Chapter Text
Day 1
Will pressed the cloth tighter against his leg, breath seething out in a hiss between lips pressed together tightly in pain. His jittery fingers had dropped the handgun on his way back into his house, somewhere between his bed and the kitchen, where he now crouched on the floor.
But it wasn’t the pain that bothered him, and he felt tears pricking at his eyes as his breath hiccoughed. Outside, the dogs were still barking and growling, snarling threateningly at the the thing that had stumbled out of the tall grass and onto his property. He’d tried to corral them into the house after getting a closer look at the shambling figure -eyeless, reeking of decay-, but had failed, tripping on his own feet in his shock, and the thing had been on him in seconds.
The blur of the following seconds caught up to him just now. How he’d kicked it off of him, scrambled backwards while trying to remove the gun from its holster at his hip. Fuck, he thought absently. What if I hadn’t had my gun?
Sitting here now, clutching his bleeding leg, mind scrambled, Will tried to put everything in order so that he could attempt doing something, anything. In the end, the anything was decided for him, as his phone rang just then. It was obscenely loud to his adrenaline-pumped senses, and his heart jumped in confusion as it took him a moment to figure out what was happening.
“Hello?” he grit out, finally managing to answer after dropping the cell a few times.
“Will, are you okay?” the steady, accented voice on the other end inquired.
“Wha- I think. Hannibal, something just attacked me. The dogs are fucking losing it.”
“Take a deep breath, Will. Please. I’m on my way.”
“What? Why? Are you okay? Fuck, I can’t get them inside. Winston bit me, for fuck’s sake.”
“Is it very bad?” Hannibal’s voice had raised just a slight octave. “And it was the dog, yes? The dog bit you, not the thing?”
“What? Yes. It tried. Hannibal, wha-”
“Be quiet. Please. I will be there momentarily.”
“Hanni-”
The line went dead. Will cursed, winced as the wound in his leg grabbed his attention, before cursing louder. He tied the cloth tightly and staggered to his feet. It took him a while to find his gun, but he did, gripped it tightly, and approached the door, unable to listen to his dogs snarling and barking any longer. He didn’t care that Winston had bit him, he knew they were just as scared as him, but he was not about to leave them to be hurt by whatever the hell was out there.
****
Hannibal clutched the steering wheel of his Bentley with whitening knuckles, foot shoved on the gas almost violently. Around him, the city was in chaos. As pragmatic as he was, as logical as anything in life must be, for once, the good doctor had no idea what to think or do beyond getting to Will Graham.
He was a man that looked after his own, no matter what the circumstances were.
Normally slicked-back hair was a mess on his head, blood matting the right side where he’d hit himself apparently harder than he’d thought. His entire body was quivering with too much energy, anxiety that he hadn’t felt in so many years. The brief phone call to Will had assuaged some of it, but there was very little that could entirely calm him as he tore through the city.
It was incredibly difficult to tune out the screaming, the carnage, the panicking crowds, and sirens in the distance. He’d shattered the driver side window to bypass any potential struggling with unlocking, unmindful of the expensive vehicle in his situation, and just drove. In and out of traffic that was partially stalled as the city attempted to evacuate, over sidewalks, through parks, he had no care. He was en route to Wolf Trap, Virginia, and there wasn’t much in the world, even now, that would stop him.
He had to see Will Graham. He had to make sure the man was alright.
****
Winston whined, nervously pacing. Will had grabbed him bodily to get him into the house, and any other dog he could reach, weaving in and out of the way of the thing. It was bleeding, or something similar to that, great gouts of black ichor pouring from the gunshot wounds peppering its body. The gunfire had done nothing to calm down his poor strays. Two had taken off entirely into the fields.
It wouldn’t die. Or stop. Four hits, two in the chest, one in the throat, one in the shoulder. His aim was already atrocious, but he’d hit it, at least. The force of the hits knocked it down, yes, but still it stumbled to its feet. Endlessly. Will shuddered, sitting on the end of his bed, head in his hands and heart in his throat.
What the fuck, he thought.
It was the mantra in his mind. His hand reached out blindly for the nearest dog, burying his shaking fingers in soft fur while he tried to even out his breathing. It took him several long moments to even acknowledge that he was safe for now, much less able to breath, but eventually he looked up towards the door, blocked off by anything heavy he could move. Outside, the thing puttered around on the porch, slamming into the door occasionally, glimpsed through the curtains at one point.
Will couldn’t make himself study its face anymore. He couldn’t do much but let his brain take his body on a wild fucking ride of emotions he couldn’t for once in his life put a tag on. He remembered his conversation with Hannibal but couldn’t tell how long it had been since it had occurred. He didn’t know if the man was really on his way here, and didn’t spare too much time thinking about it. He was exhausted and overloaded, and he wanted to curl up and sleep for a year straight.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
What the fuck.
“Will!” a voice shouted.
Will jumped to his feet in a panic, and the dogs went wild again. Snarling and scratching and whining. An undeterminable amount of time had passed as he sat there rocking back and forth and sweating and confused. But Hannibal was here now, apparently, shouting from outside.
Outside.
****
Hannibal’s car came to a skidding halt in Will Graham’s driveway, and he was out of it seconds after, clutching a gun in the one hand and a bag in the other. His used to be impeccable suit was in disarray, tie undone and discarded on the drive here. His sharp features were pushed into an emotionless mask, but his heart was hammering against his chest.
He saw the lack of dogs, of Will, and while that was a relief in that there were no bodies on the ground with all the black stains painting it, he would not be sated until he saw the FBI profiler for himself. Approaching the house slowly, Hannibal shouted Will’s name again.
“Will, it’s me. Are you alright?” he barely refrained from yelling, tried to hold onto some semblance of control, but it was hard now that he was here and things were quiet and still and not screaming and dying and packed.
Hannibal barely managed to leap out of the way when the thing finally made an appearance. It jumped clumsily from the underbrush nearby, but it was the gurgling sound that alerted Hannibal before the sight of it itself. He grit his teeth and backed away, nose scrunching in disgust. It smelled like a large amount of rotting meat, with an underlying sweet scent, decay rearing its head. It was overall a very unpleasant thing to see and smell.
Mostly it was absolutely terrifying.
But Hannibal was undeterred. He planted a booted foot into the center of its chest when it came near again and shoved it back hard, regarded as it flailed and tripped on the steps leading up to the porch wrapping around Will Graham’s house. Lifted the gun and levelled it at what he was certain was a fucking zombie, and wasn’t that just fucking amazing?
I cannot stand not knowing exactly what is going on right now. Where the fuck is Will.
His thoughts were interrupted by the door slamming open. Hannibal looked up sharply, gun still aimed at the thing that was attempting to gain its feet.
Hair mussed, blue eyes wide and panicked, jacket half off, Will came out, favoring his right leg and wincing with the effort of keeping the dogs inside. It was a struggle that seemed to take forever but was in reality only a few seconds passing, and time suddenly sped up as Hannibal watched the man he had driven through hell to get to snarl much like one of his dogs, a metal pipe held aloft.
The sickening crunch of it meeting the thing’s head woke Hannibal from his near-trance, and he took a step back, gun lowering as Will Graham bludgeoned the fuck out of the monster screeching on his porch steps. Black blood spit everywhere, pieces of face and bone and eventually brain splotched the area as Will very nearly screamed with the effort. The dull clank of metal meeting flesh was nearly music to Hannibal, as he imagined very very briefly that this was a different time, a different place, and not a thing between them being veritably destroyed, but a victim at the end of a hunt.
The thought was very fleeting.
Will could hear his blood rushing in his ears, pulse a drumbeat he unconsciously mimicked in his movements, panic forcing its way out of him in something akin to inhuman anger. He hated being helpless. He hated anything helpless being hurt. His fucking dogs could have been hurt and two of them were still gone. Winston had bit him. The emotions surging through him were too much in too little space, and the last few hours -it must have been hours?- had hit him when he’d heard Hannibal outside, out there, with that thing.
What the FUCK, he thought angrily.
“WILLIAM!” a voice yelled, and suddenly Will found himself shoved, not too hard, but enough to dislodge him, enough to make him trip back into one of the beams bracketing the steps.
The metal pipe had fallen from his grasp and clattered down said steps to lie in the dirt. Will blinked, panting loudly, and glanced at the man standing next to him now, having stepped over the gore. A gun was in Hannibal’s hand, pointing downwards. Will blinked again, lips pushing together tightly.
“Are you with me, now?” Hannibal questioned, tone even.
“Yeah. I think. Is it fucking dead?” Will didn’t want to look down; he found Hannibal’s eyes after looking him over shakily, and then did not look away.
Hannibal’s expression was deadly calm. Lips thin, brows drawn tightly, eyes a beacon. Will licked his dry lips and tried to focus his breathing as he took in the sight of his therapist and friend standing before him. It was almost comically ridiculous seeing how unkempt Hannibal looked, but it was sobered by the blood staining his light-colored hair and oozing down his neck, by the fancy clothes wrinkled and fussed, by the gun in his hand.
“Will,” Hannibal said in answer. “Let me see your leg.”
“Wha- Hannibal, it’s fine. It was the dog. Winston - I don’t know. He panicked. I just tried to grab him is all.”
“I don’t care about the damn dog right now, Will. Come.”
Will couldn’t find it in himself to argue or grow offended at the statement. He let himself be lead by a soft touch on his shoulder back into his house. Sitting on his bed again now, he looked up at Hannibal and could no longer figure out how to feel, what expression to make, what to do. The dogs whined still, no longer barking, some cold-nosing into his hand as he watched his friend Hannibal close and lock the door, doing nothing more than that for now. It was quiet out here, there was nothing else so far beyond the dead thing on the steps. And it was dead now.
****
Leg newly wrapped, after having been closely assessed and cleaned, Will laid back against his pillows and grunted. Hannibal was in the kitchen putting together something for them to eat, something to ground them both and nurture their bodies. The dogs were quiet and the sun was setting outside.
“What the fuck was that?” Will finally asked.
“I am unsure. But it’s not the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have a radio, Will?”
“Well yeah, I do, bu-”
“Nevermind for now. You need to rest, and then we need to figure out what to do. Here.”
Hannibal sat on the side of his bed and handed him a bowl of soup, a spoon, and set a glass of cold water on the nightstand. He remained there, without any for himself, and took a deep breath. It irked him very much that he could not answer a one of Will’s questions. He could see the irritation painting the profiler’s features at being interrupted and seemingly dismissed. Truthfully, Hannibal was finally just calming down himself. Will was safe, next to him right now, right here.
That’s all that mattered for now.