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Dr. Hannibal Lecter opened the police car door and stepped out, feeling the cool breeze on his face, and the sunlight on his skin for the first time in years. He took a deep breath in; the crisp autumn air smelled of rot and decay, a smell he was all too familiar with. Will Graham watched him survey the neighborhood, and watched his expressions change, content freedom overcoming him. Will opened the passenger door with surprising ease; during moments like these, he used to shake. Disobeying Jack Crawford, being away from his family, being alone with Dr. Lecter; those things frightened him in ways nothing else could.
“Which one is yours?” he asked, looking among the pristine modern homes.
“We aren’t there yet,” Hannibal replied. “I didn’t want to leave the car outside. Lead them right to us. It’s not too far ahead.” He started briskly walking down the street, dead leaves crunching under his shoes. Will looked on for a moment, wondering how such a dangerous individual could look like he was taking a peaceful stroll in his neighborhood. After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to catch up to him.
The daylight shone through the door, illuminating a barren home. It was surprisingly well-kept, considering nobody had been in it for years. Somehow only a thin coating of dust could be seen covering ceramic pieces on display, yet they still reflected the midday sun off of their glazed surfaces. Hannibal took a few steps into his home, holding the door ajar for Will. Reluctantly, Will took his offer and joined him inside. Hannibal, despite seeing an interior different from his prison cell for the first time in three years, did not hesitate; he went straight to the kitchen.
“Do you care for dinner, Will?” he said, calling out to Will meandering in the lobby.
Will called back, “It’s a little early for dinner, don’t you think?”
That wasn’t the only reason he didn’t want to eat with Dr. Lecter. The last time Hannibal had him over for a meal, he woke up cuffed to a chair with a rotating saw blade in his forehead. Then Mason Verger tried to cut off his face. Before that, the last “proper” meal they had together was Will’s “indoctrination” of-sorts, where Hannibal had prepared two song-birds for them to feast on together. “A right of passage”, Hannibal called it. He wasn’t jumping at the idea of dining with the doctor again.
“Would you mind if I changed into something more comfortable?” Hannibal asked, as he joined Will in the lobby.
“It’s your house. Why would I say no?” Will turned around to look at him. His face hadn’t changed a day since the last time they had been together, since before Hannibal’s capture. No, it wasn’t a capture; it was a surrender. Dr. Lecter had revealed himself to the police after Will told him he didn’t want to look for him. The more Will Graham thought about it, the more it seemed like he gave himself up for Will, like a gesture of understanding, a sacrifice. Hannibal’s wrinkles around his nose and mouth only looked more defined, his hair was longer and a bit more gray. But when he looked at Will, he still had that slight smile, and his eyes still squinted, as if examining Mr. Graham under a microscope. He hated when Dr. Lecter analyzed him like that.
“Make yourself comfortable.”
Will Graham stared into the cold abyss of the sea, feeling the salty breeze sting his hastily-shaved face. It made him feel more awake, and less like he was living in a dream. He listened to the waves crash below the cliff he stood on, imagining them lap against the rocks.
“Lost in thought, Will?” Hannibal appeared beside him, taking in the smells of the ocean as he spoke.
“No, I’m just listening to the waves.” Why was he here with the man he despised and hated most? Why was he suddenly ready to talk with him so comfortably? Of course, Will did talk to Dr. Lecter through the glass of his cell occasionally, and even a few days prior, when they planned Hannibal’s apparent escape. He knew it was just a matter of time until the Great Red Dragon came and destroyed the moment of peace.
Hannibal lingered on the air a little longer, turning his head towards Will, and inhaling. He paused a second, then muttered, “I thought I told you to change your terrible aftershave.”
Will furrowed his brow. “You told me a lot of things.”
Hannibal turned his attention to the sun, still fairly high in the sky, but slowly setting. He spoke to Will, while still holding his gaze on the sun. “The Red Dragon will come when it gets dark, let’s go inside.”
The pair walked in through the sliding doors, into Hannibal’s dining room. It wasn’t as extravagant as his other, the one that Will saw in his nightmares. It was fairly plain, with a kitchen island made of granite, and a dining table of basic wood. More modern, with less of Hannibal’s signature style; it was obvious he wasn’t here often. Will leaned on the granite countertop opposite Hannibal, who grabbed a knife and began to chop freshly-washed carrots. He held the knife steady in his hand, and chopped slower than he normally would, as to not startle his guest. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve had a friend in my kitchen.”
Will thought about his response, as moments of them smiling and laughing together flitted through his mind. Then a particular memory stood out, of a snowy night, and a stabbing pain in his stomach. “I am not your friend, Dr. Lecter.”
“I’m surprised. I thought we were on a first-name-basis again,” Hannibal said, moving the carrot closer to his knife, keeping a steady chopping rhythm.
“You were my friend,” Will said sadly. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
“You convinced Jack that you wouldn’t let me escape again. Did you just outsmart him?” Hannibal asked, finishing off a carrot. “Or when the time is right, will you kill me?”
Will turned to face him, “I’ll do what has to be done.”
Hannibal smiled. “Good, so will I.”
“You know,” Will spat out. “When I met Chiyoh in your childhood home, right before we left for Florence to look for you, I left you a gift.”
“Oh?” Hannibal turned around, intrigued.
“I think I did it to understand you better, to try to get into your mind, just a little bit,” Will hissed out. He was angry with himself for saying the things he had been thinking about saying for years.
“And do you,” Hannibal took a few steps towards Will, “understand me now?”
“Almost.” He stared the doctor dead in his cold eyes. “But I can’t understand why you didn’t leave.”
Hannibal walked back to the sink as Will’s eyes followed him. “When? When I turned myself in,” he began to wash his knife under the sink. His hands stopped, and a cold realization came over him. “Or before I left for Florence.”
Will realized he struck a nerve, but he was prepared to talk about it. If they couldn’t now, then they never would. “Both, but I think you know which one I’m referring to.”
Hannibal turned off the sink faucet, and polished the clean blade with a towel. Seeing him handle a knife made Will’s throat tighten with anxiety. He took a small step back, as Hannibal walked past him to the dining table. “You were my friend, Will. You betrayed me that night. I had to show you how much it hurt.”
A sudden wave of anger overcame him. “ I betrayed you ?” Will chuckled. “You gutted me, left me to bleed out, and killed our daughter.” Will hissed through his teeth, realizing what he had just said. But it was true, Abigail was like his daughter, and he was like Hannibal’s daughter too. “Actually, no, that wasn’t the first time that happened. You– I thought you– I thought I killed Abigail that night, but it was you– I know it was you–”
“Will, the lines between fiction and reality have been blurred for you–”
“No,” Will snapped. “No, I will not let you do this to me again.” He sat down opposite Hannibal at the dining table. He took a deep breath. “You betrayed me by convincing me I was insane, by giving me seizures, by– by telling me I had mental illness, by telling me you cared for me while making me take your place in prison for a murder I had no idea if I committed. I had to dig through the dirt you buried my memories under, only remembering snippets of memories that tied everything together. I trusted you, I cared about you, and–” Will took another breath in. “...and I still do care for you. Why did you do it?”
Hannibal sat in the heavy silence that Will’s words left him in for a moment. A long moment. He adjusted his lips as they sat heavy around his teeth, and looked out at the sky. The sun was setting. He looked back at Will, and said softly, “I wanted you to understand me.”
“I wanted to push you to be like me. See how far you could get before you broke. I wanted to see somebody like me,” Hannibal's words fell out of his mouth, in a jumbled sort-of nonsense way, but now, Will could decipher them. “I do feel a bit of regret pushing you to the brink like I did, but then you pushed back. Started to understand me, be like me.”
Will spoke up. “And when was that?”
“When you sent your prison guard admirer to kill me.”
Will was shocked, but then remembered that yes, he had sent a serial killer to kill his old therapist. It seemed like a lifetime ago, partially because it was.
Hannibal’s face scowled, and he spoke softly, as if trying to keep his anger in. “At first, I was upset. I still, naively believed that we were friends, and you tried to kill me. And the worst part was, it almost worked.” He began to feel around his own neck, like he was softly wringing it out. “You almost killed me,” Hannibal chuckled, then smirked. “After I got over my anger, I realized that you trying to end my life was, up to that point, the first time you ever truly thought like me.”
Will looked down at the table, somewhat ashamed, and somewhat proud of his actions. “And then I was mysteriously released. And then you sent one of your old patients to kill me.”
“That I did,” Hannibal folded his hands on the table. “And you took to my image even more, displaying his body for all to see. Like the Chesapeake Ripper.”
Will copied his therapist’s movements, fingers interlocking on the hardwood table. “And that’s when we truly “began to blur”, as you said.”
“That is true,” Hannibal smirked, as if recalling fond memories. But the smile faded, and he returned to his train of thought. “And after all that, you still betrayed me.”
Will was even more ashamed now, but he didn’t let it show. “When I called Jack?”
Hannibal stood up from his chair, and walked around the table, back to the kitchen island. “When you called Jack.”
Will turned around to look at him, and noticed that Hannibal’s hand gripping the knife wasn’t as steady as it was before. But instead of being afraid, Will felt pity for him.
He tried to remember that winter night, when he saw Alana outside on the ground, when he saw Abigail after he thought she had died, and when a blanket of doom fell over him as he turned around to see Hannibal. Will remembered the tears well up in his eyes, as he muttered, “You were supposed to leave.”
Hannibal’s shirt was ruffled and covered in blood, and he harbored a sad look in his eyes, like nothing Will had ever seen before. But he could tell that Dr. Lecter was trying to keep his composure. “We couldn’t leave without you.”
The flash of memories that followed felt like they took place over the course of hours, not minutes, like they actually did. But before the flash of the blade, Will remembered Hannibal’s lip quivering, as he held Will’s face with one hand. That one moment in time felt like a century, the two men looking into each other’s eyes, knowing what would happen. The glint of metal quickly appeared, followed by a sharp gasp, and a shaky embrace, as Will tried to stay conscious in Hannibal’s arms, and Abigail watched on in horror. Will forced the stream of memories to stop; he couldn’t bear to remember the rest.
Hannibal went back to his carrots, his knife hitting the cutting board rhythmically like a heart beating.
“I didn’t understand before. I thought that was just what you did, killing people. You attacked Alana, Jack, me, and– killed Abigail just because in your heart, you were a killer.” Will’s eyes were locked on the wood floor, noticing the specks of dust that he couldn’t see before. “But I think I understand now.” He looked at the back of Hannibal’s head, as if talking to him face-to-face. “That was supposed to be our Last Supper: you, me, and Abigail.”
Hannibal collected the carrots into a small bowl, and placed them in his fridge. While he was turned away from Will, he said, “Instead, it was the Garden of Gethsemane.”
Hannibal fetched a bottle of wine from a cabinet high on the wall, as well as two wine glasses. He placed the glasses on the kitchen counter, and proceeded to remove the cork from the bottle. Will stood up from his seat to join his friend. The sun had set almost fully now. Hannibal placed the cork down on the counter, and filled up Will’s glass. With one hand on the bottle, and one on the glass, Hannibal extended the drink to the one person who understood him. Will accepted the glass with a smile, and took a small sip. It was dark outside, and the Great Red Dragon would soon appear.