Chapter Text
Hannibal dabs at his lips, the few scant drops of blood staining his French linen handkerchief. The little droplets spread across the fabric, like poppies blooming in the snow. He carefully refolds the cloth and returns it to the pocket of his waistcoat.
His meal looks back at him with empty eyes. Charles Dangerfeld, 45. Accountant. Three weeks prior, he had thrown his empty starbucks cup into the street instead of into the garbage can just three steps away. Hannibal already had Dangerfeld’s business card, holding it delicately by the edges, when he observed the astounding rudeness. His full lips pursed as he tucked the card into his pocket, both with disdain and with the anticipation of pleasures to come.
The man had died quietly with Hannibal’s fangs in his jugular. He drank deeply, savoring the taste. This was the blood of a healthy man, no sour twinge of drugs or weak flavor due to malnutrition. It would nourish him for weeks to come. But Hannibal still has other needs, other desires that blood wouldn’t touch. He waits patiently for his fangs to retract into his gums, using the time to study his kill. He would take Dangerfeld’s kidneys, he decides. Rognons a la Moutarde. Sauteed kidneys in a mustard sauce with parsley. As for the rest of him?
Hannibal makes quick work of bringing the man back to Dangerfeld’s own car, waiting and running further down the alley. He fishes the keys from the dead man’s pocket, opens the trunk, and dumps him in unceremoniously. Just like the garbage he was, the garbage he was soon to become.
* * *
Will Graham tosses back two aspirin and swallows them dry. This latest crime scene is a secluded park; the main walkways are already roped off with police tape. He polishes his glasses on the edge of his flannel shirt and winces at the harsh grating of his headache. Jack Crawford needs him sharp. “Another possible Ripper victim,” the director of the BAU had growled over the phone. “Get down here ASAP. We need to know for sure.” Needed Will Graham to do “that thing” he did.
So Will squares his shoulders and prepares to walk into yet another crime scene. No matter that the last one still lingered behind his eyelids every time he tried to sleep, that the fight back to himself after inhabiting the mind of a killer grew harder each time. “It’s a purely intellectual exercise,” he reminds himself, then snorts. It is anything but.
Will ducks under the police tape and down the sidewalk into perhaps the neatest crime scene he had ever seen. A park garbage can is stuffed full to nearly overflowing. Nearly, but not quite. It is packed full of plastic bags, all sealed, all labeled Biohazard. Beverly Katz looks up at Will, gloved hands on her hips. “At least the bastard cleaned up after himself,” she quips as she steps back.
Jack Crawford pulls his long coat tighter around himself. “A jogger called it in at 5 am this morning,” he informs Will. “Since then, no one’s touched it. You’ll have it fresh. “
“Fresh garbage?” Will’s joke is bitter on his tongue.
Jack chuckles, then claps his hands together. “Alright everyone, behind the police tape. Give us some privacy.” The agents and crime scene techs scurry away, heads down, prickling curiosity stifled. They never get to see Will “do what he does,” but there is scant privacy when the crime scene is in a public park outdoors.
Jack hands Will a thick manila folder. “Take all the time you need, Will.” He lays his gloved hand on Will’s shoulder heavily, hesitates, then steps back behind the police tape.
The report is useless to Will. With the dismembered body parts sealed in hazardous material bags, there was no way to determine the cause of death without disturbing the crime scene. No MO, no victimology, no signature. Only Will’s uncanny empathy and his ability to feel what the killer felt.
He closes his eyes and visualizes a pendulum swinging back and forth. When he opens them, the bustle of the forensic team has melted away. He is alone in the park, just before dawn, with a stack of dismembered body parts in sealed bags.
Without touching the top bag, he can see that it is a left foot, large and rough. There is no blood pooling in the bag. “I drain the blood from the victim before I dismember him,” he narrates to himself. “The cuts are clean, expert. I have done this before, and I do so now with precision and efficiency. This is my design.”
He crouches to get a better look at the label. “I seal each piece in a biohazard bag. There will be no fingerprints on the body parts, no forensic evidence. I am wearing gloves, and no hairs or fibers will cling to the victim. This is my design.”
He looks around at the park, serene in its quiet moment before morning breaks. “I place the victim in a well-traveled, well-lit path in a relatively secluded city park,” he continues. “He will be found soon, but I will not be seen as I dispose of him. This is my design.” He purses his lips. “He is discarded like bad leftovers, but kept distinct from his environment, sealed away in plastic. I put him here with disdain, but without malice. This is my design.”
“Will?” Jack’s voice cuts into his thoughts, and he startles.
“Sorry,” Jack reassures him. “So. Is it the Ripper?”
“It might be,” Will hedges. “It has his coldness, his tendency for the dramatic.”
“How will we know?”
“Determine the cause of death,” Will recommends. “If it’s the Ripper, there will be something missing. A surgical trophy. Besides the blood,” he amends.
“And if there is?” Jack queries.
“Then the Ripper is back, and two or three more will die this week,” Will says tightly. “Remember, he kills in sounders of three or four.”
“Sounders because they are like pigs to him,” Jack recalls.
Will nods, his jaw clenched. He reaches for the bottle of aspirin in his pocket. “This man, this victim, was garbage to whoever did this. He threw him away in the trash.
The Ripper could have done this.”
“But we won’t know for sure until after the autopsy,” Jack summarizes.
Will stalks toward the police line. He tries, unsuccessfully, to quell the tremors in his hands. This scene will linger long in his memory. Not simply for its overt brutality and – elegance, he mentally hesitates over the word. But also because of one crucial detail: the victim had been drained dry. And Will was willing to bet it was antemortem.
* * *
Hannibal Lecter sits behind his ornate desk, the strains of a Scarlatti harpsichord sonata filtering through the dimly-lit office. His final appointment block of the day is currently empty, but he prefers to remain in his office and use this time to review his notes and prepare for tomorrow’s sessions. His precisely sharpened pencil corrects an appointment time for Friday, moving the appointment from 11 am to 1 pm per the patient’s request. As he lays the pencil on his desk pad, a confident knock sounds at the door.
Hannibal does not recognize the man who waits behind the door for him, a tall and well-built older Black man in an elegantly-fitting pea coat. Real wool, and well cared for, Hannibal notes as he extends his hand. “I’m Dr. Lecter. How can I be of service?”
He does recognize the second person who steps into view. “Hannibal, this is Jack Crawford from the FBI.” Dr. Alanna Bloom smiles at her mentor, colleague, and friend as she introduces Jack to the psychiatrist.
“Ah yes, the famous Jack Crawford of the BAU,” Hannibal recognizes. “Please, do come in.”
Jack takes possession of the room as he strides in. “You have a magnificent office, Dr. Lecter,” he compliments. His rich voice fills the space.
“My patients evidently find me indispensable, and therefore compensate me accordingly.” Hannibal’s mouth quirks at his own joke, just the tiniest bit at the corner of his mouth.
“I can understand why,” Jack laughs, a short burst of mirth. “Your paper, ‘Evolutionary Origins of Social Exclusion’ was masterful, even to a layman such as myself.”
“A layman?” Hannibal challenges. “You, the head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit and an accomplished profiler?”
“I am in your presence, Doctor,” Jack flatters. “And it is that expertise that I come here in search of today.”
The stiffening in Hannibal’s shoulders is nearly imperceptible. “How can I be of service to the BAU?”
“I need your opinion and your guidance with one of my profilers. He’s an instructor at the academy, but I’ve found it necessary to pull him into the field.”
“Necessary? How so?”
“Will Graham has a unique ability. A gift, it would seem. He can see into the minds of killers, think like them. He makes leaps he can’t explain, and the evidence later proves him right.”
“Complete empathy,” Hannibal breathes, almost reverently. Will this profiler see him? See the truth of who he is?
“Exactly,” Jack continues, glad that Hannibal understands.
“Field work must be very psychologically draining for this Will Graham. Perhaps even traumatizing,” Hannibal suggests.
Jack Crawford frowns. “Yes, it can be,” he admits.
“Jack has promised me not to break Will,” Alanna interjects.
“And you want someone to make sure Agent Crawford is keeping his promise,” Hannibal smiles at her. “Why not yourself? You speak of Will as a friend would.”
“It is because I am his friend that I cannot do this. He needs someone he can be honest with, not someone who he will shield himself from to preserve a friendship.”
Will needs to be seen, as Hannibal himself longs to be seen.
“So can you do it, Doctor Lecter?” Jack asks. “Can you make sure we don’t break our Will Graham? You wouldn’t be his official psychiatrist. Just -- have conversations with him. Be a source of stability, a way for him to fight his way back to himself after the horrors of field work.”
Hannibal smiles. “It just so happens I have an extra space on my dance card. Tomorrow at 7?”
Jack beams, the relief on his face evident to all. “He’ll be here.”
As the two bid their goodbyes, Hannibal allows himself to wonder about his new patient. A pure empath. What of himself will be reflected in Will Graham’s eyes? When he is alone, he retrieves a top-of-the-line insulated thermos from his satchel, and pours the ruby-red contents into a snifter. He holds the glass beneath his nose and breathes in the aroma. Chilled blood has a different taste, a different viscosity to it. He prefers drinking it fresh from the source. But there was something refreshing about a cold glass of blood after an afternoon of long work. Hannibal crosses his legs in his armchair and imbibes. He smiles to himself, the barest hint of blood-stained fangs peeking out between his lips.
Tomorrow will be an interesting day.