Chapter Text
Will Graham, sitting in the dismal beige office before the photographs of eight dead girls, wondered for the umpteenth time just how Jack Crawford became the head of behavioral sciences.
Here he was, a profiler with unprecedented ability, still damp from the depths of obscurity, and who turns up but a successful psychiatrist with a background in surgery (if the hands could be believed) and a taste for antiquated artwork (if his suit could be believed, and Will was less certain about that one). Will was all but positive that he was staring down and to the left of the Chesapeake Ripper’s inquiring gaze.
He wanted to laugh, almost.
The Ripper did good work, and if Will were completely honest, he had always been a favorite of Will’s. He built his class syllabus around lectures of interesting killers, steeling himself to lecture on the boring, common ones in the dry spaces between. The Chesapeake Ripper was always a high point lecture; studying his crime scene made listening to his student’s thinly-disguised dreams of being The One to figure out The Ripper all worth it.
Will afforded the Ripper all of his attention, his vision glazing as his ears picked out the Ripper’s steps, the movement of expensive cloth, and the omnipresent Jack hovering obnoxiously in the background. Will felt as if he were a fencer taking up his foil. “You don’t like eyes much do you,” the Ripper thrusts, “eyes are distracting,” he parries “associations come quickly” the Ripper thrusts again, “so do forts,” Will parries again. Usually someone is bleeding by now. Will is not sure he likes having such an accomplished opponent. He wonders if he will learn to savor it or if Hannibal will keep moving forwards, forcing him back into a corner not necessarily of his choosing.
The more Will thinks about it though, the more he can’t imagine what he stands to lose. The Ripper doesn’t hurt dogs, never has before anyway, and living without his other self, the Wolfman, and well out of the statute of limitations on his kills, Will can only lose himself. He’s not exactly his own prized possession, and besides, it could be fun. Will hasn’t hunted big game in a long time, and never game that was quite this big.
Immediately Will decides to make himself look as vulnerable as possible. The Ripper is too good to take head on, so Will’s best option is bait him into showing his hand, and then strike when he is most confident. How Will intends to strike he is not sure of, not yet.
He’ll figure it out.
-x-
Lecter turns up in his room at a horrible hour of the morning and Will cannot help but let his exasperation shine through. He hasn’t even had a chance to collect himself and arrange his masks and costumes for the day. The Ripper probably intended this his thinks grimly. Lecter calls his food a “protein scramble” and Will files the fact away for later analysis, too caught up in the barrage of questions and his attempts to deflect them in a way that will make sense later, acting as he is before he has properly designed his plan of attack. Thankfully Lecter doesn’t seem to be after anything in particular on this occasion, possibly he is just trying to unseat Will. The food is, admittedly, very good.
Will wonders whether Jack sent Lecter to play babysitter or if the Ripper invited himself to the party to get his teeth deeper into an FBI Profiler. Will can’t find a graceful way to object to his presence and he can’t muster any kind of relish for catching this lesser killer Jack has sent him after when all he wants to do is figure out his situation with regard to the Ripper. The day seems to move past him as he stands motionlessly amidst it. The files drop, the Ripper ducks into the mobile office to make some kind of play to which Will can’t adequately respond. He is annoyed and sulking like a child as he kneels in the mud and sweeps files into a box.
The drive to the Hobbs residence is made in silence. The surrounding events abruptly catch up with him as he crosses the threshold and draws his gun. As he puts bullets into the girl hunter, Will’s mind can’t let go of whether Lecter did this on purpose. Did he want to force Will to kill to put them on a more equal playing field, has he figured Will out and is trying to expose his real nature, or was he already sick of Will and more confidence in Hobbs’ abilities than in Will’s own? Hobbs falls and Will is awash in too many questions, leaning over the girl he can’t get into her head and figure out if she and her father are one and the same killer. Snarling he realizes that to get the answers Jack demands she will have to stay alive and he fastens his hands around the gash in her neck.
Dr. Lecter inserts himself flawlessly into the spray of blood, absolutely at home as a master of life and death. Will is awestruck.
Later, Jack disappoints him again when he doesn’t ask Will why he accepts a strange doctor he had just finished disagreeing with not long before. Will can still taste blood on his tongue, can still see the statuesque beauty of the Ripper as he moved through a field of blood meting out judgment on the mortals that lay about him.
Will feels himself, his old true self, begin to stir to wakefulness. He feels wild and so very alive.
-x-
Will goes home to his dogs in whose company he can step out of Will Graham, deliciously vulnerable and dangerously potent profiler for the FBI, and examine the cracks in his façade. He can’t be too appealing, the Ripper will smell a trap. So he pushes some belligerence, makes sure his aesthetic is not in line with Ripper’s. He will not be a man of sleek suiting, of refined artistic taste. Will’s old fishing equipment is in his cabinet, gathering dust. He takes out the old fly-tying equipment, rewinds his fishing line. He will go to his first appointment as a psychiatric patient with the smell of fish clinging to his skin, his shirt creased, the knees of his trousers stained. Lecter will not think of him as a man or an equal, but dismissively, as a tool. One does not worry about a hammer objecting to its task, much less retaliating.
He wonders if this plan is the best as he wades out into the cold water, the dogs gathered on the bank of the river and fumbles his first cast. But it’s so different from the homogenous days that have lined up like dominos behind him that even through the chill, the stink, the stiffness in his joints, Will can feel himself beginning to enjoy this earliest stage of his hunt. He lands two good-sized fish much to his own surprise and he guts them slowly, remembering the steps slowly, and makes a point to soak his hands in the fish guts before handing them over to his grateful canines. Later, he cooks the fish meat with minimal seasoning, submerging himself in this new identity of fisherman: one who likes fish, structures his day around obtaining more and then using them to his liking.
Will Graham takes shape before his eyes. A pale, stubborn man who has given up presenting a good face to other people. He is clever, but too willing to trust anyone who treats him kindly. He obeys his own ethical system rigidly, and is vulnerable to pressure on his own behavior if presented as a matter of morals. He is self-sacrificing, self-effacing, and socially inept. He cannot think of anything more tempting for Hannibal Lecter, the Chesapeake Ripper, bane of the FBI and especially the Behavioral Sciences Department, so he steps into this new armor and fastens it about himself snuggly.
His dogs, of course, do not care, they’ve been with him every step of the way and they know better than to take any of his costumes seriously. Will thinks again how happy he is that he decided to take that first dog home with him, nearly twelve years ago, stepping gingerly around the pool of blood and opening the rickety screen door, so he could lift the too skinny too small dog into the cradle of his arms and carry her away. Despite the fact that all seven of the police reports around those particular murders noticed the missing dog, none of them remarked on it, or made the link. Will didn’t have the skill then he does now, really he was lucky that nobody noticed a cadet, then patrolman, acquiring dogs as murder victims lost theirs. But there’s another reason he likes dogs, nobody notices them unless they are dog people, and then they only think the best of them.
Will thinks this is a fitting metaphor for his new self. He takes the evening to appreciate his companions, combing them, petting them, and soaking in their combined warmth in the gathering dark.
-x-
Lecter’s office is as blatant as it could be without shouting a confession. The doctor gestures for him to enter and Will feels a quiver of delight as being shown into a sanctum of the Ripper. His new armor is attached well, and while he is quivering delightedly inside it, the armor translates the movement into the fidget of anxiety. Will scales the ladder to the overhead library immediately, his armor makes it a movement of escape, he appreciates the vantage point. Lecter takes this initial retreat into stride, using slow measured movements to close the heavy door and move to his desk. Will is reading book titles at a feverish pace, hoarding these little snippets and slipping them into his profile of the Ripper.
The Ripper makes his first move. He is waiving Will’s evaluation, both ensuring Will returns to the field to be subjected to psychological pressure, and establishing himself as a refuge against Jack Crawford and people like him who are all too willing to see the strangeness in Will. Ostensibly he is a refuge against the horror of Will’s gift. Will reflects again just how out of his depth he is, still slow and awkward with the weight of the years since he was at his zenith. The Ripper is in his prime, an accomplished and practicing predator and he is demonstrating his ability and subtlety with a finesse that is staggering. Will is practically drooling with excitement. His armor swallows nervously and makes sure to block eye contact with the rims of his glasses.
They talk for a while like that, Will peering down from his defenses behind the railing, Lecter relaxing against his desk and looking up as if this were a perfectly natural way to conduct an interview. Lecter is keeping him off the record. Will finds himself having to react positively as yet another noose drops around his neck, all his outward persona can see is the liberty to leave when he wants, another official regulation to which he will not be beholden. But inside looking out, Will sees this for what it really is, he knows Lecter is now free to discuss him as a patient with anyone at any time. Lecter is not subject to the ethics of his various board memberships and licenses. Will feels his available actions falling away. He is realizing the ease with which Lecter played him while on the trail of Gareth Jacob Hobbs was not due wholly to his being taken off guard, Lecter is just that good.
Lecter is trying to bind him up with Abigail Hobbs. Will imagines this would be very effective if he hadn’t just kept the Hobbs child alive for Jack. Will can see this snare much more clearly than the others and he thinks he can slip this one without jeopardizing his new disguise overmuch. Lecter says that he, too, “feels a staggering amount of obligation.” Will feels unaccountably paranoid at that, the Ripper is announcing his new pawn on the board, not an outright attack on Will himself. Will can’t help but feel he should’ve let her die. He considers killing her and wonders if he can do it without getting caught.
Still his outward self is feeling better all the time, falling for Lecter’s act effortlessly and eventually Will moves down the ladder to the balcony library and allows the Ripper to place him into a chair and take the one opposite him. Will feels as if he is taking the chair in a hungry tiger’s cage. They accomplish little else and Will leaves feeling jumpy and sharp.