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There comes a time when convincing the FBI you’re not a serial killer while serving them human meat grows old. Hannibal doesn’t wish to sound ungrateful. Making amazing cannibalism jokes while watching Jack Crawford chow down on the liver of a rude salesman is still amusing, but he now craves a greater challenge.
Hannibal needs someone to see him create his pieces, someone he will then have to use all his skills to convince of his innocence. How is he supposed to practice manipulating if the people around him are so inept he could practically confess to his crimes without anybody raising an eyebrow?
This desire is what brings Hannibal to a summer fun fair in Virginia. It’s certainly not the kind of place he’d want to be seen in. Frankly, the shrieking children and chattering teens are doing his head in. There are most certainly plenty of people at the fair who would be better off in a casserole, though Hannibal must ignore them for now. He’s here for someone very specific; a certain Will Graham, also known as “America’s most brilliant mind reader.”
Hannibal discovered the existence of said mind reader on an online forum. All those who had visited his stall said they were awestruck by his abilities. They claimed you think of anything and he would be able to tell you was occupying you mind with terrifying precision. If this is true, then Hannibal is sure he will have a great time showing him high definition footage of the latest Ripper crime.
It doesn’t take long for Hannibal to find the mind reader’s stall. The dark blue blob stands out from the rest of the fair like a roach on Hannibal’s Persian rug. It is quite possibly the ugliest thing he has seen in his entire life (he has seen many ugly things.)
The stall is a table with a bright green plastic chair on either side of it and a bit of cheap fabric held up by four sticks to block out the sun. The fabric is decorated with cutouts of poorly drawn fish with the words “I’ll read your mind!” written on them for reasons not even God knows. Their bulging eyes and large deformed bodies are unsettling to say the least.
There is a man sitting on a plastic chair at the table. He has his muddy hiking boots propped up on it and a cap that looks like it’s been chewed by a dog pulled over his eyes. Hannibal approaches him with confidence.
“You must be Will Graham. It is a pleasure to meet you,” he says in his warmest voice.
Hannibal holds out a hand which the man doesn’t take. He doesn’t make the effort to acknowledge Hannibal’s presence in any way shape or form. What an insolent little creature! The youth of today!
“I heard you are the best mind reader in the entire country,” Hannibal pushes. “Do you believe you live up to that title?”
Hannibal counts fifty-seven seconds before the man seems to process he’s being spoken to and forty more before he decides the matter requires his attention. He looks up slowly and Hannibal mentally curses.
Beautiful big eyes, a dark halo of curls, cheeks tinted pink by the July heat - even with his lips pulled down in a severe frown he is a work of art. Why had none of the people on the forum put up a warning? Hannibal needs different tools to deal with people who look like they stepped out of a Botticelli painting.
“Oh, hi,” he says, groggy like he’s just woken from a long nap. “What do you want?”
What do you want? Hannibal’s lip twitches. Maybe this one will be going in the soup, beauty be damned. He’s been wanting to try out the new recipes he gathered last week.
“I wanted to use your mind reading service. This is what your stall is here for, correct?” he questions.
Graham blinks a few times then gestures to a piece of paper taped to his table with the words “now on break, don’t bother” printed on it. The font he has chosen is perhaps even more atrocious than his fish drawings.
Hannibal’s smile is becoming tight. He is not willing to spend a second more than necessary in this fun fair. He doesn’t have the patience to be waiting around for this scruffy man to eat the sacrilegious ham and cheese sandwich he’s placed on his desk without even a napkin separating it from the grubby plastic.
“I wish to be served now,” Hannibal says. “I have traveled a long way to see you. I would hate for my experience to be tainted by the presence of children waiting in line behind me.”
“Listen, you either wait for me to be ready, or you don’t get anything,” Graham says exasperatedly and mutters a string of insults Hannibal would not like to recount.
Here’s where Hannibal’s manipulation skills come into play. He casts his gaze downwards, clasps his hands like a sad old man, and begins to walk away. One step, two, three, Graham is doing better than most at holding out, time to bring in the hunched shoulders, five, six-
“Alright, just sit down and make this quick!”
Hannibal has to make sure he doesn’t look too pleased with himself as he hurries back to the stall. For now he can ignore the little bits of plastic that poke his backside when he sets himself on the structurally unstable chair across from Graham.
“What do you want me to do?” Graham grumbles. It’s not terribly effective, as Hannibal now knows he has enough of a heart to fall for The Sad Old Man.
Hannibal pretends to think for a moment. “Hmm, do you read memories? I would like to show you something. Language can never fully capture the essence of a moment. Perhaps it would make me feel less alone to know someone else was able to experience what I have.”
Graham nods thoughtfully, and for a second Hannibal thinks he’s actually sympathizing with him, then he declares, “That will be five hundred dollars.”
Hannibal refuses to give Graham the reaction he’s after. The chance to mess around with someone who isn’t as dense as Jack Crawford is worth the money. He agrees to the blatant extortion.
“I need to hold your hands. I cannot read your thoughts without a physical connection,” Graham continues when it’s clear Hannibal isn’t going to leave anytime soon. Hannibal finds his rueful expression rather offensive.
Hannibal soon discovers Graham’s hands are dry, calloused, dirty, and it’s obvious he’s a skin picker. Hannibal, on the other hand, makes sure to moisturize his hands every day thank you very much. He tries not to cringe at the unpleasant texture and instead focuses on Graham’s lovely face. If, by any miniscule chance, he sees his murders and suddenly decides they were meant to be, he will have to give him a thorough lesson on both self care and drawing fish.
Graham does his best job of trying to cover Hannibal’s hands even though they are notably bigger. His thumb traces the grooves of his palm slowly like he is searching for a hidden message in them.
“Play your memory. It will take me a few minutes to find it,” Graham says.
That Hannibal does.
He’s already decided what memory he wants to share. It’s one from a couple of weeks ago when he had been in a particularly artistic mood. He’s already sketched his creation a couple times just to remind himself of what a good job he’d done.
It’s a dark rainy night. Hannibal is driving through Baltimore slowly, a business card caught between two of his gloved fingers. He’s on the way to find a man who dared to push past him to get the cabbage he rightfully claimed as his own via looking at it at the Saturday market.
The cabbage thief comes to a stop at the side of the road. Unlike Hannibal, the thief is not capable of driving for hours on end without a single bathroom break. Hannibal parks a few meters behind him and waits for him to finish his business.
“Not the most pleasant night for a drive,” Hannibal says warmly. He’s holding an ice pick in one hand and a boiled sweet he forgot to eat before getting the ice pick in the other. That will have to wait. Eating while killing someone is very dangerous and death by pink boiled sweet isn’t exactly how he wants to go.
The cabbage thief jumps a little then laughs as if he’s sharing an inside joke with a friend. “No, it certainly isn’t. I’m on my way to my nieces’, what about you? Off to excavate some rocks or something? Looks fun.”
“I will be excavating something shortly, but it won’t be rocks,” Hannibal replies. (He’s quite proud of the way he delivered that line.)
That’s when he charges forward and drives the ice pick into the man’s skull. The crack sounds like thunder. One fateful blow is enough to end his pathetic life. Hannibal is glad as he wouldn’t want to waste any more energy ridding the world of such a vulgar creature.
Hannibal levers the pick so each side splits apart to reveal a mess of splintered bone and brain. His plastic suit is soon covered in splatters of deliciously hot black blood. He-
Hannibal is abruptly pulled out of the memory.
Graham is laughing. Laughing while he watches Hannibal create his art. Lucky for his life, his laugh is a wonderful sound, like the delicate ringing of bells on a sunny afternoon. It creates a twinge of warmth in Hannibal’s chest which is perhaps more mortifying than the very fact that his crimes are a joke to him.
“Tell me, Will, what is so funny?” Hannibal demands, self pride forgotten.
“The plastic suit! And people have the nerve to criticize my clothes!” Graham exclaims. “If folks knew that’s what you wear I don’t think the Chesapeake Ripper would be so feared anymore! Does it squeak when you walk?”
Hannibal’s expression darkens. His plastic suit is very practical and it’s clear so people can see how good his fashion sense is. He’s doing the pigs a favor, letting them lay eyes upon his three piece suits.
The look on his face sends Graham into a flurry of hysterics. Real tears well in the corner of his wretched puppy eyes.
“Sorry, keep going,” he wheezes. “I’ll shut up.”
Hannibal is tempted to stand up and leave the stall without bothering to use more of his manipulation skills and certainly without giving Graham his five hundred dollars. Hannibal does not do well with people who deliberately go for his (admittedly larger than average) ego. This cruel angel may as well have driven the ice pick through his heart.
Graham’s hand reaches out to warp around Hannibal’s wrist. He pulls him back down into the chair like he’s a petulant child trying to get his parents to buy him some candy.
“Don’t go! I didn’t mean to laugh like that. It’s just… I wasn’t expecting it,” he says more gently.
Hannibal narrows his eyes. It’s safe to say he wasn’t expecting this either. What he had been expecting was a trembling mind reader racked with fear, fear that he would expel using his arsenal of flowery metaphors that don’t actually make that much sense and some well timed touches.
“I think we are finished here,” Hannibal says.
“No, we’re not. You haven’t had your full ten minutes. If you go away now it will make me look like a fraud. I take pride in my business! Please, sit. I’m sure a man like yourself can last four more minutes, or am I really just that good?”
Hannibal does not appreciate the lame sex joke or the utter nonsense about the integrity of Graham’s business, but he would like to spend a little more time with the mind reader. He is also not one to forgo his plans because of a small mishap. Perhaps Graham will behave himself once he fully processes what Hannibal is capable of.
Hannibal holds out his hands for Will to take then closes his eyes and waits for his breathing to even out. It takes longer for him to get back into his murder memory palace.
Hannibal cuts open the cabbage thief's chest with a sternum saw then splits it apart using his trusty retractor. Warm blood oozes over his gloves, bringing some life into his fingers. Hannibal swiftly removes the heart and places it inside the cooler in the back of his car. Tonight, harvesting doesn’t excite him as much as usual. What does is knowing he now has a blank canvas at his disposal.
It’s time for some fun with scalpels! Hannibal uses the tool to draw smooth watery lines that whirl around each other like snakes on the thief’s open chest. When he closes his eyes he can see the pattern he wishes to replicate - a design from the floor of the Palermo cathedral.
Once the incisions have been made, Hannibal uses his tweezers to lift the bits of skin to a precise height and angle. He arranges them like a florist arranging every petal in their piece. It is meticulous work. Not many killers would have the confidence to try to pull it off on the side of a random road.
Hannibal bites his lip. His hair is plastered to his forehead and rain is clouding his vision. He keeps a steady hand despite it all, peeling away more skin, folding it, placing it-
Hannibal is ripped from his glorious memory by Graham’s voice for the second time.
“Wait, are you making his chest into a cabbage?” he interrupts. “The newspaper I read said that it was a skeleton or something, but I think that looks more like a cabbage. Ya know, here’s the center bit, there’s the leaves. It’s pretty good, a little crooked though.”
Both of Hannibal’s eyes twitch.
The very suggestion that he would be as uncreative as to turn a cabbage thief into a cabbage is sickening. He might actually throw up. He wishes he could mind read and know what on earth gave Graham the gall to show such flippancy to a serial killer cannibal. Perhaps he was dropped from a height when he was a baby.
Hannibal decides it is time to fight back. He clenches his fists and puts the visualization class he took in a Tibetan monastery to good use.
Hannibal is holding a cabbage. It is a good cabbage, even better than the one that was stolen from him. He holds it gingerly to test its weight then lunges forward, closing the distance between Will and himself. He shoves the cabbage into the mind reader’s mouth with inhuman strength. He’s pinning the man down against the horrible plastic table and running his hand over every inch of his body as he fights for breath. Hannibal relishes the way sweat leaks from every single one of his pores. He drags his tongue across his cheek to taste the salt in it…
“Woah, let’s not go there!” Graham exclaims. He tears his hands away from Hannibal and folds them across his chest bashfully. Hannibal doesn’t mind the loss of contact. Learning his curly haired antagoniser gets a southern accent when panicked is a win for him.
“I’m sorry,” Hannibal apologizes without sounding the least bit sorry. “Apologies for my inability to control my thoughts.”
Graham’s eye roll is so exaggerated Hannibal can practically hear it. Still, it isn’t loud enough to stop Hannibal from noticing how red his cheeks have become.
“For someone who kills as many people as you do, you need to get a better poker face. It’s too good to not be suspicious,” Graham says.
Now it’s Hannibal’s turn to raise his eyebrow. Point 1: If his poker face is good enough for the FBI, then surely it’s good enough for the general population. Point 2: A man who is currently turning beet red against his will is really in no position to criticize Hannibal’s facial expressions. Graham is lucky he has the grace not to bring this fact to attention.
“Right if all you are going to do is mock me, I shall be off,” Hannibal announces.
He doesn’t actually make any attempt to get up from his seat. Graham clearly knows he’s waiting for him to stop him. The deadlock results in three minutes of painfully intense eye contact, and then Graham gives in.
“Wait, I have something to show you. If you take my hands again, I can…” the rest of his words trail off to nothingness.
Hannibal leans forward attentively. This is what he’s been waiting for. Maybe he wasn’t so daft in hoping his artistic process might speak to someone. Graham’s face that was previously decorated with mirth then embarrassment now has the seriousness of a figure carved in stone
“Please, tell me,” Hannibal urges.
“No, you need to come closer, it’s not something I usually show people,” Graham insists, looking up through his lashes. His voice has dropped to a low whisper that makes Hannibal’s toes tingle in his Italian loafers. There is a strange glint in his eyes that makes him a hundred times more charming.
“It would be an immense privilege to see whatever you have to show me,” Hannibal says.
“Thank you, I truly appreciate it.”
Thus, Hannibal's perfectly manicured hands are enveloped by rough ones for the third time this afternoon. He and Graham have inched so close to each other Hannibal could count each of the mind reader’s long curling lashes. Instead he choses to close his eyes and is immediately thrown into a vision.
At first Hannibal feels like he is swimming through the ocean in a storm. His vision is blurry and his ears are blocked in that irritating way where no amount of movement can dislodge whatever’s stuck in it. It takes a while for the chaos to wash away to reveal a garden illuminated by silver moonlight.
Hannibal glances to his left and sees himself looking as dashing as ever in that black and red suit he loves. He looks down and sees Will’s dry hands holding a bloodied knife. He looks to the right and sees a dark shadow.
It’s a strange shape, large, round, definitely not a human who hasn’t been severely messed with. He approaches it excitedly. He cannot begin to imagine what someone like Will, who had been completely unphased by his kills, could achieve.
He draws in a deep breath. There it is.
A giant cabbage.
A giant cabbage with massive googly eyes stuck to it.
Hannibal jumps from his seat, not caring if the movement causes one of the little bits of stray plastic to rip into his trousers.
“Goodbye, Will Graham. I wish I could say it was nice meeting you, but it really wasn't,” he says.
“No problem!” Graham says, voice practically singing with smugness. “It was a pleasure doing service with you. It’s not every day that your customer turns out to be one of America’s most wanted serial killers.”
Will presses something into Hannibal’s hand. A business card that’s just as ugly as his stall with his contact details clearly printed in the middle in comic sans. Hannibal stares at it for a few seconds. There is no way Graham is offering himself to be eaten, which could only mean…
“I hope to see you again, Doctor Lecter,” he says slyly.
Hannibal finally leaves the stall and accepts he was losing from the get go. He was a fool to think he could outwit an actual mind reader when he’s only been able to practice manipulating the FBI. He’ll have to find a better subject and try again later.
Just as he reaches the end of the line of stalls, Graham shouts out to him.
“I mean it! If you come again then maybe that cabbage will be something else!”
Hannibal let’s a small smile tug at his lips. He certainly isn’t averse to the idea.
***