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Hannibal didn’t like the dogs.
When he first moved in with Will (a feat the latter was still unsure how he was able to achieve), the man had made that fact abundantly clear. They were too loud, too dirty, and too excitable.
Also, there were seven of them.
At first, Will had been slightly worried that the cannibal would hatch up some plan to kill or get rid of the dogs, and from the way Hannibal had been glaring at Buster after the small dog had chewed up his sock, it seemed to be a reasonable worry.
After a very long conversation (where, remarkably, nothing was broken), Hannibal finally agreed to leave the dogs alone after Will threatened to break up with him if he hurt the dogs.
“Do you really love those mutts more than me?” Hannibal had asked, faking offense.
“Yes,” Will had replied, and the fake offense became real.
After a few months, Hannibal finally came around, and stopped complaining every time dog hair got onto one of his suits (he still complained about the socks, but Will wasn’t asking for a miracle) and remarkably, he seemed to even enjoy the presence of the animals.
One time, when Hannibal had dragged Will to yet another opera with him, and Will was forced to engage in small talk with yet another balding rich man with more money than anyone should have, the man had brought up the dogs.
“How’s Winston doing?” the man had asked, eager to get into the good graces of Hannibal Lecter’s partner (They always called him Hannibal’s ‘partner’. ‘Boyfriend’ seemed too juvenile for men of their age, ‘lover’ too sexual, and ‘husband’ was something yet to happen, regardless of what Freddie Lounds’ articles claimed).
“Winston?” Will replied, confused, trying to recall any reason why this man (who he was certain he hadn’t talked to before) knew his dog’s name.
The man nodded, swirling the glass of champagne he held in his hand, “Dr. Lecter was showing me photos of your pets. They seem very sweet.”
“Do they?” Will said, only half hearing the man’s response. Hannibal? Showing photos of the dogs? About as likely as him going vegan.
“I’m going vegan.” Hannibal mentioned offhandedly the following evening.
Will spat out his glass of wine, the red liquid landing on the wooden table. Hannibal silently pursed his lips in distaste.
“What?” Will looked as if he was beginning to think his hallucinations were returning. Hannibal, on the other hand, was as infuriatingly calm as always.
“It’s for the animals,” he explained, turning the page in the book he was reading. Max was curled up beside Hannibal, the dog’s head resting on his lap, fast asleep, “It’s morally wrong for me to consume animal products when I have such a close relationship with animals of my own.”
Will couldn’t believe this bullshit. Morally wrong? The man was a cannibal, for crying out loud. What did he know about morals? Just yesterday, he had killed a man for sticking used gum on a handrail. Annoying, no doubt about it, but certainly not a sin worth killing someone over. Will narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher if this was yet another one of Hannibal’s strange jokes. But the man looked as serious as ever.
“So, what, you’re going to stop killing people?” Will questioned.
Hannibal tilted his head, as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to him, “Perhaps I will.”
“Are you— No, that’s not how this works, you can’t just…”
Hannibal smiled, eyes gleaming as he set down his book, “Are you objecting, my dear Will? Do you think I should continue my ways of crime?”
Will didn’t bother to deign that question with an answer, instead scoffing lowly, “What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything,” Hannibal said, the perfect picture of innocence on his face.
“What’s next, you’re making me and the dogs go vegan too?”
“Of course not. I’m not a monster,” said the Chesapeake Ripper, “The dogs couldn’t survive on a vegan diet. It’s not healthy.”
Just like that, as if the matter had been settled, Hannibal gently moved Max off of his lap and left the room. Will blinked, bewildered.
It hadn’t been a joke.
Just like that, the organs and limbs in the fridge and freezer that Will had wisely learned not to question disappeared, alongside the eggs, milk, and other animal produce. The fish remained, thank god. Hannibal wasn’t stupid enough to deprive Will of his fishing.
He did, however, take it upon himself to sniff snobbishly and look down on Will whenever the man consumed meat. The whole situation was so wildly ridiculous, but as days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, and it became clearly obvious Hannibal was committing to the whole vegan thing. The man was nothing if not persistent.
Meanwhile, in the FBI, Jack Crawford was becoming increasingly confused. Just when it seemed the killings of the Chesapeake Ripper had a pattern— that they had a chance of catching the most wanted killer, the murders had… stopped. This in itself wasn’t irregular. It wouldn’t be the first time an FBI most wanted killer decided to switch up their M.O. in order to avoid being caught.
What was perplexing was how there seemed to be no serial murders occurring in any of the Chesapeake Ripper’s hunting grounds. No missing people, no bodies found. It was as if, all of a sudden, every killer on the East Coast had… stopped. Vanished. In fact, a few killers had even begun turning themselves in.
Jack had seen a lot of crazy shit in his time at the FBI. This was, without a doubt, the weirdest.
“Let me get this straight,” Will began, running a hand through his hair, exasperated, as he paced the length of his and Hannibal’s kitchen, “You decide to stop eating people—”
“Correct.” the former cannibal responded, taking a sip from the cup of tea in front of him (no milk, of course).
“You decide to stop killing entirely,” he emphasised, a manic look in his eyes.
“Right.”
“And now, you’re using your psychiatry skills, not to drive people to kill, but to start fostering animals and volunteering? ”
“That’s what happened, yes.”
“And you did this… why?”
“For the dogs.”
“These days, it seems like you love them more than me.” Will muttered, his pacing slowing to a stop as he stood in front of Hannibal.
“I do,” Hannibal said, his voice strangely triumphant. Why the hell did he sound so smug?
The final puzzle piece clicked into place.
“...Hannibal?”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me you didn’t do all this because I said I liked the dogs more than you.”
The man’s silence was answer enough.
Will let out a huff of laughter, shaking his head, “You are the most petty man I have ever met.”
“Yet you still love me,” Hannibal countered, a spark of mirth in his eyes.
“I do.”
“More than the dogs?”
“That’s pushing it.”
“What about equally?”
“..Fine. Equally.”
“I love you as much as I love the dogs too, Will Graham.”
“...Enough to let them sleep on the bed with us?”
“Those sheets are silk, Will. You wish to sleep with the dogs, you sleep on the couch.”