Chapter Text
Amongst the briars and the ferns, Hannibal crouched down, careful of where he placed his hands. He hadn’t worn the right coat for the evening, and was all too aware that one misguided move would not only give away his position but possibly snare his overcoat. He stilled once he’d crouched as low as the thick underbrush, and quieted his breathing. He felt his heart rate slow in his chest: waiting. Preying. He didn’t often think of himself as any sort of animal, and preferred to leave the animal kingdom out of it: killing for pleasure was more human than animalistic. But he couldn’t help comparing himself to a waiting prey animal now, as he hid amongst plants, not quite in the wilderness but close enough.
Were he truly in the wilderness, he wouldn’t be able to hear cars crunching the gravel as they drove mere feet in front of him. The cars came only every ten minutes or so — three had passed since he’d arrived.
In about ten more minutes, Dr. Chasey would begin to experience issues with his car. The sleek sports sedan he drove would not have experienced prior issues, and Dr. Chasey was not learned in car mechanics. He would need to pull over, and when he did, Hannibal would greet him. Hannibal’s face, illuminated by the glow of the sedan’s headlights, would be the last thing Dr. Chasey ever saw. It wouldn’t take long to drag the body back to Hannibal’s car, hidden as he was against the bordering forest. It would take, Hannibal had calculated, exactly just less than the ten minute increment for the next car to drive down the road. He’d left little margin for error. He was not worried. Hannibal did not make errors.
The wind through the trees whistled and whisked loud enough that, for a few minutes, Hannibal attributed all noise from the forest to the wind. Only after shifting his attention farther from the road did Hannibal hear the stream. It’s rhythms were subdued: it was not moving very quickly. The bottom of the stream, Hannibal could hear, was made of small, round rocks. The water would not sound so much like chimes if it were not. He listened to the music of the stream with the part of his mind which looked, always, for pleasure. The rest of his thought process and attention he gave to the road ahead of him, and to his surrounding area.
A rabbit moved under a fern, just hardly touching the plant with its back as it hopped. Hannibal sat still enough that the rabbit hopped onto his foot, stilled a second, then hopped away and disappeared once more into the bushes. The gravel road remained silent and dark. The stream carried on.
Just below the flow of the water, Hannibal heard the cast of a fishing line. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. It complimented the music of the stream, presenting a second melody, higher and lighter. Someone was fishing. Fly Fishing. The lure flew for a prolonged period through the air before hitting the water.
With a glance across the gravel road, Hannibal stood. He could see a ways down the road once his view was no longer obscured by the low, leafy plants. No cars were approaching. Hannibal turned and began through the forest, making little noise, following the sound of the stream. He wished to see who was fly fishing: his partner in these woods. If there were to be two people in the same wilderness this night, Hannibal would prefer to have seen rather than be seen.
The stream sat down a slight decline. It was wide and shallow: the rocks at the bottom often reached half out of the water. Moonlight gleamed in the ripples, turning the stream a milky white everywhere that it wasn’t shadowed by the fisherman. In his shadow, the water appeared to be a dark garnet red.
Hannibal watched from his vantage point as the fisherman cast his rod, waited, and pulled. He’d hooked a fish. The fish swung wildly back and forth as it was pulled against the tide. It created ripples in the water stronger than the stream’s current, and Hannibal wondered if it may succeed in freeing itself by pulling the fisherman over. He wondered who he’d prefer to see come out victorious.
The fisherman, with one last tug, pulled the fish from the water. The animal flew forwards, water beading off of its back and cascading like pearls through the air. The fisherman held the fish up by the hook, with its sharp end still cutting into the fish’s mouth.
To Hannibal’s delight, the fisherman began to speak.
“How did you get all the way out here?” The man in the stream asked, voice low. Hannibal thought, at first, that he’d been spotted. He realized quickly that he was not the object of the fisherman’s attention. Hannibal found himself inching down the hill, moving closer to the voice.
The fisherman held onto the fish with one hand, lifting it so that its body was horizontal to the surface of the water. The fish’s grey scales reflected the water, and reflected the moon, so that it looked as if the fisherman held a beacon of light. His own face was shadowed: Hannibal could only make out the lines of his dark eyebrows, drawn together over shadowed eyes.
“You’re a long way from where you’re supposed to be, aren’t you.” The fisherman stepped carefully backwards until he reached the edge of the river. He let his rod down onto the rocky shore, then sat himself onto one of the larger rocks. He held the fish down into the water, and his grasp was tight: the fish thrashed wildly, but did not get away. Satisfied, the fisherman lifted the fish back out of the water. Its gills opened and closed as its dome-eye gazed vacantly outward.
“Did you get separated from the others? Or maybe you chose to go. They didn’t understand you, and you didn’t care to learn to understand them. They bored you.” The fisherman watched the fish intently. Perhaps he was hoping it would answer. Hannibal stilled, realizing he’d moved halfway down the hill. He wrapped his hand around a thin tree trunk.
“No, that’s right,” the fisherman continued with a slight laugh. “You were asked to leave. They felt uncomfortable around you. They weren’t sure what to make of you. It’s better you’re alone.” The fisherman seemed to smile at the fish in the sort of way that one smiles at another they are not really sorry for, but merely aware of. He slid the hook out of the fish's mouth. “You’re better on your own, anyway.” He lowered the fish back into the water. The fish hurried to get away, moving between shallow rocks until it returned to the deeper center of the stream, and then disappearing. The fisherman didn’t stand, or make any move to cast his rod again, and now half way down the hill, Hannibal feared he would be heard if he tried to leave. He decided it would be better to leave nothing to chance.
“Hello!” He called.
The fisherman’s head swung around as he pushed himself up to standing. “Jesus!” He cried. “Who the Hell are you?”
“I am Doctor Lecter. May I ask who you are?”
“You can ask.” The fisherman looked away to retrieve his rod. “But I’d prefer you didn’t. Actually, I’d prefer you were nowhere near me. I don’t come out here to be around people.”
“I assure you, I share the sentiment.”
“That seems unlikely. Miles and miles of forest and you end up here with me.”
“Perhaps it is fate.”
“I don’t believe in fate.” The fisherman sent Hannibal a look over his shoulder, and in the moonlight, Hannibal saw the careful set of his jaw, the critical nature of his gaze, and the tight hold of his shoulders, as if he was uncomfortable but trying to appear otherwise. Hannibal needed to see him up close.
“Pity you let that fish go. I could have cooked it for you.”
“That one wasn’t any good.” His voice held an air of sarcasm.
“The next one, then.” Hannibal withdrew a business card from his pocket, and let it go into the wind. To his delight, the fisherman caught it as it floated past him. “On that card you will find the phone number for my psychiatric practice.”
“Are you implying I need a therapist?”
Hannibal didn’t doubt, from how the man had spoken to the fish, that he’d do well to try therapy, but he didn’t see any benefit of saying so. “I think you will enjoy my company.”
“I’m sure not enjoying it now.”
“Under different circumstances, I assure you.” Hannibal began his ascent back up the hillside, but paused to say. “I will see you for supper?”
“Good bye, Dr. Lecter.”
As Hannibal traced his steps back through the woods, he found he was not regretful to have missed his window with Dr. Chasey. He had, he believed, gotten more from the night than he’d expected.