#lias scribblese

[elfnerdherder]

Magnum Opus: Chapter 13

You can reach Chapter 13 on Ao3 Here

Chapter 13:

           He was first taken to the FBI to have DNA samples taken, as well as fingerprints and blood. He recognized the agents as the two that’d worked with Jack Crawford in Georgia, and they told light, familiar jokes to one another as they worked, leaving Will to his thoughts. At some point he managed to get pain killers, and he dry swallowed them as they worked. Every time he blinked, a gun fired and left his ears ringing from the sound. They picked dirt and blood out from underneath his fingernails before they let him go, a spare FBI hoodie and a pair of sneakers tossed his way as he went. At least he didn’t have to be barefoot anymore.

           He sat through the questions, repeating himself over and over until he was able to sign a few papers and leave. Although he wasn’t being interrogated, he stared at the large, imposing loop bolted into the table for those that would be handcuffed. If he hadn’t murdered Garrett Jacob Hobbs, Hobbs would have been handcuffed there. Jack Crawford stared at him from the other side of the table, and he let out a low, aggrieved sigh.

           “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone had it out for you,” he said, tossing down the papers for Will to sign. Will gritted his teeth and accepted the pen, scribbling his name on the line and dating it. Knowing better than Jack Crawford, he agreed.

           Hannibal waited for him outside where the sun was steadily rising in the early morning sky. The time was 6:49 A.M., and he dozed in Hannibal’s car as he drove, wondering where in the world Bill Graham could be. He hadn’t been home, according to Hannibal and Jack. Had he stayed out at the bars? Had he crashed in his car, wisely knowing he was too drunk to drive? Had he found a friend? Had he found a girlfriend? He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the car had stopped. They’d reached Hannibal’s house.

           “I have a guest room that I think will be adequate,” Hannibal said lightly, opening the car door. Will looked to the house attached to Hannibal’s, and he all but stumbled from the car.

           “Who lives there?” he asked. Hannibal glanced to his neighbor’s house and smiled.

           “A wonderful elderly woman that makes gingerbread cookies during Christmas that defy description,” said Hannibal, walking with Will to his front door. He opened it to the smell of the remnants of rich, delicious food, and a faint musk of cologne. Before all of this happened, Hannibal must have had dinner guests over. Will walked in and tightened the ties to his hoodie, glancing down to the slightly too small sneakers.

           “You don’t have to let me stay here,” Will said, following him into the living room. Hannibal turned lamps on, setting his coat on a coat rack.

           “Nonsense,” he said, heading up the spiral staircase. “I can’t in good conscious allow you to go home alone after such a traumatic event. My job is to help you, Will Graham, and I intend to do just that.”

           He was shown a bedroom with sage green walls and thick, feather down blankets, as well as a bathroom adjoining that held a shower as well as a bath. Hannibal fetched him a spare set of clothes, as well as a towel before he hovered in the bedroom, watching Will remove his sneakers.

           “I’m directly down the hall and to the right if you need me,” he said, and his calm, serene exterior shifted to reveal a hint of concern. “Don’t fear your nightmares. They are normal, and merely reveal to you what you already know that you struggle with.”

           “Thanks, Hannibal,” Will said sincerely. His hands shook, and he fumbled with the laces before he finally just kicked the shoes off savagely. “I’ll try not to make too much of a mess.”

           “This house could use it,” Hannibal said with a smile, and he left him to his own devices, closing the door behind him.

           Will showered first in order to wash the blood off of his skin. He watched the tracks of pinkish water swirl about his feet, unsure as to which part was Abigail and which part was her father. Where did one end and the other begin? It was indiscernible; all blood looked the same. He blinked, and it was a gunshot. Hobbs looked as surprised as Will did, and as he dried off with a towel, he wondered where Hobbs ended and he began. Although he was only the fisherman, he’d become the hunter for the faintest of moments, and those moments clung to his skin.

           He slept fitfully, revisiting the same scene over and over again. He stood before Jacob Hobbs, gun raised, pulse elevated. Hobbs held his daughter, mouth pressed to her ear as he whispered, hissed words of poison, knife to her throat. Behind him, right before Will could pull the trigger, a large, terrifying beast walked up the dirt path, standing taller than Hobbs could hope to be. The stag stared at Will, knew him, and he turned, walking around them in a slow, deliberate circle. On his haunches, feathers grew with the thickness and color of raven’s wings, and when his breath caressed Will’s neck, he closed his eyes.

           He woke around eleven, eyes bleary as they stared up at the off white ceiling. Along the edges, sage green filigree curled and danced around itself, and as he dressed he wondered if Hannibal had found such a place by accident, or if he’d designed it to be so ostentatious. Outside of his room, he followed the smell of cooking food, and found Hannibal in the kitchen, making eggs.

           “Good morning, Will,” he said, looking up from the skillet. He tossed an egg and caught it on the side of his spatula, cracking it over the skillet without the shell falling in. Will blinked, rubbing sleep from his eyes to see if he saw correctly.

           “Good morning,” he mumbled.

           “How did you sleep?” Hannibal asked, adding a pinch of spice to the food. It sizzled and popped in the pan, making the room smell divine.

           “Off and on…do you always cook like this?”

           “As I said before, cooking is its own form of therapy for me. That, and in my travels I’ve come across enough recipes that I couldn’t allow to go to waste.” While the eggs cooked, he moved to the side and delicately sliced tomatoes, his wrist gentle on the blade. Rather than cut them entirely, though, Will watched with fascination as he twisted and turned the tomato, slicing in arcs that turned the fruit into a flower, a rose in full bloom that he garnished with cheese and set on a plate.

           “I’ve never seen food like this before,” Will said with a laugh. "Thank you for sharing."

           “I always enjoy having a friend for breakfast,” Hannibal said, glancing up at him.

           “Can I help at all?” Will glanced to the food as the sausage let out a scream from the heat. He blinked, and Abigail screamed in terror.

           “You can sit down and relax, Will. I don’t think you do that enough.”

           Will found a bar stool and sat down, sliding his palms along the too big pajama pants Hannibal had lent him. He watched the display of art before him as Hannibal chopped and diced, pausing between moments in order to brew coffee from something that looked like it belonged at a lavish barista counter. When it was ready, he set everything on a tray and led Will to a dining room with a full length table, everything just as gorgeous and rich as the rest of the house. He studied the cobalt blue walls and deep, ebony furniture, and he laughed a little as he sat down.

           “What’s so funny?” Hannibal asked, setting the plate before him.

           “Your house is just…it’s beautiful. How did you find it?” Hannibal smiled, setting his plate down, as well as a carafe of orange juice that Will witnessed him fresh press.

           “It was a lucky find, if I’m being honest. They allowed for painting and decoration, so I took advantage of it and decided to make this house a home. I may be in college still, but why must one suffer a lack of art and culture while they’re getting an education?”

           “I think most people can’t afford to not suffer a lack of art and culture while they’re getting an education,” Will said dryly.

           “Then I feel a duty as well, to hold such things in my home so that when they visit, they may be able to enjoy here what they couldn’t anywhere else nearby.” He poured Will a cup of orange juice and smiled, gesturing to the food. “It’s nothing fancy, but a protein-packed meal was the order of the day, I felt. Sausage, egg, braised tomato, and peppers.” Will took a bite of it, studying the display on his plate.

           “What sort of sausage is it?” he asked after he swallowed. “I don’t think I’ve had it before.”

           “A certain breed of pig I found at an Italian butcher’s gives off a spicy, aromatic flavor. I couldn’t resist treating myself to it,” Hannibal said. Will nodded and spooned up another bite, smiling wryly.

           “I almost feel guilty for eating something you worked so hard to present to me. It’s an art form in itself,” he said, gesturing towards his plate.

           “That is why it must be consumed. I feel that art in all forms must be consumed in order to be fully appreciated. That is why we gaze so long at paintings, and why we wish to covet a beautiful person. Art is not meant to merely be glanced at and moved by. It has the power to move us, and in being moved, we owe it to find a way to take it in all of its entirety.”

           “You make this art easy to be consumed,” Will said, taking another bite.

           “I appreciate that, Will.” Hannibal smiled, a sly turn of his lips.

           After breakfast, Hannibal took him home. Will considered calling the school, but he figured that they’d find out soon enough when news was brought to them about Abigail Hobbs. His father’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, and he uneasily hesitated at the door, shifting his stance.

           “Do you think he’s alright?” he asked.

           “Do you have the number to his workplace?” Hannibal asked in return. Will nodded and walked into the house, eyeing the bed that’d sat untouched in the front room for the night. Hannibal followed him in, and if he thought anything poor of Will’s way of living, he didn’t say it. Will avoided watching him look about, and he found the telephone, scrolling through the list of numbers before he found the right one and hit the talk button.

           “Yeah?!” A loud, brash voice answered. The sound of machines whirring and saws hacking drowned out his tone and made him unrecognizable. Will jerked the phone away from his ear and grimaced.

           “Is Bill Graham working today?” Will asked.

           “What?!”

           “Is Bill Graham working today?” Will said, much louder. There was a pause, then the sound of shouting before some of the machines died down, making his ears ring.

           “This is Bill,” his father said. From the background, Will heard,

           “Sounds like someone you owe money to!”

           “Hey, dad,” Will said, aware of Hannibal crossing behind him in order to sit in the kitchen. “I just called to…did you come home last night?”

           “No, I slept at Trent’s since I knew you’d be sore if I drove,” he said, and laughter filtered in from the background. “Why? Everything okay on the home front?”

           Will started to say no; he started to give his rehearsed speech that’d crowded his mind on the drive over. He started to say, ‘Because you weren’t home, a man came into the house and kidnapped me, and you weren’t there to stop him. I almost died and you weren’t there to stop him and help your own son, you fucking gambler, you fucking poor excuse of a father.’

           He shook his head. It’d change nothing. Bill Graham in Wolf Trap, Virginia was a gambler, not a father. Will’s situation had stressed him to the point that he had to begin anew, and that rebirth didn’t include paternal instincts. He’d have to try again the next time they moved, when his mistakes were once again too much for his father to handle.

           “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted to check up on you. Sentimental things, I guess.”

           “Thanks, son; I appreciate that,” Bill said.

           Will hung up and looked over at Hannibal morosely. Hannibal gave nothing of his opinion away. If he judged Will for lying, he gave no voice to it. He merely watched, and somehow the passive acceptance was even worse. Will went and quickly changed into his regular clothes, ignoring the signs of a fight in his room, and he returned, sliding his jacket on.

           “I’d like to go and see Abigail,” Will said.

           They drove together to save gas, and Will leaned back against the seat, brooding. Hannibal’s car was not only a full leather interior, but the seats had warmers, and there was a computer display right above the temperature gauges. He’d have made a comment about how expensive it must have been, but at this point Will was of the mind that Hannibal could afford almost anything that he set his mind to.

           “Do you often keep the burdens of the father and the son on your shoulders?” Hannibal asked in the quiet. Will opened his eyes and squinted out to the sunlight.

           “He’s busy,” he said.

           “He’s absent,” Hannibal corrected. “If he’d been in your home, he could have prevented certain events from unfolding.”

           “Do you want me to be angry with him?” Will asked incredulously.

           “No, I suppose I feel enough of that for the both of us. You have enough to worry about.”

           “You’re angry with him?” Will raised his eyebrows, surprised.

           “We’ve only been working on your mental state for a about a month now, but I do see you as more than a case study for my thesis. I’m beginning to see you as a friend.”

           “But you’re my therapist,” Will objected.

           “As I’m not a psychiatrist, I can’t be your therapist,” Hannibal disagreed.

           “Then what do you call the meetings every day in your study?” Will asked.

           “Conversations,” Hannibal said after a moment of thought. “We have in-depth conversations.”

           “And that makes us friends?” Will asked. Hannibal laughed, delighted.

           “Normally, after so many conversations, that tends to happen. If we need to, we can stop. God forbid we speak too much and become friendly with one another.” Will wanted to fight against his sarcasm, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Hannibal smiling, and he couldn’t help but smile, too.

           There was an FBI agent in Abigail’s room, but he nodded and stepped out after Hannibal spoke with him. Will hovered in the doorway, looking about the pristine and chemically cleaned room with trepidation. He blinked, and he sat in a pool of Abigail’s blood, desperately holding onto her life. He blinked again, and he stood behind her, slitting her throat. He shook his head and walked in, clearing his throat to try and banish the thoughts in his mind that it should be him in the ground, not Garrett Jacob Hobbs.

           She’d been cleaned up since the night before, no indication of severe wounds apart from bruising near her temple. A thick bandage hid her neck from scrutiny, and a feeding tube rested in her mouth. She looked peaceful, a natural sleep rather than a near-death-induced one. Will reached out and gently touched the top of her cheekbone, brushing a stray eyelash away. His heart was in his throat, clamoring to escape, and he had to turn and sit down on the couch, legs giving way.

           I didn’t honor her. I didn’t honor her, and now she lays here, straddling the line between life and death, between a half-life and a sacrifice. The other girls were stand-ins, a poor man’s daughter, and they couldn’t sustain, they couldn’t carry me through the darkness so that I could find her again. I am remiss, and all that remains is to place my hands around her neck and end her agony. If I can end hers, I can end mine, and all will be well. Everything’s going to be okay.

           “Will?” Will looked up from his hands, and he scooted to the side so that Hannibal could sit beside him. He self-consciously rubbed his palms into his jeans to remove any trace of her, and he stared at her still form, shuddering.

           “How are you feeling?” Hannibal asked.

           “Guilty,” Will whispered.

           “Why?” He crossed one leg over the other and tilted his head, gaze intent on the girl in the hospital bed. “What’s crawled into your head to make you feel that way?”

           “I feel like I’m the one that put her there,” he replied, and he looked down to his hands.

           “You did put her there. If you hadn’t put her there, Will, she’d be somewhere far worse.” Will nodded, but the words didn’t connect, didn’t piece together the way that they should have.

           “Where’s her mom?” he asked when he could find his voice.

           “Her mother was found dead in their home when the FBI raided it. It appears that she’d been dead for several hours, the first kill of the night before Garrett Jacob Hobbs came for you.”

           “And now she has no one…” Will murmured, and he buried his head in his hands. “I took them away from her.”

           “She has you,” Hannibal said, tilting his head slightly as he observed her. “She also has me.”

           “You?”

           “You feel beholden to her, don’t you?” At Will’s curt nod, Hannibal nodded. “As do I.”

           “Why?”

           “You were there when it happened. You were both her father and her friend, her killer and her rescuer. When I answered the phone and heard your voice, I heard the voice of Garrett Jacob Hobbs as well, and I stayed on the line. I stayed on the line until you hung up the phone right in front of me.” At Will’s shocked expression, Hannibal’s lips flattened to a pained line.

           “You were there?” he asked.

           “I heard your panic, your fear as she presumably held a knife to you. I heard her run from him, and I heard you realize she was in just as much danger as you were. I heard your footsteps, and I heard the gunfire.” Hannibal looked down to his hands as Will had, as though he were the one to squeeze the trigger. “I heard you weep as you held her, struggling for breath that couldn’t come. I imagined you trembling as I sat in the back of the car, and I felt as though I were the one to hold her for you so that you could cry. Each second that passed as you fought to keep her alive, I was there.”

           “You heard everything?” Will pressed.

           “I heard every word,” Hannibal murmured. “I have never felt quite so helpless as that moment, hearing your struggle without a way to help. I was just as afraid as you were, that each new second would bring the end of Abigail Hobbs.”

           They both looked at her on the hospital bed, various machines and electronics doing their best to keep her alive. Will blinked, and he wondered what would have happened if he had tried to help Miss Avery the way he’d tried to help Abigail. Would Jared Freeman have killed him, along with Miss Avery? Could he maybe have prevented what happened as Jared forced her final moment to be one of terror? Or had he fallen into Jared’s mind so far that if he’d been able to stand, he’d have taken the gun and done it for him? As he looked at Abigail, his hands held tremors as he wondered if he’d have killed her himself if the FBI hadn’t gotten there in time.

           “Thank you for being there for me,” he said quietly.

           “May I ask a personal question, Will?” Hannibal asked. Will nodded, a short jerk of his head.

           “When you stepped into the place of Garrett Jacob Hobbs, how did it feel?” Will tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling, teeth dragging over his chapped lips.

           “Hungry,” Will replied. Then, “Powerful.”

           “And when you shot him, were you repulsed by yourself?” Will closed his eyes, and he clenched his hands tightly in his lap. He knew the right answer to give; killing doesn’t feel good. Murder doesn’t feel good. No matter the cause or reason, there was no joy in the taking of a life. He inhaled deeply, swallowed the chemical-ridden air, and he sighed.

           “Powerful,” he said. Then, “Good.”

           “Knowing that, how do you feel now?” Hannibal asked. Will opened his eyes and rubbed them, knocking his glasses askew.

           “I feel like there’s a reason I should be in therapy,” Will said heavily. “Meaning I should probably continue to see you.”

           “Doing bad things to bad people feels good,” Hannibal said, and Will looked over to him sharply. “Don’t you think?”

           “Have you ever done something bad to someone bad?” Will asked suspiciously.

           “No,” Hannibal said, “but I can imagine.” He looked over to Abigail and smiled serenely. Will didn’t have to question whether or not he was imagining what he’d have done if Garrett Jacob Hobbs had stood before him rather than Will.

           “She’s going to hate me,” Will said after the silence felt too heavy.

           “She’s going to be grateful to you, but you did take her father from her. You told Agent Crawford that he was eating other girls. Did they look like her?”

           “I only saw the photo of one on Tattlecrime, but she looked very similar. Just, you know, dead.” Will laughed humorlessly.

           “I’ve only heard small pieces because of Dr. Du Maurier’s work, but the girls fit the description of Abigail very closely,” Hannibal said.

           “So he killed them so that he didn’t have to kill her. When she couldn’t become him, though, he had to finally take care of her, too?” Will shook his head, disgust curdling his gut. “To what end?”

           “That is the question, isn’t it? I’m sure that even if Abigail knew, she certainly wouldn’t say,” Hannibal said. “Why did you say that he returned the other girl?”

           “There was something wrong with her,” Will said, tasting copper. He’d bit the inside of his cheek.

           “So he couldn’t honor her?” Hannibal clarified.

           “He was eating them…so there must have been something wrong with her. Maybe she was sick, maybe she was…imperfect.” Will shrugged, and he looked at Hannibal. “I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

           Hannibal studied him and reached up, carefully adjusting Will’s glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Then we won’t talk about it anymore.”