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There was, Will grudgingly realized, no way to avoid the media circus Hannibal’s trial was destined to be.
He himself had been in the lucky position of spending most of the days leading up to the trial in a hospital room — and how funny was that? — still recovering from all that Hannibal had done to him. Apart from Freddie Lounds, no journalist had made it past the security guards, leaving him in peace.
The day he was discharged the fragile illusion of peace Will had held onto like a saving line shattered into glimmering, cutting pieces. Dozens of reporters were camping out in front of his house, like a pack of hyenas gasping and drooling for a piece of carrion. It was unnerving, how the noise just outside his house would increase whenever he accidentally moved too close past the shutters. His shadow was enough to push these people into an uproar. Pathetic.
He gave up on answering the doorbell or phone and used the back door when he wanted to walk the dogs or stock up on groceries (mainly on scotch and whiskey). His only contact with the outside world was the occasional letter delivered to his front door and slid through the narrow mail slot. A lot of these were inquiries, news stations asking for interviews. Others were handwritten letters of condolences, often combined with propositions disguised as offers of comfort. The broken surely attracted attention.
Will read all these letters, one by one, before he tossed them into the nearest fire.
When the formal invitation to appear in court as a witness at the trial of Hannibal Lecter arrived in the mail, it came as no surprise. Jack had warned him that this would happen sooner or later, as if Will were too naive or delusional not to know this.
The scar on his abdomen throbbed with a dull pain as he tried to read the neatly printed letter, the words blurring before his eyes until all that was left was Hannibal’s name. Will knew, with utter and complete clarity, that nothing would amuse Hannibal more than to see Will at his own trial. Especially after Will had told him in unmistakable terms that he had no desire to either see Hannibal or think about him ever again.
Will was under no illusion that he would somehow be able to avoid the trial, but that didn’t mean he had to like the prospect either and the days leading up to it were spent in sullen solitude, completely isolated apart from his dogs, who sensed the inner turmoil he’d never admit to all too well. Winston had taken up sleeping at the end of his bed, curled up around his icy feet and licking his toes whenever Will was caught up in one of his numerous nightmares. They had become more frequent since he had received the invitation to court. The prospect of seeing Hannibal again was nightmare-inducing after all. Frightening.
Will didn’t fear the man himself, not like Alana did after he had promised her death at his hands. He feared something else entirely. He feared the painful rhythm of his heart escalating at the mere mention of Hannibal’s name. Feared the scorching heat curling in his belly and the dampness of his rough hands whenever Hannibal’s voice whispered inside his mind.
There was hate as well, no doubt, and the bitter taste of betrayal heavy on his tongue, but also something else burning right underneath his skin. Something that was not hatred but something kinder. Something Will refused to indulge in or analyse.
He didn’t want to think about Hannibal anymore.
It was Alana who picked him up that fateful day, not Jack, and Will was grateful for it.
Will watched her out of the corner of his eye and couldn’t help but wonder how different both their lives could have been if she had never recommended Hannibal Lecter to furnish a psychological evaluation of Will’s distorted mind. There was no animosity between them though. She had enough scars to speak of her past mistakes; no need for Will to add to them with malicious I-told-you-sos.
For the most part, they drove in silence. Neither of them felt any particular need to try and dissipate the momentous silence with words — not even for old friendship’s sake.
It didn’t lack a certain irony that the trial was to be held at the same building Will’s own had taken place, but he was in no mood to appreciate this twist of fate.
He was sweating underneath his new ironed suit Jack had insisted on him getting. It was crucial to make a good impression, was the general implication, the “don’t appear as broken as you are” left unsaid between the lines.
They didn’t let Hannibal wear one of his eccentric suits and yet, when he entered the courtroom in shackles and a grey jumpsuit Will still felt like he was the best dressed man in the room. He held his head high; his hair was combed back. The doctor was as handsome as ever.
“Tasteless,” Will muttered underneath his breath. It earned him a curious glance from Alana that he ignored.
Hannibal hadn’t noticed him, or he pretended not to, enjoying the collective attention directed at him far too much if the upturned corners of his mouth were any indication.
Apart from Freddie Lounds, who appeared as a witness, no reporters had been allowed. Thank god.The chaos, had that been the case, would have been extremely unwelcome. Hannibal’s performance was sickening enough as it was; who knows how much more exaggerated it would have been with two dozen cameras clicking at his every step.
“Why do I feel like he’s the only one who actually wants to be here?” Jack grumbled into Will’s ear.
“Because he enjoys the attention,” Will mumbled back, mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Hope the bastard enjoys the needle as well then.”
Will didn’t reply. Whatever the outcome of this trial, it wouldn’t end with Hannibal’s death, of that he was certain.
He watched intently as the lawyer whispered something into Hannibal’s ear. Byron Metcalf was a lawyer of the highest calibre, famous for his ruthlessness and extortionate fee. Not that Hannibal had to worry about money, or finding a lawyer willing to plead in his case for that matter.
One would have thought there were fewer jurists willing to be employed by Hannibal the Cannibal, but ethical concerns were clearly not a priority. They had practically torn each other to pieces over a chance to defend the notorious doctor. Unlike Will’s own lawyers who had all been employed by the FBI and didn’t make a secret out of their dislike for their client. Will did them a favour by firing them as soon as Jack convinced them to take his case.
Certainly nobody had to force Mr. Metcalf. Just like his client, he appeared right at home in the stifling courtroom, his head held high as he let his gaze wander, confidence oozing from every pore. He winked — actually winked — at Will when their eyes met from across the room.
Will had no idea what Hannibal had told the man about him to earn such a reaction but it couldn’t have been flattering.
He was spared further humiliation by the arrival of the judge. When Will stood, his hands hanging limply at his sides, he could feel Hannibal’s gaze on his skin, burning ever so hotly. He shivered.
“Mr. Graham?”
Will snapped out of his daze with a startled twitch, struggling to adjust his blurred vision as Metcalf’s round face came slowly back into focus.
“How would you describe your relationship with Dr. Hannibal Lecter?” the lawyer asked.
Intimate, he thought. “Complicated,” he answered.
Metcalf was the sort of man to have no concept of personal space and shamelessly invaded Will’s, casually moving closer while Will perspired in his new suit. He pushed his glasses higher up his nose and leaned as far back as the uncomfortable chair allowed.
“Would you mind elaborating on that, Mr. Graham?” Metcalf asked, still too close for comfort.
“Yes, I would,” Will grumbled into his stubble, pointedly ignoring Jack’s and Alana’s disapproving glares.
“Mr. Graham, please.” the elderly judge intervened, tapping her fingers rhythmically on the bench and looking at Will over the rim of her thick glasses.
He relented, albeit grudgingly. “For some time, I believed that Dr. Lecter and I were friends.”
“Only friends, Mr. Graham?” Metcalf probed.
Will straightened up, irritation carved into every line of his face. “Excuse me?”
Metcalf the bastard was positively giddy, the cruel curve of his mouth pulled up into a sardonic sneer.
“Immediately after you had been acquitted in the case of Abigail Hobbs’ murder, you resumed therapy with my client. Why do this if you were convinced he was the Chesapeake Ripper?”
“Because I needed proof,” Will spat out, anger curling hot in his belly.
“And that was the only reason you rekindled your previous relationship with Dr. Lecter?”
Will remained silent. If Metcalf was bothered by his lack of cooperation then he hid it well.
“Isn’t it true, Mr. Graham, that you and FBI agent Jack Crawford contrived a scheme to compromise my client while he was under the impression that you were his only confidant?”
“We did what we had to do to prove that Dr. Lecter is a murderer.”
“Including seducing him?”
“W-what?”
A murmur rippled through the crowd, the shocked whispers swelling to a deafening crescendo until the judge intervened and called the room to order. Metcalf, who had been smug before, was downright ecstatic by the time the noise had died down to a bearable level.
Will was seething. “Seduction was never my intention, nor did I ever attempt it.”
The lawyer feigned surprise. “Are you sure, Mr. Graham? My client stated that he was under the impression you two were in a romantic relationship during the time of the events of May 23th 2014?”
“Your client stated-” Will stopped himself, almost biting off the tip of his tongue when the implications of what had been said registered in his brain.
For the first time since this whole farce had started, Will looked at Hannibal, right past his carefully neutral expression and saw the soft glint in those brown eyes for what it was: Amusement.
The anger Will hardly held at bay was threatening to spill over, his mouth twisting with the effort to hold in the violent verbal abuse he was eager to throw at Hannibal.
"Your client and I were never, in any way, romantically involved," Will said, eyes on Hannibal's impassive face. He didn't flinch. Not a muscle moved as Will rejected the ridiculous notion. If Hannibal had thought such an outrageous claim could buy him his freedom...
"I’ll ask again, Mr. Graham. Are you sure?" Metcalf's voice cut through his brumous thoughts like a knife. Irritated, he turned away from Hannibal, fully aware that the other man's gaze was still firmly fixed on him.
"Yes," he growled.
"How would you explain these then, Mr. Graham?"
With more force than necessary, Metcalf slapped a few loose pages of what appeared to be pencil sketches on the dock.
Will paled. Staring back at him were his own eyes, drawn in excruciating detail, as a part of a portrait that showed him looking coyly over his shoulder. The hair was drawn longer than he usually wore it and his doppelganger was younger, with fewer lines around his mouth, but it was undoubtedly him.
His fingers trembled as he pulled another sketch from underneath the first. A study this time, the face of the figure turned away, the naked body otherwise on full display. Will had to fight the urge to avert his eyes, a warm flush creeping up his neck.
"These beautiful sketches of you in the nude are drawn from imagination, Mr. Graham? You didn’t pose for them?"
"No." His voice was weak, he knew, hesitant and little convincing to the crowd listening with intent. Will felt sick.
On the other hand, Metcalf couldn't have been more obviously pleased. He picked up one of the drawings — another nude sketch depicting Will resting on what looked suspiciously like the lounge in Hannibal's office — and held it up.
"This birthmark on the hip." He pointed at the little spot on the drawing, meaty fingers tapping against the paper and smudging the lines. "You don't have one there?"
He had. A barely noticeable dark spot of skin he’d never wasted much thought on. Up until now.
"Mr. Graham, please answer the question."
"I have a birthmark on my hip, yes."
"And how would my client know about this particular detail, if it is as you say and he has drawn these sketches from imagination not from memory?"
Will fidgeted, rubbing his sweaty palms all over his thighs. He held his head low, avoiding meeting the lawyer's or Hannibal's eyes.
"I was diagnosed with encephalitis during the time of my acquaintanceship with Dr. Lecter," he explained, indignation threatening to turn his tongue to lead in his too dry mouth. "Among the symptoms I experienced, sleepwalking belonged to the more harmless, albeit inconvenient ones. On more than one occasion, I found myself in front of Dr. Lecter's door in little more than my underwear."
The admission was humiliating and Will could almost taste the pity and disbelief hanging heavy in the air. All these people staring at him with unabashed curiosity thought him to be a madman, a pathetic excuse for a FBI profiler, while Hannibal Lecter was right in front of them. Oh how bitter was the taste of irony.
Metcalf remained unaffected. "Are you suggesting my client saw you in your underwear once and noticed such a minuscule detail?"
"Dr. Lecter is a very perceptive man. I wouldn't put it past him."
It was entirely feasible for Hannibal to have noticed the birthmark during one of Will’s episodes. More likely, though, was that he had undressed Will himself and for his own amusement during one of his seizures. Hannibal might have done it for exactly this purpose even: feigning a sexual relationship between them to make Will a compromised witness in the case that Hannibal should ever find himself on trial. What else Hannibal might have done to his willing body while his mind was on fire, Will didn't want to think about. Not now, not ever.
"Forgive me when I say I’m not convinced, Mr. Graham. Especially considering that you had acquired a new wardrobe and visited a barber prior to taking up therapy with my client again. Was that by chance as well?"
Will’s jaw clenched. "Are you implying I dressed up for Hannibal Lecter?"
"I'm stating it as fact, Mr. Graham," Metcalf countered. "Did you have sex with my client that day?"
Red, hot fury surged through Will's veins as he turned to look at Hannibal once more. His eyes burned with the promise of a reckoning. "Is that what he told you?"
“Answer the question please, Mr. Graham.”
“I never,” Will growled, teeth grinding as he stared at Hannibal. “Had any sexual relations with this man.”
Nobody believed him. Neither the lawyer, nor the jury or the audience. He could feel the glimmer of doubt igniting in one person, then jumping to the next, until it was burning bright and scorching. Too convincing was the alleged evidence, too enticing a perceived love affair between a FBI profiler and a cannibalistic serial killer. It was so much more interesting than the truth. Freddie Lounds would have a field day.
Metcalf smiled, indulging Will like one would indulge a delusional child. "And yet there was the implicit promise of an intimate relationship, wasn't there?"
He turned away from Will with an overly dramatic flourish, facing the jury and audience with the salacious sketch of Will still in his hand, held up high for everyone to see.
"Instead of investing their time and resources into a proper investigation to catch the Chesapeake Ripper, Will Graham and Jack Crawford devised a perfidious plan to seduce my client, to lull him into a false sense of security and catch him in flagrante delicto. A perverse courtship ritual was what these two men believed would get them the Chesapeake Ripper. A courtship that cost Randall Tier his life because Will Graham bludgeoned him to death in order to appeal to whom he believed was the Chesapeake Ripper."
Unbidden, a vision of Randall Tier appeared before Will's inner eye, not as the man he died as, but as the beast he had become under Will's eager hands. He smiled.
"He could still be alive if not for Mr. Graham playing his little game with my client. Instead of preventing more murders, he only encouraged Dr. Lecter, who was all too eager to impress his chosen paramour."
No, Will thought. Randall Tier would have died one way or another. He was a loose end, easily traced back to Hannibal if anybody had cared to look closely enough. Will had merely done Hannibal's dirty work by killing him. Proving himself worthy of the doctor's trust in the process was little more than an concomitant.
The smirking manifestation of Randall Tier faded into nothingness, bursting into dust as Metcalf whirled around and moved uncomfortably close once more.
"You manipulated my client, Mr. Graham. He believed, honestly believed, to have found a confidant in you and he was willing to do anything you demanded of him. Is it so surprising then, that your betrayal triggered such a violent reaction?"
"My betrayal?" Will echoed in disbelief.
"Indeed, Mr. Graham. Betrayal. It was what my client felt when he realized the affection he had for you wasn’t mutual. You succeeded in seducing him, but clearly you weren't prepared for the repercussions, the sheer magnitude of his sorrow. Tell me, Mr. Graham, have you never once considered using your influence on my client to make him...stop?"
Slowly, Will raised his head, meeting Metcalf's eyes.
"Make him stop?" His mouth curved in a nightmarish parody of a smile. "You don't make Hannibal Lecter do anything. And he definitely doesn’t want to stop. Not now, not ever. Even in this moment, he’s thinking about the wonderful dish he could cook with your flesh, Mr. Metcalf.”
Whatever Metcalf's reaction, Will wasn’t willing to look at the lawyer any longer. It could have been surprise, anger, or disgust distorting the lawyer’s bloated face, but Will paid him no mind. He looked at Hannibal and saw the black antlers sprouting from his head.
There was a smile on Hannibal’s chiseled face. Barely noticeable and little more than a twitch of his lips to those who didn't know him like Will did. It was a smile of secret delight and pride.
Will returned the smile with one of his own. A twisted and dark thing, showing too much teeth. More of a snarl than a smile, really, and full of gallows humor.
"Hannibal Lecter wouldn't stop for anybody," Will continued without every tearing his gaze away from the man in question. "Least of all for me."
It sounded convincing enough.
He didn't dwell on the question, didn't dare to. If he did, then the carefully tailored person suit he was wearing would tear at the seams, exposing his allegedly righteous anger as nothing more than a farce. Oh, he had been angry, furious even; that much was true, and nothing would have been more satisfying than curling his scarred fingers around Hannibal's pale throat to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until the air in his lungs had all but evaporated. The fickle flame of life extinguished by his eager hands. But the simple, terrifying truth was: there was no anger when he thought about Randall Tier's dead body lying like an offering on Hannibal's dining table. No moral condemnation at the memory of the judge's mutilated corpse at his own trial.
Will felt no sympathy for the ones who had fallen victim to Hannibal’s perverted art. He only ever felt betrayal. It was not about stopping Hannibal from what he did. It was only ever about him. Arrogant, Will had once been called. Selfish, too. Maybe those estimations had been right. Maybe he could have stopped Hannibal with a flutter of his lashes and the promise of his spread thighs, but the simple and terrifying truth was: he didn't care if Hannibal stopped.
Will blinked and turned away, breaking the spell that had spun between him and Hannibal.
He was a good liar. Especially when lying to himself.
"Hannibal Lecter accused me of murders I didn't commit. He induced seizures and did everything in his power to keep the truth of my encephalitis hidden from me, just so he could see what would happen. He gutted me, leaving me to die on his kitchen floor. Is that love, Mr. Metcalf? What do you think?"
"Do you think it is, Mr. Graham? Do you think my client has conventional views on the definition of love?"
Will remained silent.
"Let me ask you another question," Metcalf went on, much to Will's chagrin. "Do you think a sane person could have done all this?"
Hannibal wasn't insane. The pure notion was ridiculous and Will couldn't suppress a disdainful grunt. He was sure every single person in the room who had had the dubious pleasure of making Hannibal's acquaintance knew as much.
But to consider the unspeakable crimes committed by him as acts of sanity would mean acknowledging humanity as inherently flawed. No ordinary person would consider Hannibal sane, even if, unconsciously, they knew better. It was self-preservation, plain and simple.
"Sane and insane are insufficient concept if one wants to characterize Hannibal Lecter. He defies categorization."
"That's not an answer, Mr. Graham."
"It's the only answer you'll get."
Metcalf graciously let it slide. He had made this point and the jury would remember it well when it came to announcing their verdict.
"Then how about you tell us about the call you made to Dr. Lecter's residence, approximately one hour before you arrived there yourself and after Agent Jack Crawford and Dr. Alana Bloom had already confronted my client."
There was no point in feigning ignorance. Will had worked for law enforcement himself, he was aware of the mechanics and inner workings of the profession. Of course they had traced all calls made to Hannibal's phone.
"I called him, yes."
"Why, Mr. Graham?"
Why indeed. If only he knew. The memory of the evening had been blurred by the countless hours spent in surgery, the endless administration of painkillers and antibiotics, drugs to keep him alive and in a constant state of slight drowsiness. The sensation comparable to being wrapped into several blankets, warm but suffocating, every noise dulled and distorted.
He had been content with not having to think about the why. Another lie he told himself and that served him well to keep the monsters clawing at the doors of his mind at bay.
Curse Metcalf for inviting them in with his questions.
"I don't know. I don't remember."
The only truth tumbling from his lips that day.
“I think you do, Mr. Graham. I think we all do.”
Did they? Did Hannibal know?
Will risked another glance at the man he once considered his friend, the sudden need to see him overwhelming in its intensity.
There they were again, the screeching demons scratching at the door of his mind, demanding to be let out. Reigning over them was Hannibal, his body formed by darkness and smoke, and he was smiling, always smiling.
And Will knew then, with absolute certainty, that Hannibal Lecter would not die today or any other day.
“Maybe I do.”
Let your demons run.