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hobisfavoritespritecan · 4 months ago

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DOGSDOGS

CHAPTER ONE

I partnered up with the amazingly talented @ka3trv to create this multiple part dogsdogs fic!! Show their account some love, this story is probably my new favorite thing in existence and they're the mastermind behind it all! Will Graham is appointed to Bucharest after the events that unfolded following Hannibal's death. He's struggling with the new scenery, even more so now that Jack needs him to follow the case of the most dangerous men who live there. Nigel knows of the tabs the FBI has on him and he will do whatever it takes to make sure he gets out of this situation unscathed. A life without Gabi and a life without running.

The entirety of the room had only been lit with that of a singular light fixture; a complete contrast to that of the dance club outside the heavy doors of this private area where the men resided. The florescent purple and pink hues from the dance floor cascaded in patterns on the tiling through these doors, an invitation to the rest of society should the men choose to. However, despite the wafting smells of liquor and the promise of a good time through the eyes of the male gaze, Darko and Nigel sat unbothered and undetected, across from one another on the black leathered couches. This room was considered to be one reserved for "private showcases," and was quite lavishly decorated for its small size. Darko was comfortably sat with his arm flush against the decorative couch, seemingly calm for the situation at hand. Nigel, however, was having more difficulty finding comfort in the events of the folder strewn out before his eyes.

As if his scarring hadn't left him enough of a headache, there was now this tumultuous churning in his stomach in regard to how he and Darko would respond to this. There was an immediate threat to not only their work but their lifestyle, as this information being spread could land them in prison, or worse, with the death penalty. Nigel had escaped death once before, he didn't think he would be so lucky as to avoid it a second time.

He placed his fingers gently on the scar which adorned his forehead, a promise he made to himself never to allow his emotions grasp the better of him again. The sound of the police's bullet grazing his forehead and leaving him wounded on the streets of Bucharest resounded in his skull as a promise of his beloved Gabi's final departure from him. She would be pleased enough to live her life in the arms of that unruly American, Charlie. So be it. Her actions had aided him in his escape anyways as he was presumed dead. Continuing the story of his faux end wouldn't be hard when he pulled strings with Darko, partnering with him once again.

And this was the reason for him sitting before Nigel, clad in a professionally tailored black suit. It was properly fitted and steamed, an indication of the wealth this man possessed. No matter the attire, anyone who gazed upon his frame would've run for the hills upon sight. Nigel, however, wore his infamous dog printed button down, upon which he remembers first having given his warning to that wretched Charlie.

He had to stop himself. He couldn't afford to think of his Gabi in a time like this. Her bright red hair had signified the ever-burning flame of his love, now just tarnished embers. He had killed for her. He had died for her. All for her to choose another man.

Darko was the one to snap him out of his pit of nostalgia. He cleared his throat and gestured to the stack of papers uncovered by the manilla folder on the table in front of him, directing Nigel's attention to the task at hand. Even with Darko now on his side, a shiver ran through Nigel's being.

Within these papers were photographs, the professionally taken kind which came from the cameras of forensic specialists. These were not an uncommon sight to either of the men, as they had been partners in the craft of murder for quite some time. With an uneasy silence, save for the bass-boosted electronic beats coming from the club, Nigel's heart dropped with every single one of the images being removed from their place. Laid out before them, Darko was the one to speak first.

"They never seem to have enough, do they?" He asked, in a deep and throaty voice. He was referring to the sheer number of tabs the FBI had on the two of them and their work and was growing more and more irritable by the moment. There was more information to be gathered by the specialists and more bodies of their making to be uncovered in due time, Nigel and Darko knew this. They were in deep shit if the FBI had managed to track them to Bucharest.

Darko motions to one of the cameras placed in the corner of the ceiling above them, beckoning with his hand for someone to bring them drinks. He had owned this club which would eventually make the most sense for future business discussions with his clients. There would be no disturbances as long as the recordings had been deleted later on.

A man in a suit came in ad handed Darko a bottle of Prosecco and two respective glasses. He left almost as swiftly as he came, not wanting to be caught between the men and their business conversations, as he knew Darko's side hobbies quite well. Glasses were poured and he handed one to Nigel, whom downed the wine in two short gulps.

"They're appointing a man by the name of Will Graham to our case. He's supposedly the best in their system." Darko had procured this information from one of his insiders, however, intel was difficult to get out of the country. This was hearsay but had a substantial amount of evidence to back this claim, as these images had come straight from the FBI quarters in Virginia. Therefore, this ordeal must be met with precise planning, in the case of actuality. Preservation of one's image and freedom was never a bad idea.

Nigel was growing slightly frustrated. Darko had initially promised him that he knew a specialist to distribute the bodies of their victims in ways where they wouldn't be caught. Nigel's newfound life and identity relied heavily on this; he couldn't remain a dead man in the eyes of the government if he was on a wanted list for murder.

"We should make plans to kill him, another addition to the list won't make a goddamn difference." He stated, his words coming out more harshly than he originally intended. He wanted this ordeal to be done and over with as quickly as it had been sprung upon him as he wanted to go back to his life without potential persecution from the country. Not that he had much keeping him tied to Bucharest.

There she was again, flush in his mind. He thought back to the coffee he had earlier that he bought solely because it came from her favorite shoppe. The aroma of the freshly ground beans still reminded him of her.

"You know that's entirely unrealistic," Darko went on to explain, "If the FBI sent him to us as a means of profiling, if he were to go missing or wind up dead they would pinpoint us exactly." He stated, matter of fact. Now, Nigel wasn't one who didn't understand the inner and outer workings of their job, but he had been recently guided by anger. An angry man in a dog shirt. Irony at its finest.

"What do you suggest we do then?" Nigel inquired, tossing one of the photographs back down on the table he'd previously been examining. It was one of the man whom owned Darko money back in September; they'd gutted his insides and sold them off to make back every penny he'd owed.

"You will become his new best friend and we can form an alliance with the guy," Darko said, raising his glass to his lips and finishing the liquid, "Its been a year since she left, Nigel. You could use some company."

It was almost a sick joke the way the man had phrased his internal and now external pain. Nigel wore the wound on his head as a memoir to his long gone lover, whom he would never truly be over. Darko had a way of belittling everyone that worked for him and Nigel would be no exception. Yet, his counterpart was right. It would take careful consideration and calculation on their end to throw this "Will Graham" off of their path so they could continue their line of work.

"Don't be fucking ridiculous, I want no part in forming this shit." Nigel exasperated, even though he knew Darko's plan would be a good one. This way, they could throw of Will's intel on them and even gain some in the process. An FBI agent who could show some of their inner workings would only benefit them. He just didn't want to put in the effort of a pretend friendship to gain it.

"Unless you want another bullet to the face, then I suggest you shut your fucking mouth and do as I tell you." Darko angrily shot back, clearly disinterested in any of Nigel's potential discomfort with the ordeal. He needed this just as much as the former did. There was no way Nigel wouldn't succumb to this offer. He needed to remain out of the eye of the government.

"How long do you expect me to pretend this man is of importance to me in his presence?" Nigel began, clearly in a state of annoyance. Darko would always be the one to have someone else doing his dirty work.

"As long as it takes. We won't be the first to reach out though. That's practical suicide," Darko said, gathering up the files and handing them to Nigel to dispose of, "We will wait for this man to approach us since we have no idea what kind of intel he has on us already. We also don't want him to know we are familiar with his existence."

"What do we know about him, other than the fact he's profiling us?" Nigel asked, trying to get any potential help he could when he would be forced into an allyship with the man. Common interests and understandings worked the best for companionship.

"He's a professor. Teaches all that macabre shit. We also know he's not technically considered a real agent because he failed his psychological screenings. The man's deemed unstable."

Nigel looked at the front of the folder which had an image of the man thought to be tracing them. It was securely paperclipped despite all the other contents of the folder being haphazardly thrown in.

Something panged on the inside of his chest upon gazing at the man. There was an uncomfortable familiarity, despite not even having known him. The brunette with a form fitting blue flannel and corduroy trousers wasn't looking at the camera when the image was procured, but his piercing grey eyes were not to be missed. The man was most likely in his late thirties, with a clean stubble and two long scars stretching across the right side of his face. There was another one, slightly smaller than the two that was placed among his forehead, clean as if a knife had grazed his skin. What kind of history did this man have that would lead to such a bodily disfiguration? Although Nigel couldn't be one to talk, considering his own scars.

Despite never having met Will Graham, there was a certain aura he had that he couldn't place upon him.

Noting Nigel's eventual acceptance of the task, Darko withdrew himself from the room they'd discussed business matters. Nigel sat alone for a moment and replayed the conversation in his head. He would do this mission for himself, for the eventual life he wanted to live without Gabi. He hadn't had a murder-related task outside of his affections for her since they'd met.

He would never let anyone get that close to him again.

...

Lecturing on the topic of death had always been something Will was astute at. It had been his profession for years, to gaze upon the dead with an analytical brain, psychoanalyzing their physical states to determine their causes of death and the mentalities of those who were behind them. Pictures upon pictures of various crime scenes and people whose names and faces Will never had the intention of learning had been displayed upon the projection board above him. This was always the job description and it had never bothered him. Garrett Jacob Hobbs had come close to leaving a pit in Will's stomach as he'd been the one responsible for his death, but no one who'd been killed had ever left him with a feeling such as the departure of Hannibal Lecter.

The man who'd been his acclaimed psychiatrist and had worked his way into his heart had been around for the longest time that after he'd passed, Will no longer knew what to do with himself. It also didn't do him any favors that he came to the realization his feelings with which he shared with the man were more than platonic. It wasn't until their last moments with each other where Will was pulled into Hannibal's arms, the two of them soaked in the blood of the Great Red Dragon that he was finally able to understand what Hannibal had meant in seeing the beauty of death. And in seeing the beauty in what their relationship truly was and all that it could have been.

And it was taken away from him in the same night he was given it.

However, this work of his under the FBI had called to him once more, leading him to his recent affiliations in Bucharest. Jack had managed to convince him to set up site somewhere other than Quantico and pulled a few strings. Will had been an on and off professor at one of the universities, coming in only when the extra person was needed and then hitching a flight back to Wolf Trap, where everything reminded him of everything. In Bucharest, he was able to form himself another identity, one that existed outside of the gaze of Hannibal Lecter. On his lengthy stays at home, however, he caught himself in a perpetual waiting room, always with the underlying hope that maybe, just maybe, his partner would come strolling through the front doors of his house in that suit he always wore. He would pet Will's dogs as they all rushed to greet the man and he would smile at him with that same unsettling smirk he'd always had.

But the last memories Will would ever be graced with would be the moment they shared at the bottom of the cliff. There had been stars in Hannibal's eyes that night, an acknowledgement of Will's total and utter true form. Hannibal had seen Will for who he was and had loved him in his entirety for it. He wanted to push him past the limits that everyone else had placed upon him and to coerce Will towards the understanding Hannibal had all along. He wanted to mold him with his bare hands into the idealized shape of the gods, someone who would see and understand the elegance in the world beyond the living. Hannibal was never a religious man, but his devotion to Will was nothing short of worship.

"Achillies wished all the Greeks would die so that he and Patroclus could conquer Troy alone. It took divine intervention to stop them." Hannibal had whispered to him the night at that museum, standing in front of The Primavera, a Botticelli painting. The Primavera has stood as a symbol of new beginnings, and that was where their relationship stood. Will would travel to any continent in search of what he'd had with the man in hopes of a possibility of something new.

He wished the universe would have allowed him anything other than having to wake up on the damp rocks below, water harshly crashing into their sides, with the realization his life had been spared solely because Hannibal had wrapped him in his arms.

He stared at the card with the Romanian translation in front of him. He had spilled traces of coffee from one of the shoppes by the train station onto the cards, but he had a sufficient amount of practice by now. He was able to cite the exclamation in a rocky translation of the language. "As it is shown in the image, there's an obvious persistent difference between the simple murders. The left one is an act of...hatred, the right one an act of liberty. The dead man, whom upon arrival to the scene was deducted to be Michael Gerard. A victim of stage four cancer. After further research on the case, the mortuary team concluded that the wounds we found along the body of the man were explained by his son's desire to 'save him.' That son was none other than Jeremiah Gerard himself." Will stated, in the lecturing voice he'd grown so used to using over the years.

Ignoring the hands raised in the air, he shut the projector off shortly after finishing his sentence, dismissing the class and his thoughts from the events a year prior. This was not the time to reminisce. But there he was, Hannibal himself, standing at the back of the classroom with eyes turned towards will in a mocking manner. Will's encephalitis has gotten the better of him on numerous occasions and now a part of him was worried he was becoming borderline schizophrenic. He saw Hannibal everywhere he turned, almost hoping he were still alive. The hallucination disappeared from his gaze as he tried his best to use the counting method he'd picked up from extensive therapy.

1,2,3, and he was alone in the room once more, briefcase in hand and almost empty coffee in the other.

His newfound scars burned with his vision.

Although Bucharest was quite the sight, there were none of the winding roads and beautiful foliage Will had come to fall in love with in Virginia. This place was entirely urbanized, and social interaction was never just common, it was expected. Much to Will's dismay. There was no way one could get away with physically hiding themselves from conversation in the outdoors with a population this vast, druggies running around in the streets and children on corners with chalk in their hands. Despite this entirely new setting, Will had never felt more like himself. He understood everything now that he'd had it brought out of him, a spiral of emotions threatening to spill over until they had hardened into the person he was now. Every day without Hannibal was the same monotonous and boring schedule, but he had never felt the same since.

He pulled up to the apartment in which he resided while he was in Bucharest and not back at home. Either place was entirely lonesome; after the events that unfolded; Molly had decided for it to be the better they'd divorced. Even though he had loved her, he'd never felt such relief and remorse at the same time. And there were no more conversations with Alana, whom Will used to consider as one of his only friends now that she'd gone about her life somewhere hidden with Margot Verger.

And he was here, across the world, hoping to figure something out about this case. Maybe even about himself.

The apartment was cold for autumn because the windows weren't properly sealed. He'd been meaning to get that fixed but he hadn't the time. There was a fire going in the hearth Will had started from the moment he walked through the door as a means to try and stay warm through the night. An empty teacup and a spread of newspaper clippings were the only remnants of the night before, thrown about the hardwood floor in seemingly no correspondence. Will had gone to Bucharest in search of a new life, of course, but there was another factor at play.

Jack needed him to profile the guys responsible for the stream of Bucharest murders.

Bodies upon bodies had popped up along the waterfront, all disposed of without their organs. They were clearly uncared for, unlike the murderous artists he'd grown familiar with over the course of his work, and had their remnants carelessly strewn about. The most recent body to have been discovered was that of a man by the name of Darrow Lux, a supposed criminal with a background in Con artistry. No prints had been left among the body, just like the others. No organs either.

This wasn't a case unlike anything Will had dealt with before. There was, however, a surmountable less passion in his work than he'd had. sure, he wanted his old life back with the FBI but he still stung on the inside. He'd been subjected to some of the worst physical and emotional turmoil over the past few years, this last year being the worst.

Sighing, he picked himself up off the floor and headed to the barren kitchen, save for a small fake plant in the middle of the island. He never bothered to stock the place with food, preferring to eat out if he had the chance or skip his meals entirely. He'd lost a fair amount of weight since everything changed, but he was still pushing through.

Pouring himself a glass of water from the kitchen sink, he looked out towards the city streets below from the small window before him. There was a crowd of people smoking by the Hostel across the street, laughing and exchanging glances at the passerby. One of the women had a sketchpad that she was drawing with, and Will could almost smell the graphite of the pencils from where he stood if he only imagined hard enough. He missed drawing. He missed fishing. He missed the smells of the woods and the barking of his dogs. He missed Alana and Jack and going into work in the cool mornings. He missed his old job and his coffee maker at home that tasted much better than what they had in Bucharest.

He missed Hannibal.

Will finished his drink and then sauntered over to his loft, where he would spend the night tossing and turning with nightmares he'd grown used to.

We hope you enjoyed! This is a working fic in progress, but we both decided to release the first chapter early so you guys could get a feel for what's in store. Let us know your thoughts! 💛🦐

#fanfiction #hobisfavoritespritecan #fanfic writing #hannibal lecter #hannibal #mads mikkelsen #hannigram #nigel charlie countryman #nigel banyai #will graham #charlie countryman #dogsdogs #hannibal nbc #nbc hannibal #the necessary death of charlie countryman

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