand along the curve of Hannibal’s cheek. “A whole day slower than me.”

“Now, my dear Will,” Hannibal growled, a wild smile spreading across his cheeks, “that sounds like a challenge.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Will mused, “but I wouldn’t be against a little friendly competition. Another game, so to speak.”

The two killers smiled at each other. “Sounds like an interesting discussion for later, mylimasis. For now, we better go before my true trail of corpses is discovered.” Will raised an eyebrow at the phrasing, but nodded, grabbing Hannibal’s hand and cheerfully striding out of the room with him.

Alana paused the recording. “They were lost after they left the facility. We can’t locate them on any cameras close by.”

Jack, still smarting from Hannibal’s last dig at him, eventually asked, “What did they mean by competition?”

Alana shook her head. “To be honest, Jack, I’m not sure I want to know.”

What the two meant, however, soon became clear. Every so often, either Hannibal or Will would be ‘accidentally’ discovered and imprisoned. Soon after, the other would break them out, always attempting a quicker escape than the previous one. They would taunt the security cameras, and playfully tease each other, about the speed of the escapes.

Jack had had enough. The two killers were acting as though prison was a game, as though his attempts to serve justice were nothing more than a minor annoyance. Jack would show them otherwise. The next time one of the pair was ‘sighted’, Will this time, Jack waited. He observed the location, waiting until Will inevitably became bored with waiting for an attempted capture.

Then he watched Will all the way back to a safe house, where the man was greeted by Hannibal. His stomach turned at the sight of the two of them kissing. Regardless, he phoned in a request for a team to raid the house.

He couldn’t bear to watch the raid, to watch the men he once thought he knew killing his agents. Instead, he made his way back to his office and waited. Sure enough, after a couple of hours, he got a report confirming the capture of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham.

Preparing himself to confront the two men wasn’t difficult. What was difficult was thinking what he would ask them. Would the men be more open with both of them in a room? Or would them simply ignore him and gaze longingly at each other like lovestruck teens? The thought made Jack even more nauseous.

Finally, Jack could delay no longer. He entered the far too familiar room of Hannibal’s cell, unsurprised to see that the men had somehow convinced the Hospital staff to have them placed together. He was even less surprised to see the two cuddling together on the cot.

“Jack,” greeted Hannibal, raising his head from its position nuzzled into Will’s hair, “What a pleasant surprise.” His dry tone was lost on no one. In fact, Jack swore he heard Will snort from his place tucked into Hannibal’s neck.

“I would say so, considering I’ve caught the two of you once and for all,” he retorted smugly, bravado covering up his discomfort.

“If you say so,” Will mumbled, not even bothering to look at him. “I’ll send you a letter from wherever we end up next.”

Before Jack could respond, Hannibal began to speak, “Now, now, my dear Will. It is rude to play with your food.”

Will groaned, finally raising his head to glare playfully at Hannibal. “You’re lucky I love you so much. Your cannibal puns are atrocious.”

“I love you too, my dear,” Hannibal replied, nudging Will’s nose with his own before capturing his lips in a gentle kiss. Jack’s lip curled in disgust.

“If you two would stop acting out like lovestruck children, I have some questions for you,” Jack spat. In the blink of an eye, Will had stood from the cot and stalked forwards, Hannibal watching him with awe and love clear in his eyes.

“Well, if you hadn’t interrupted us, we wouldn’t need to. Honestly, Jack, you’ve got your head so far up your ass I’m surprised Hannibal didn’t cut it off and shove it up there himself,” Will growled, slamming his hands against the glass. Hannibal chuckled, finally standing to pull Will into his arms.

“I believe you should leave, Jack. We had some plans before your team arrived, and I’m afraid my Will is quite aggravated. I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt due to you riling him up,” Hannibal said, his tone mocking the agent despite his seemingly advisory words.

“I think I agree. Clearly you two aren’t worth my time anymore. Have fun in prison,” Jack growled, turning abruptly and stalking out of the room. He wasn’t quick enough to miss the laughter spilling out behind him.

Alana was waiting in the hall, clearly attempting to talk to him, but Jack rushed past her. He wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore about Lecter and Graham. He made his way out of the building and to his car, tearing his way out of the parking lot.

Halfway through his journey back to Quantico, he got a phone call. Once again, Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham had escaped, killing several guards and leaving a message for him in blood: better luck next time. Jack pulled over to the side of the road and let out a scream.