Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Artwork by formasiculoare

Minnesota’s flat land of grasses and wild wheat stretched endlessly in every cardinal direction, washed-out from the low light of impending dawn. The black fleece coats of the Special Agents stood sharply against the tawny expanse of sky behind them, and Hannibal thought of the mythos of East Asia, the three crows for three realms of heaven, earth, and humanity.

The three engine valves that protruded from the aorta had proven particularly difficult for the gaggle standing before him to remove. Hannibal already had deduced what the components were when he first saw them, and the rest of his colleagues had taken turns placing round bets until they could not withstand their curiosities any longer. A corner of his mouth twitched down when the ring of agents moved closely together.

As Hannibal unbuttoned and opened his trench coat, a loud cry cut into the cool and still morning air.

“Fuck, oh my god—it got in my eye!” 

Price’s voice was shrill with mortification and from the distance, Hannibal could see how hard he had stumbled out of the formation and nearly onto the ground. Zeller and Katz had kicked their heads back with laughter, watching him furiously swipe at his face with a string of endless expletives. 

The echoes of laughter began to quickly fade when the group took notice of Jack Crawford, closing in quickly from 2 o'clock with an 8-5 step size that gave him the illusion of gliding across the thick ground fog. Hannibal fished out his carton of Marlboro reds and Zippo, tapping the box three times into the fat pad of his palm. His mouth worked in tandem to his thumb and he pulled the released cigarette out.

It was a windless September day, and it was a Friday.

The Repairman only displays his kills on Fridays.

Jack’s voice boomed across the football field sized scenery. Hannibal flicked at his lighter twice before success, and he took a heavy drag as he watched Price regain vision, sulking his way towards the group punishment. 

Despite having become such a heavy smoker, the scent of cigarettes caused Hannibal’s overly sensitive nose to smart. The preservation of his keen sense of smell was unusual for the frequency he smoked; Hannibal appreciated the resilience of his body that he was being afforded.  He drank in as much of his solitude that he could before snuffing out his cigarette, approaching the box of yellow police tape, the mangled corpse laid out dead center. The flock had dissolved into the sidelines to do their jobs apologetically, knowing how strongly Jack’s foul mood would permeate in every space for the rest of the day.

 Hannibal fished in his wide coat pocket, procuring a sketchpad and pencil. The scene had mostly cleared out, and Hannibal was able to extend the blanket of silence towards his concentration. Sketching a depiction of a grisly crime was markedly difficult with hands moving and adjusting the evidence, or noisy words filling the silence. He stood less than half a foot from the body when he turned to a clean page, writing a header of date, time, and count.

This was victim number four.

The inventory began internally: as the previous three victims also were, this is a John Doe in his 20s, no traceable dental records due to the removal of the mandible and jaw (to cram the exhaust pipes down his esophagus as neatly as possible, grotesque and functional,) and no remaining organs except a half-metal, half-muscle heart. He was blonde and short-haired, skinny, and tall. No tattoos or remarkable scarring—at least any that were left visible post desecration. Hannibal’s hand began to brush across the page, putting together the geometry of the automobile components against the soft roundness of human design.

Tarps with puddles of coagulated blood and black oil were layered underneath the victim. A round saw had been used to crack the young man’s head open and empty the cavity, replacing it with nuts, bolts, piston rings, and the contents of an oil pan. Sparkplugs lived where eyes belonged. A crankcase had been slotted into a perfectly carved hole across the clavicle: components of the crankshaft were carefully arranged where the lungs belonged, pistons replaced the retroperitoneal space’s normal viscera. The cylinder head had been utilized to cradle the heart. Scratches of his pencil and the flapping of the tape behind him threaded into the silence, and he finished the recreation with a tap of the sharp point where the heart would be. Hannibal shut his eyes. 

In the darkness behind the lids, visuals began to descend from the after image of the page, taking grainy black and white forms that only he can see as he stands in the center of the field. Across from him is a faceless and younger man, wrench and wood saw in respective grips. His voice is devoid of passion--where flame once stood scorching the sky, ash remained, drying the killer’s mouth as he spoke:

“The heart is only a part of the body’s engine, not the bullshit prose people say in books. It belongs to a system, one vital component for the whole mass.”

Blood drips down the man’s face, his chest, pooling at his feet. The cacophony of pressure and metallic cracks of pistons meeting metal filled Hannibal’s head, followed by the smell of acrid exhaust. An engine on fire. His face twitched in distaste and his partner lolls his head, caught between a laugh and a grimace.

“See?”

The detective’s eyes opened. A crow had begun to help itself to the flayed circulatory system. He batted it away, taking one last glance at the empty center of the man’s chest. 

The heart was only a fraction of a whole, a truth that the Repairman weighed heavily, demanding his audience to do the same.

Hannibal acquired another cigarette as he made his way towards the rest of the group, feeling disquietude glance off of his consciousness. 

He recognized the Repairman’s call to the void, and how in his every day wait, no one ever came.

✧

 They were dismissed as the sky stretched blue-violet with dusk, and Hannibal felt the cold beginning to encroach on his bones–even the thickest woolen jackets could not quell the discomfort from within. As soon as he slid into the Bentley, the heat was cranked high. Against the smear of Virginia Pine and leaf piles framing the edges of the state highways, he saw glints of metal, crimson liquid streaking down tree trunks.

As Hannibal rolled into his driveway, his phone came to life from the depths of his jacket. The Caller ID announced Alana.

He pressed the cold receiver against his head as he unbuckled, placing the unoccupied hand against an air vent.

“Hello, Hannibal.”

“Alana, I hope you are well.” He outlined his words with his usual politeness. “What might be the occasion for this evening call?”

“Hah--straight to the point. I gather today was a less than pleasant day out on the field?”

He paused. “Mishandling of a heart, a critical piece of evidence left behind by our killer, does not manage to inspire me in the same capacity as it does for my colleagues.”

“Wow. That’s an intense line to cross. I understand--I wouldn’t be thrilled either. I just… I wish we could talk a little more, before anything else.” The bite of her lip was nearly audible through the receiver.

“Perhaps we can arrange for a Sunday dinner, and in exchange for wine, I will provide you with a custom crafted beer. I am experimenting with a new white oak infusion.” 

“That would be fantastic, Hannibal.” 

“Am I permitted to bid for the meat of the conversation, or should I continue?”

“You may bid.” Her voice was quiet, similar to the tone she took as his mentee.

“Has something happened at your practice?”

Silence filled the beats in between the background static.

“Yes.” Her voice is soft with compassion. “I have a patient that I connected with very well. We were working towards lessening his anxious attachments and emotional dysregulation. I’ve introduced DBT therapy and he’s responded positively, accepting simultaneous truths about himself, and dualities about the traumas he’s endured.” Alana paused for an acknowledgement from Hannibal; when she received none, she pressed on. “He was doing a fantastic job, and I’m really proud of how far he has come.” Hannibal listened to the adoration that was gushing from her with a frown pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“I have an accumulation of cases from the Bureau to review. I would greatly appreciate it if you could disclose the matter at hand, Alana.”

“Right.” Despite the familiarity she had with Hannibal’s curt nature, she couldn’t entirely disguise the hurt in her tone. “I had to decide to discharge him. He didn’t do anything wrong, and I encouraged him to continue his therapy with the same honesty he had given me. He has so much potential.” The trite label Alana gave her client made Hannibal’s patience thin by the second. “I can see it every time he successfully lets go of a disturbing memory, or when he regulates in the face of nightmares. I don’t think I’ve ever had a client with so many terrors when they sleep.”

More silence.

Hannibal permitted it to permeate for a respectful window of time before breaking it, his voice serious and direct. “The discharge of a patient is entirely commonplace. You are incredibly fond of this person, despite the history of complex trauma. I must say, Alana, that the affection is particularly overt.” He spares her not a moment from the sharpness of his confrontation. “Could you please clarify what has occurred at your practice, before I choose to conclude this conversation? I would rather not be rude.”

“I—” her words catch in her throat, shame and grief ripping a fringe into her voice. “I tried, Hannibal. I swear to God that I did. I couldn’t stop the counter transference, I couldn’t talk myself out of it, I couldn’t re-frame it from my own emotions. A professional curiosity towards more unorthodox treatments—so stupid, I never should have—left me wanting to save him. He’s so alone, Hannibal. He doesn’t have a single friend. No one spends time with him outside of our sessions. I don’t want to see him fall off of the deep end as he’s placed on a waiting list.” By the end, her frantic tempo had become a hushed confession.

Hook, line, and sinker. She had poisoned a vulnerable man with her penchant for motherly love.

He frowned, adjusting the phone as he opened the driver side door. “You intend to ask me to consult your patient, unburdening yourself from the uncertainty of what lies ahead for him.”

“Hannibal, how could I ask anybody else? You have a background in pushing the fold for therapeutic methodology, and I know you would understand how to handle his misgivings. I really need this, Hannibal. I will do whatever it takes to repay you for the effort, just—just help him keep his head above water.” Alana’s voice had become raspy from the build up of despondency. “Please, Hannibal. Help him float.”

Keys entered the lock to his home, giving way as he pushed open to the dark foyer. His leather suitcase was secured on the table next to the coat rack, keys following suit into a copper dish.

Alana’s plea remained suspended in the quiet of Hannibal’s home, awaiting his judgement. 

He removed and hung his coat, taking inventory to ensure everything was removed from his pockets. If Hannibal had hung up the phone, Alana would have been none the wiser.

The silence stretched and followed Hannibal into his study. He approached a bottle rack, surveying the options for wine to pair with his dinner.

Once a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc was selected, he made his way into the hall, stopping in the kitchen’s archway.

“I have been retired from psychiatry for almost five years. I cannot provide guidance or notes as a professional, but as courtesy, I will extend an invite for conversation.” Hannibal flicked the lights on, moving towards the sink. His voice was detached and steely. “Please send over his contact information as soon as possible.”

“Thank you—thank you, thank you so much.” The chant of gratitude made his brows form a deep line on his forehead. “I’m in front of my laptop right now. His name is Will Graham, and we typically meet at 7 PM on Thursdays.”

He started the sink faucet, bringing a knuckle towards his face to rub at the pinch above his nose. Grey-blonde hair fell out of place as he lowered his head, washing his hands.

The wordlessness hung heavy, and Alana had nothing better to add to soften the environment.

“Have a good night, Alana.”

“… you too, Hannibal.” The receiver clicked into dead silence.

Hannibal made sure to thoroughly clean his hands with a nailbrush under the running tap, unwilling to risk contamination of the Sea Bass he intended to plate with Barolo sauce.

The smell of engine oil lingered.

✧

That following Thursday was a technicolor of Autumn outside of his office window, uncharacteristically warm with a clear sky.

A wide charcoal pencil skidded across the sheet of mixed media paper, with Hannibal blowing only softly enough to remove excess dust from the page. John Doe number four looked vivid and alive against the cream backdrop, surrounded by carefully constructed fields of wheat and towering annual trees. Each engine component looked as if it were ready to assemble in his hands and begin its combustion with blacked out metal on Quantico’s floors. He only allowed himself to be as engrossed as he was responsible, and so when six-thirty came to, he laid his instrument down and partially reclined into the office chair.

The name Alana had given—Will Graham—had spent the week in Hannibal’s laptop, subjected to a battery of tests. The database systems at his disposal indicated Will had no priors, no psychological history before Alana’s practice, and no public disturbances or infractions. It seemed that the shroud around their provider-client relationship and its origins would remain until Alana had smoothed over.

Pulling into the familiar parking lot introduced a carousel of memories, following him out of his Bentley and up the steps. He pulled out his keys and unlocked the private entryway that led directly into his psychiatric office, turning the old knob slowly as the metal grinded and the wood of the door groaned to life. His life’s work had revolved around peering behind the ivory masks of others, at their unpleasant and inhuman faces hidden underneath. He had always made sure to select those who came with the most to hide.

In turn, the game always proved itself worthwhile.

Warm incandescent lighting plunged the square space into life. He removed his coat and smoothed out his decorated suit jacket, crossing the space to stop in between the two cushioned chairs that faced each other. Flickers of faces and patients gone by wildly snapped back and forth, and Hannibal found himself still. The sensation cut into him like a hot knife, severing from his abdomen to his chest—the push and pull of his psychiatry, the techniques that pushed minds to their very limits. The ache that comes with desire. 

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards with the irony of it, and he made his way towards his desk, pulling out his schedule book and displaying its contents. Will Graham, 7 o'clock.

At fifteen minutes after seven, the sound of the patient entrance door opening made Hannibal rise. 

He pulled the heavy mahogany door open, revealing the small seating space and portraiture of the waiting room. A man looked up from a small book in his hands, gathering his coat and stepping towards the entryway.

Will offered Hannibal a measured smile.

“Hello, Dr. Lecter. It’s nice to meet you.”

Hannibal nodded, stepping sideways and extending his arm towards the room’s warm interior. “Hello, Will. Please, come in.”

Once Will had walked past him in a blur of browns and greens, he shut and locked the door behind him.

Hannibal briefly remained standing before the wooden trim surrounding the doorframe. Virginia Pine, castile soap, drugstore deodorant, and musty canine. He followed the man to the pair of seats, one hand easily unbuttoning his suit. As he sat, he flicked the front opening flaps behind his hips.

Will, with both brown work boots flat on the floor, fully relaxed into the chair. Hannibal took inventory of the bits of dirt that had come loose and littered the ground, choosing to keep his expression neutral and easy. In contrast to the cashmere black and red suit Hannibal had worn today, Will Graham sported a thick and fraying forest green flannel, brown khakis, and a mess of chestnut curls. His eyes were framed by tortoise shell glasses; they were blue as the River Po and traced lines in the floor, mimicking the lazy motions of pagodas drifting across Milan.

Both men studied each other in comfortable silence.

Hannibal folded one leg over the other, lacing his hands together in his lap. “It is my understanding that you have worked with Dr. Bloom for quite some time, and she has remained as your primary provider for your treatment plan. Is that correct?”

“Yes. She terminated our relationship last week,” he was lax, as if he were sharing the afternoon weather, and Hannibal tilted his head with the onset of interest. “I guess that I’ll hear back from the places she bussed me towards in the following months. She let me know that the process would be lengthy, and that you would be an effective liaison in the meantime.”

“I have an extensive background in psychiatry, largely treating patients who arrive during or post crises. A transitional period such as yours can easily trigger instability, and having a liaison can indeed increase efficacy for treatment. Are you here of your own volition, or of Alana’s obligation?”

Will shrugged and gave the other a half-baked smile. “That depends if you consider my therapist’s intentions more important than my own.”

“We seek the authority that can fill in our blanks when all else fails.”

“I solve most of my own problems. Relying on other people introduces a type of uncertainty that hasn’t treated me too well in the past.” His eyes never met Hannibal’s and instead they wandered from bookshelf to bookshelf, and his jaw and facial muscles remained set, never steering far from the stillness of a pool.

“What incidents in your past have demanded treatment, Will?”

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to sign some sort of document before telling you that.” He laughed softly, and Hannibal echoed with a smile of his own, mimicking Will’s planted legs as he leaned forward.

“As far as anyone is concerned, we are simply having a conversation. I am long retired from my practice, and this is courtesy I extended towards a fellow colleague. You are free to expose information or withhold it however you see fit.”

Will nodded, having moved his attention onto the onyx stag in the corner of the room. Its shiny ceramic body and oily black finish gave it a haunting quality, eye-catching against the antique bookshelves surrounding it.  His hands copied the fold of Hannibal’s; in return, the detective studied the backs of Will’s hands, dry and bright red with dermatitis. 

He cleared his throat, tapping a finger against another. “I never quite adjusted to winters up here, and something about thick healing lotion just feels too wrong.”

“You are not an original Maryland resident?”

“Louisiana. Docks and boats. I followed my father up the Mississippi river until he passed away, then I settled in New Orleans. More work on more boats. I got tired of it all pretty quickly and I decided on Baltimore and the harbor.” 

“Quite the distance to cover. The South would be more familiar in Alabama or Mississippi state—what is the actual reason for your choice?”

Will smiled, smaller, and leaned forward. They are perfectly mirrored.

“Is it really that strange that I came to Maryland?”

Hannibal chose a pivot, politely declining to indulge the man’s deflection. “Do you have any remaining family, Will?”

“No. My mother died when I was a kid.” His nose twitched, and his eyes landed on Hannibal’s shoes. He pressed his fingers into the ends of the chair’s arm rests, slowly applying pressure.

 “I didn’t choose to escape from anything; I just chose somewhere far enough to start over. Sometimes that’s all it is.” As soon as the recollection was finished, he released his grip, face relaxing once more into neutrality.

Hannibal hummed, eyes lidded with scrutiny. “Do you miss your father?”

A beat passed. “Sometimes. We were heading towards Iowa when we collided with a drunk driver around midnight. He went first… and the paramedics found me across the median.” A shadow of realization fell unto Will as he stammered out with a pained expression, “sorry, but—how is this supposed to help me with my adjustment period?”

“Establishing your childhood and background can help me better understand what is impending. Our minds will return to the path of least resistance to bear against the tide, and it is likely yours will follow that pattern without deliberate adjustments.”

“Like I said, I managed to get by all on my own.” Will’s eyes flicked towards a spot somewhere between Hannibal’s brows, never fully looking into the other’s eyes. His own brows twitched together. “To answer your earlier question, this is mostly for Alana. I figured she’d find some avenue to report me if I didn’t show face.”

“Not fond of eye contact, are you?” Hannibal placed his palms flat on both knees, returning to a flush state against the back of his chair.

“Eyes are frequently distracting. You see too much, you don’t see enough.” As he spoke, he fixed onto the Balthus knot of Hannibal’s carmine tie. “It’s hard to focus when you think too much about it.” He paused, drawing his lips into a tight curve. “Yeah—I try to avoid eyes, whenever possible.”

Hannibal partially smoothed out a leg of his pants. Alana’s assessment sat at odds with Will’s behavior; he may present with some apprehension towards establishing connection, prematurely avoiding abandonment altogether, but he was nowhere as codependent and lonesome as she had cast him. 

Instead, Hannibal sought an explanation as to why Will relied almost entirely on crafting a replica mask from others.

“Do you repair boats in their entirety, or do you have a specialty you prefer to focus on?”
Will raised a hand for only a few seconds, scratching his beard.

“I repair motors. There are always components to replace, and mysterious noises to diagnose.”

Bodies stuffed with aluminum alloys and cast iron appeared in Hannibal’s mind.
Will wiped his hands against his pockets and stood up, indicating some shift being necessary. Whether it had been triggered by the specificity of the question, or the recollection of his father’s body, was unclear.

Hannibal watched closely as he wandered towards his desk, pressing a splayed hand against the detective’s open sketchbook; the rendition of the newest John Doe, frozen in time.

“Are you an artist?”

“Of sorts. Forensic, and only a portion of my work. I am a Special Agent currently with the FBI, and my background in psychology funneled into behavioral work. I spent most of youth in Paris studying Pieta and La Primavera, and I did not want to lose my skills in America.”

“You have an eye for the beauty in the violence.” Will’s voice was softer and absorbed by the wood before him. He traced the charcoal lines and inspected his finger, now sooty with the medium.

Hannibal tilted his head towards the man’s back, his neck rubbing against the collar of his dress shirt. “‘Beautiful’ is an unusual word utilized for moments such as those. Do you often find yourself marveling at the cruelty?” 

Hannibal had seen it too—the sublimity in the blood fest, how the crimes he ascribed aloud as frenzied were in reality executed with careful sadism.

Hannibal had understood this beauty by the age of thirteen.

“Killers like these don’t actually leave behind barbarities. Just like decomposers, they are closing the cycle towards death, and not many can see the control, nor can many appreciate it for what it’s worth.”

Silence punctuated the explanation and Will closed the sketchpad, tapping his fingers against the cover.

“I must sound insane.” A wry laugh escaped him.

“Not at all, Will. Discoveries connecting the cyclical nature of our mortality oftentimes help us cope and process traumatic losses.”

 “I’ve spent a lot of time studying insects, particularly regarding decay.” He turned, looking across the walkways that wrapped the upper level. “I used to want to be an entomologist when I was a kid. After my father passed away—after the accident, I think some wires got crossed.”

“Do you believe any of us are properly wired, or perhaps as technically soldered as the engines you work with?”

“I can’t recall if I’ve ever met someone more or less as abnormal than me. My frame of reference is less than savory.”

Hannibal smiled, rising from his chair and closing the space between them. Will once more offered an uncanny mimicry, resting his palms against the desk as he leaned against it. A leveling of power, an attempt to remove Hannibal’s authority from the space. Equal footing.

“You may have more in common with your fellow man than you think.”

“Maybe. Or, my fellow man is just as scared of himself as I am, and goes to terrible shrinks for some sort of fix.”

They both shared amusement with crinkled eyes and pointed nods. Beneath the veneers they presented each other, a slow and methodical exchange of brandishing weapons had occurred. The air curled heady with their tension. Will would not budge to give Hannibal a fraction of a glimpse into his mind.

Fascinating.

Their time together had come to a close, and Will gathered his belongings, tucking the book—Peterson Field Guide for Insects— underneath his arm. An adjustment of his glasses was followed with greeting Hannibal’s eyes, formally unveiling the blue and amber fusion.

“Thanks for the conversation, Doctor Lecter. Should I expect to be called on to come again?”

“Alana’s instructions held no commitments in writing. She may recommend that you return in lieu of the risk factors from long term isolation.”

“Did she say I’m isolated?” Will idly picked at the button of his sleeve, his eye contact unyielding.

Hannibal tilted his head. “She proclaimed that you had an inadequate support system for the impending changes.” 

Will forced air from between his teeth, mildly shaking his head, as if to rid himself of the irritation. “Yeah—sounds just like her assessment. I have people at work I can talk to. I’ll be fine.”

The detective placed his hands into his pocket.

“What company do you work for? I happen to have a friend who needs replacement components for his Bay boats.”

If the probing had bothered Will, it hadn’t shown.

“It’s a private entity. I don’t have my business cards on me, but I can bring them next time.”

“You plan to return?”

“If that’s fine with you, Doctor.”

“Of course. I do not have any clientele; this seven o’clock spot may be yours to keep.”

“Thanks.” He ruffles a hand through his chestnut curls, adjusting his glasses one final time. 

“See you next week, then.”

“I will be looking forward to it.”

As Hannibal held the door open for Will, he looked down his shoulders, pausing at the other man’s back.

The smell of burned engine oil was barely noticeable, lingering in the empty space Will had left.

Chapter Text

Artwork by Scott Shellstrom

The smell of coffee and sandalwood comfortably intermingled in Hannibal’s Bentley. The morning commute took him through Interstate 95 towards Manchester, Maryland. Jack Crawford had left Hannibal a voicemail and a series of texts detailing the crime around 6 AM, and Hannibal had showered and left by 7. He listened to the lulling hum of the engine as he drove, the morning sun cresting and coloring the landscape with rays of blood orange and golden yellow.

Police sirens had flown past him in the opposite direction, barreling up the shoulder to pass the build-up of stand-still traffic; an ambulance had followed in pursuit, closely tailed by a firetruck. Hannibal imagined Will laying on his cheek, having been flung onto the asphalt of a Midwest highway, staring in horror at his father’s body gored upon the metal of his crashed car. Will Graham’s face, copied in nearly perfect detail, covered in blood. He came into even clearer focus when Hannibal remembered the visceral images of disassembled car parts stuffed into tender flesh. Hannibal understood why Will, knowing the human body could never come back together from total disassembly, chose instead to make motors come back to life. Every painful memory could be repurposed as motivation for repairing a boat’s damaged engine, ensuring the process of combustion was successful in the complex machinery.

 He idly wondered what Will would think of the recent victim’s intact heart, re-imagined with metal components, and what its design would say for potential motivation. He thumbed across the steering wheel as he weighed potentially building rapport by appealing to Will’s interests—perhaps he could catch the glint of turbulence beneath the man’s impenetrable psychological armor.

Hannibal had felt it in his office, the way it was air-tight and boxed in by Will’s presence; how Alana’s therapeutic suggestions most likely increased Will’s capacity to perfect the act. Would Will talk to him about the discontinuities of the blueprint the Repairman left behind? Does the importance of the beating heart of an engine ring true across specialties?

For a moment, he wondered why Will felt so parallel to such a devastating pattern of crimes. There was a reverence shared by the Repairman and his new acquaintance that lightly tethered them, and Hannibal placed a bookmark between the new connected pages in his deduction log.

Upon arrival and finding parking in the hiking trail lot, Hannibal realized that the path to the crime scene proved more tedious than anticipated. Woods and forest stood largely untouched and veiled in shadows against the morning light, and Hannibal was not dressed for mother nature’s rough terrain. With light footsteps, he picked through the briars and bushes, quickly ascending off trail and into the thick foliage before him. There were orange paint markers on various oak and pine trees to point where forensics and crime scene clean up should follow, and he touched every single one, committing the path to memory in case he found himself lost.

The hike was hazardous, and Hannibal began to mull over the logistics of Repairman with his victim. There was no visible trail from dragging a dead body across the soil, or any disturbance of foliage from a major struggle. The Repairman had wasted no energy on transporting his kill. Hannibal had scanned the forest floor as he walked to avoid stumbling, suddenly having slowed down to a full halt when his eye caught a familiar shape. He crouched closer, swiping away as many leaves as possible from the ground before him.

In a cleared spot of wet soil were two fresh sets of shoe prints, some overlapping, and some sunken into green moss.

This John Doe had been restrained and sent up the path himself; a dog being led to his own grave.

A thrill, hot and uncomfortably electric, shot up Hannibal’s spine. Even after he had risen and continued forward, it refused to dissipate. 

The heaviness of shame soon followed, and Hannibal promised himself to have a cigarette as soon as he could.

Minutes of pushing past branches passed before the tree line broke into a flat clearing, starkly contrasting against the tall walls of forest bracketing both sides. The power corridor before him was 100 to 180 feet wide, appearing as an infinitely stretched football field towards the horizon. He scanned the massive steel lattice structures strung with power lines, gargantuan and eclipsing the surrounding trees. Clouds carpeted and obscured the sky completely, colored like bone from the sunlight refracting between the condensed droplets. Autumn colors of leafy trees stood brightly against the surrounding conifers. Only the evergreen pines were spared from the slow metamorphosis of the seasons.

 Hannibal spotted the familiar neon yellow police tape surrounding the base of a nearby tower and he approached, readying his sketchpad in his pocket for the newest display of gore.

Zeller and Price’s voices intermingled and traveled across the desolate landscape, occasionally interrupted by Beverly’s sharp criticisms. Hannibal saw the victim’s head crest over the hill that he had to climb, and a horrible realization followed when the torso came into view.

The victim had been tightly secured to the base of the tower, engulfed with live wires; from the distance, they took the shape of coiled black anacondas, crushing and compressing the soft body beneath. He pulled out his sketchbook and went to a fresh page, taking only thirty seconds to capture a snapshot of the display from afar. A body so small against the enormous metal geometry brought an unsettling emotion into Hannibal, and once more, Will Graham’s face greeted him in his mind.

Hannibal was in awe of the savagery from the electrification of the victim, and the way it seemed to be an apex predator’s meal turned into a trap for potential future prey.

He thickly swallowed down the lingering admiration and snapped his sketchbook shut, closing the distance towards the group.

Beverly had her arms crossed tightly against her chest, while Zeller and Price stood to the side speaking with Jack. Once Jack noted Hannibal’s presence, he quickly made his way towards him. Hannibal felt the craving for a cigarette materialize on his tongue.

“Good morning, Hannibal. We’ve got one hell of an issue for today.” Jack’s voice was gruff with agitation, and Hannibal only nodded, opting to tread lightly against the sense of failure that his boss exuded.

“Our guy basically plugged his newest casualty into a wall outlet, and the body is untouchable without risking electrocution. A team should be coming out in a few hours with the proper equipment to dismount him.”

Hannibal’s brows slightly twitched. “The Repairman already owned the proper equipment to avoid closing the circuit. Perhaps we should expand our considerations for suspects towards electricians, or power line workers.” He procured his cigarettes and his lighter, fixing his gaze on the glassy eyes of the young man tied up before them. He paused.

The man’s eyes had been left in his body. This was the first victim out of five to be allowed to see in the afterlife.

Once more, the skull had been opened and the brain replaced, this time with fat bundles of wire crudely traveling out of the hollowed cavity. It gave the young man an almost cyborg-like appearance, fully connected from the inside out to copper cabling and metal framework.

“Does he still have his teeth?” Hannibal approached the assembled scene as close as it was safe to, and Jack frowned at the man’s back, shaking his head.

“Nope. Not even one. We catalogued that the Repairman showed his face some mercy—but eye color doesn’t narrow down the victim. No matching hair strand DNA, and no trace evidence beneath the fingernails.”

The tightly bound corpse was still clothed, but had been sawed open through the fabric, gutted while still alive against the metal. He had worked in the safety gear while on-site, collecting the organs as they fell onto the ground. Hannibal closed his eyes, outwardly displaying concentration, while internally trying to stifle the debauched swirl of heat that enveloped his insides.

“He did not mind contaminating his trophies.” The detective opened his eyes, slowly examining the concise slice from sternum to abdomen, and the perfectly hollowed out cavity.

“If he’s working with illegal markets, his clients must be unhappy with the product quality. This guy was practically cooked like Fogo de chao. The deviation from his modus operandi has been underlined in his profile.”

As a sudden draft kicked up through the trees and grasses, Hannibal balked and stepped back, pressing the backside of his gloved hand against his nose and mouth.
 

The smell of burned hair and flesh was enough to force him to swallow bile back down, clearing his throat as he traversed as far as possible from the victim.

Hannibal hastily lit his cigarette, replacing the foul acidity in his mouth with the strong flavor of tobacco.

“We’re unsure if the organs were damaged during the electrocution, potentially causing him to dispose of them. Who knows if the Repairman is picky,” Jack’s face pinched with disdain as he stared at the ground, “or if he’s just a self-absorbed asshole.” His voice was loud and forceful against the wind that had begun to howl.

Hannibal’s hands and the tips of his ears turn red with the chill.

“It is entirely possible he intended for the outside of the organs to be affected—the aesthetic purpose of his staging must account for it.” He returned his sketchbook to his hands, adorning the fresh page with the beginnings of the unknown victim’s face. It was a rare opportunity for Hannibal to draw the lifeless and cloudy eyes, stuck in their wide horror from moments before death.

As Hannibal drew, Jack dismissed himself to go fill in the rest of the forensic crew. Once more, he was alone with the body and his thoughts, which had begun to merge with Will’s words, with John Doe from last Friday.

The word “isolation” materialized behind his eyelids as he blinked. A crime scene far away from any suburban life, only accompanied by hungry animals and the surrounding trees. There would have been no one around to hear the screams, the buzzing hum of watts entering the victim’s veins, or the screech of a round saw against bone.

Did she say I was isolated?

The ache returned, seeping and pooling in his stomach; he wanted to call upon Will, divulge the case information, and have him assess it against his experiences. He wanted to know how Will would view this deliberate cry from the killer to be seen, to be acknowledged—would he keep Alana’s casting of withdrawn and disconnected, or would he deviate and contradict it? Hannibal had not been surprised by his own impulses in many decades, and he found himself pushing the charcoal pencil harder than expected against the sketching paper.

The sharp point snapped beneath the pressure.

✧

The day had ended back at home base around lunchtime, and Hannibal was grateful to not have to force down another low-quality Wonder bread sandwich from the Bureau’s cafeteria. As he drove home, he planned out a meal incorporating salmon and various fall squashes, asparagus, and fresh herbs. He would pair it with a white wine and then follow with reading in his study, warming himself against the fireplace and soaking up the silence afforded by his home.

An hour later, he pulled into his home’s driveway, pausing with his hand on the keys in the ignition.

Alana’s blue car was squarely parked in his spot, her head ducked as she sat in the driver’s seat. She was utterly absorbed in her phone. Hannibal imagined she had sat for quite some time, patient and determined to catch him by surprise—a black cat in wait, hidden just around the corner.

His jaw tightened and he shut the Bentley off, exiting the vehicle and walking towards his own passenger side to retrieve his briefcase. Alana’s head snapped up to look through the rear view windshield, and she hastily unbuckled herself, having exited her vehicle while pushing curled hair away from her face.

“Hey. I would have reached out sooner but I was busy today—I had to make pace down here to try to catch you.” She closed the space between them quickly, her crystal blue eyes rapidly moving back and forth as she tried to read Hannibal’s expression.

Hannibal snapped the passenger door shut and adjusted his coat, smoothing it over his chest.  His gaze was icy as he looked the woman in the eyes before turning away, silently making way towards the front door.

“Hannibal? Listen, I know this is an abrupt dropping in, but—” 

“How long have you waited here, Alana? It was entirely possible that I would not have arrived until the evening. You have been terribly rude by not providing prior notice, as I have not adjusted my time to include your presence.” His voice cut the air between them with every consonant, yet Alana did not yield. She tailed at his heels while he shoved the front door open, quickly landing his briefcase on the side table and briskly going inside. If he were less of a gentleman, he would have allowed the door to nearly hit her on her way in.

“I know, I’m sorry, just—Hannibal, can you hear me out? I want to talk about Will. Something’s… different. Really, I’m truly sorry about surprising you, and I promise it’ll be short and sweet.” She had begun to nervously fidget with the ends of her curled hair, standing under the roof window that beamed light into the atrium.

Hannibal stopped in place, his back facing her. He studied the wooden floorboards at his feet as he calculated the worth of what Alana had to reveal, and the potential answers to questions that had swum in his mind all day long about Will.

“Because you are my friend, Alana, and now my guest, you may stay. Please bear in mind that I have a meal to prepare for.” Hannibal pointed his head only slightly to the side to project his voice, heading towards the study. She followed in pursuit, heels loudly clacking against the floor.

“He has, practically out of nowhere, started to sleep soundly. His nightmares have subsided almost entirely, and he hasn’t shared any bouts of sleep paralysis with me. He discharges tomorrow, but—” Alana worked her teeth at her bottom lip as Hannibal began to decant a red wine into a large, vase-like glass decanter, watching her from the periphery of his vision. There was only one wine glass set out.

  “—I can’t help but feel that his progression is sudden. It’s too sudden. How many clients have you ever seen respond to treatment so out of the blue?”

The straight line of his shoulders slightly relaxed, and he set the bottle down, sealing the cork with his thumb.

“I cannot say I have ever had a turnaround as rapid as you are describing with Will. In the instances where my clients respond quickly to treatment, it is usually a stroke of luck from targeting the deeply hidden parts of their trauma.” Hannibal unbuttoned his suit coat, carding a hand through his hair. His eyes glinted with the warm and low lighting of the room.

“You have not introduced any new treatments, correct?”

“No, I haven’t, and that’s precisely why I’m concerned.” Her eyes flitted about the room anxiously, and she took a step closer to Hannibal.

“You know that we see a similar pattern in suicidal patients, where they take on a sudden cheery demeanor, like they were hit by a silver bullet. But, for Will Graham, it’s as if--his mind has surrendered its faculties--like some sort of switch was turned off.” Words stumbled in a stutter when she grasped for a proper metaphor, and Hannibal raised a brow.

“You seem incredibly moved by this behavior. I agree that this type of onset is unusual,” his voice remained indifferent as he poured with a heavy hand into his glass, “but it is not entirely out of place. A sharp adjustment during a fundamental change in routine may simply be his mind accommodating, allocating energy where it is most appropriate.”

Alana stood in silence, and Hannibal noted how the gears in her mind were nearly perceptible as they turned. He swirled the glass and held the stem carefully, raising it to his nose to waft. The cedar and mulberry notes were pleasant enough to relax him further, and he placed the glass back down to remove his jacket.

“He has some indicators of compulsion with contamination. He self-soothes with rituals of cleaning, washing body parts, repeatedly putting clothes through the dryer. They were at their worst at the start of the week, and now, they’re entirely gone.” Hannibal looked at Alana from beneath his lashes, the muscles against his jaw slightly flexing in response. The familiarity of rituals, to clean invisible blood that never seemed to wash out, made the skin across Hannibal’s neck prickle. “I can’t believe that both his nightmares and his most important habitual responses have been repressed, just from the lukewarm sessions we’ve had.” 

That same blood had festered in Hannibal’s own nightmares across his childhood, recurring for years until he finally found the heartlessness to do what it took in order to silence the discord within. 

“I am familiar with the tendencies to seek the comfort that ritualistic behavior can provide. Will’s repression could have resulted from anything, even as simple as having a new therapist.” His voice was squarely professional, and Alana barely acknowledged him through a halfhearted nod, thrust back into her train of thought regarding Will just as quickly as she had left it.

Hannibal began to fold his coat, looking down at Alana’s neck.

He imagined the flexible arteries and veins replaced by pipes and metal rods, working just as efficiently to indulge Hannibal with information.

“Something’s wrong.” The declaration was dry and not fully aimed at Hannibal, her face turned towards the extinguished fireplace.

“Perhaps I could discuss it with him during our next session. Does his fear of contamination have historical documentation?” He fetched his glass once more, letting the wine sit on his tongue after he drank, relishing the flavors and craftsmanship.

“Yes, it’s all in his file with my practice. I’d have to sign some disclosures of information, and, most importantly… he would have to agree.” Alana perched on the armrest of the seat next to Hannibal. He restrained the frown from unfurling on his face.

“I have no intention of giving clinical advice or treatment, Alana. There is a sense of obligation when one reveals to a practitioner, former or active, a patient’s destructive ailments.”

In reality, the desire to know more had clawed its way up Hannibal’s chest from the moment she had mentioned Will, feverishly ramming against his throat. He wanted to know if the compulsion was related to the irritation and redness of his hands, or to the fixation on the stages of decomposition; did Will disassociate himself entirely from his nightmares and terrors through absolution?

The memory of their conversation lingered for a moment, and his jaw flexed in response.

Beauty in the violence.

The difference between a man afraid of his surroundings, and a man with a keen eye for gruesome things, stood at odds against his deduction.

“I’m not expecting you to treat him, Hannibal.” A small, yet noticeable amount of venom came across in her response. “You don’t even have to see him beyond his onboarding. I just felt like you should know, in case something was to happen. … In case he disappears.” Hannibal sat in his favorite of the two seats next to the fireplace, crossing his legs as he spoke. The future favor that Alana would owe Hannibal for his pseudo-psychiatry towards Will, keeping logs of his patterns and detailed characteristics, could prove useful. He accepted the offer in tandem to the information she had shared, closing it as an equal exchange from his perspective. Information for protection.

“If he no longer returns to my office, and does not respond to the accommodated practice, I assure you—I will let you know.” He rose and walked to Alana’s side, pausing long enough to allow her to follow. Hannibal led her to the front door, watching her pick and adjust her clothing from the corner of his eye.

The shadow of uncertainty and a faint outline of longing were cast on her face. 

“You know, Hannibal… you weren’t like this before. I hope that someday, we can return to that track we once shared.” Alana folded her hand before her abdomen, looking around the moody entryway before landing on Hannibal. “The one where you used to let me in. You’ve built so many walls. I guess maybe it was my mistake for trying to climb them.” The amusement in her voice came tangled with sorrow, and she offered a weak smile.

He gave no response. The silence was only interrupted by Alana’s heels moving through the opened door, echoing and trailing into nothingness as it clicked shut behind her.

Alana did not bid Hannibal goodnight.

✧

Any time afforded to him from the onslaught of the FBI’s rat race was precious, and Hannibal capitalized on it with his favorite pleasures. A cigarette chased by sips of wine, Rachmaninoff and Vivaldi reverberating against the walls. Once he had satisfied himself by lounging and allowing his thoughts to be carried by the romantic era of classical composers, he retired to his master bedroom, readying himself for bed.

Now that many walls of wood and insulation separated him from Will Graham, he found himself able to quiet his mind, to drift into sleep as he settled beneath dark slate bed sheets. There was no more blood, nor the sour scent of burning fuel, and the Norman Chapel of his mind palace sat dry and flickering with candlelight.

As the tendrils of dreams wrapped themselves around him, Hannibal suddenly felt as if he were plunging into an abyss of water so cold that it nearly burned his skin. No matter how heavily his limbs protested in the imagery behind his eyelids, his physical body was weighed down by sleep, and he barely twitched beneath the sheets.

It was oil. Engine oil. It engulfed his body and every orifice, and no matter how much he swam and struggled, he sank to the bottom. Hannibal squeezed his eyes shut against the burn. When he opened them once more, he had been transported in an instant to that same Manchester field.

The John Doe bound to the metal leg of the tower was alive, teeth intact and organs in place, and he was breathing. Hannibal stood before him, his mouth moving before he could transform his own thoughts into action.

“Your murderer saw something within you, something that many men lacked. What marked you as special?” He cocked his head to the side, boring his maroon eyes into the bright and clear green eyes of the other man.

His chest heaved with the effort to respond, straining against the live wires. They had not yet taken his life.

“He’s just like me—we’re broken, we wanted to be fixed, but we can’t—we can’t be fixed. They said we’re broken, but I know we aren’t, and I tried,” the pace of his confession grew faster, his tongue barely able to keep up. “He didn’t like how I tried, he hated it, it was—he was consumed by it.” Hannibal had seen the ruthlessness, how the man had been allowed to see his own entrails slide from inside of him, to see his body moments before it came apart onto yellowing grass.

There had been no attempt to fix him. There had only been punishment. And yet, the Repairman had granted the man the ability to understand what was happening as some sort of kindness; the ability to accept he would die, and to make peace with it however he chose. A kindness that had been seeded long before the pile of bodies and now had reared its head in the smallest of details. The ability to see.

“How do you know that you both desired to be repaired? Do you share something in particular?”

The victim looked up and tears streamed uncontrollably from his face, black and streaking ugly lines down his cheeks and chin.

“We both saw.”

Hannibal shuddered awake as he was slung from the dream into the bright morning sunlight, his antique alarm clock buzzing wildly against the bedside table. With a slow motion, he turned it off, dragging a hand across the grey stubble of his face.

It had been an incredibly long time since he had a nightmare. The earlier ones were sequestered to his childhood, rotating images of his younger sister in his sleep. Images of her desecrated body, the remains after her consumption.

A perversion of her small and pale corpse, used as a desperate measure by desperate Hiwi men.

He sat up in his bed, feeling a collection of sweat trails fall from his nape to his back. The day ahead would be relentless as his squad tried to process and contextualize all of yesterday’s findings, and Hannibal absently pawed at his cigarettes and lighter from the table.

A cluster headache panged against his temples, and he sighed, reclining against the baseboard as his Zippo sparked to life.