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darling-i-read-it · 3 years

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And the Woman Clothed With the Sun...

3x09

Hannibal Lecter x reader x Will Graham

Hannibal Re-Write Series Masterlist

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: spoilers for hannibal, murder, dead bodies, nightmares, talk of children and having them

Author’s Note: I really really liked this episode. I love playing with dynamics SO MUCH. I hope you guys like this?

I used some direct quotes from the script so some things may seem familiar

Official Episode Summary: As the search for Francis Dolarhyde (Richard Armitage) continues, Will starts imagining himself in Dolarhyde's tormented psyche -- and asks Hannibal for help with the serial killer's profile; a new woman (Rutina Wesley) enters Dolarhyde's life.

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director

Tag List (is always open!) : @llperfectsymmetryll @ericacactus @vlightning95 @sweetgoodangel

(not my gif)

“That’s the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court,” Hannibal said. He turned around slowly, acting as though he were not surprised to see you and Will together. The thin line of glass between the two of you Hannibal seemed so thick.

The truth was, you had never truly gotten over Hannibal. You had pretended to, for the sake of Will, but you had never really stopped thinking about what he could be doing. There was a link that the three of you had with each other that was unexplainable. You had started a new life. But your old one still called your name.

“Hello, Dr. Lecter,” Will said simply. He was contained. You fed off of his energy to keep yourself in check as well.

“Hello, Will. Y/N.” He stepped closer to the two of you. “I believe congratulations are in order. I apologize I couldn’t make it to the wedding. Alana gave me some pictures, to taunt me presumably.” You smiled. You thought about Hannibal holding the pictures of you and Will laughing, beaming at each other. “Did you get my note?” You nodded.

“We got it. Thank you,” you said simply. You and Will stood close together. He had his coat draped over his arm and you held the papers from the cases.

“Did you read it before you destroyed it? Or did you simply toss it into the nearest fire?” Hannibal asked. You scoffed a bit.

“We read it. Then he burned it,” you promised. He nodded.

“And you came anyway.” Hannibal eyed you. “I’m surprised you let that happen.”

“We all falter in some ways,” you said simply.

“I want you to help me, Dr. Lecter,” Will said to break the conversation. He still didn't trust Hannibal with you. Reminiscent of the days you used to work with Hannibal.

“Yes I thought so. Are we no longer on a first-name basis?” Hannibal asked.

“I’m more comfortable the less personal we are,” Will said. Hannibal looked over at you, eyeing your entire body. He made note of the scent. The scent off of both of you.

“Your hands are rough Will. I smell dogs and pine and oil beneath that shaving lotion.” He looked at you. “Did you steal that perfume from my home?” he questioned. You stiffened. You had gotten some perfume from his home as they cleaned it out. You ended up liking and buying another bottle over the years.

“I’m here about Chicago and Buffalo. You’ve read about it, I’m sure,” Will said.

“I’ve read the papers. I can’t clip them. They won’t let me have scissors, of course. You want to know how he’s choosing them,” Hannibal commented. You held up the case file.

“Thought you might have some ideas.”

“You just came here to look at me. Came to get the old scent again. Why don't you just smell yourself Will? Or your wife?” Will let out a sigh.

“I expected more of you, doctor. That routine is old hat.” Hannibal nodded stiffly.

“Whereas you are new people,” Hannibal said. “Let me have the file. An hour, and we can discuss it like old times.” You nodded happily at that, pleased he would help. You shoved the file through the document tray and into the cell. Hannibal came close to collect it.

“Thank you,” Will muttered.

“Family values may have declined over the last century, but we still help our families when we can.” He took the papers. “You’re both family.”

Will grabbed you around the waist, eager to leave. Your eyes lingered on Hannibal’s for a moment longer before you and Will left the room, swallowing his true words.

You looked around Alana’s office. You hadn’t seen it since she had moved in. It looked better than when Chilton had run it. Perhaps that was just because you liked Alana more. The problems you once had with each other had mostly scabbed over. She was maid of honor at your wedding. Interesting, considering the fact you had once fought feverishly over Hannibal.

“It’s good to see you looking well. But I can’t help wishing you weren’t here,” Alana said. She sat on her couch. Her suit was pristine, her hair perfect. You admired her.

“You aren’t the only one,” you commented.

“I was surprised Jack came back in one piece,” she said. You nodded, running a hand over your pants before sitting down on the couch beside her. Will stood up, looking out the window.

“You weren’t the only one,” Will said, turning to both of you.

“How did it feel to see him again?” she questioned. You looked at the ground. Will sat down beside you, in between you and Alana.

“Like Hannibal was looking through to the back of my skull. Felt like a fly flitting around in there. I had the absurd feeling that he walked out with me. Had to stop outside the doors and look around, make sure it was just Y/N,” Will commented.

“I know that feeling. At least Jack Crawford’s pleased.” You pursed your lips but stayed quiet.

“He showed me pictures of the families. I looked at Y/N and couldn’t say no,” he argued.

“Damn my presence,” you joked softly. Will slung his arm around the couch behind you, his fingered brushing your shoulder.

“And Jack was counting on it.”

“Are you still with Margot?” you asked, eager to change the subject. She took a deep breath and nodded, thinking fondly of her wife.

“Yes. We have a baby. A Verger baby. A son,” she said. You smiled. You and Will had talked about kids. You wanted one. You were working for one when Jack spiked both yours and Will’s stress levels.

“Good for Margot,” Will said.

“Good for me. I carried him. He’s my son. He’s the Verger heir.” You smiled.

“Then what are you doing here? You’re set for life,” you pointed out.

“There are only five doors between Hannibal and the outside. And I have the keys to every one of them,” she said. A daily ‘gotcha’ to Hannibal. Will admired that. “Hannibal has never been great with boundaries. ‘He who sups with the Devil needs a long spoon’.”

“I am not letting him in, Alana. Don’t worry about me,” Will said. She looked at you sympathetically.

“Last time, it didn't’ end with you Will.”

“I want you to stay here,” Will said, standing outside Hannibal’s cell door. He hadn’t stepped inside yet. Hannibal could not see him. You scoffed.

“We’ve been over this. I follow you, even if you say no.”

“This time, I mean it. I think I’ll get more out of him if he isn't’ distracted with you.” You raised an eyebrow.

“You sure you aren’t jealous?” He gave you a look. “Fine, fine. Please be quick.”

Will stepped into the room, leaving you outside to wait. Hannibal looked up at him from his desk.

“This is a very shy boy, Will. I’d love to meet him,” Hannibal said. He looked around. “Just us?”

Will nodded.

“Just us.”

“Have you considered the possibility that he’s disfigured? Or that he may believe he’s disfigured?” Hannibal asked.

“That’s interesting.”

“That’s not interesting. You thought of that before.” Will nodded.

“He smashed all the mirrors in the houses, not just enough to get the pieces he wanted. The shards are set so he can see himself. In their eyes. Mrs. Jacobi and Mrs. Leeds. And their families,” Will said. Hannibal pulled out the picture of a dead Mrs. Jacobi.

“Could you see yourself in their eyes, Will? Killing them all?”

Will instantly regretted leaving you outside.

The two boys imagined themselves in the crime scenes, looking across the dead bodies of the families.

“The first small bond to the killer itches and stings like a leech,” Hanibal said. “Like you, Will, he needs a family to escape what’s inside him.” Wills head shot up but he did not look at Hannibal. “You know a fair amount about how these families died. How they lived is how he chooses them.”

“How is he choosing them?” Will asked.

“I was surprised to hear you actually married Y/N. Not because I thought you weren’t a match made in heaven but it made more sense for you to start a family from scratch. No one that had even an inkling of me in their eyes. Find a mom with a stepson or daughter, not having to breed. You know better than to pass the terrible traits that you fear the most,” Hannibal said. Will did not look at him. Hannibal continued. “But Y/N wants children with you. How will you stand to look at a child you may have ruined before they were even born?”

Will desperately wished he hadn’t left you outside.

“Why are there no descriptions of the grounds? I see floor plans, diagrams of the rooms where the deaths occured, no mention of the grounds. What were the yards like?” Hannibal continued, satisfied with how he had shaken Will’s personal life.

“Big, fenced, with trees. Why?”

“If this pilgrim feels a special relationship with the moon, he might like to go outside and look at it before he tidies himself up. If one were nude, say, it would be better to have outdoor privacy for that sort of thing. One must show some consideration for the neighbors, hmmm? Have you ever seen blood in the moonlight, Will?”

Will suddenly saw himself in place of the killer, naked, drenched in pitch black blood.

Will snapped back and nodded quickly.

“Thank you Dr. Lecter,” he said before stumbling out of the door. You sat on the outside in one of the waiting chairs. Will looked over at you and seemed to relax but not completely.

“Will?”

He grabbed you and you stood up quickly, hugging him tightly. He buried his head in your neck and you let him, rubbing your back.

“This is why you don’t go without me places,” you muttered. He scoffed but his breathing was already evening again. “What did he say?” He moved back and shook his head softly.

“We’ll talk about it later. I want to see the backyards.” You raised an eyebrow.

“Alright, I suppose.”

He walked out of the asylum, holding your hand tightly. Freddie snapped a couple pictures from the bushes.

“Have you come to wag your finger?” Hannibal asked as Alana entered the room behind him.

“I love a good finger-wagging.”

“Yes, you do. How is Margot?” Alana ignored the remake as she gleaned down at the picture of her as Botticelli’s Fortitude.

“Your cogs are turning, Hannibal. I can hear them clicking.”

“Click, click, click, boom,” he whispered.

“I don’t know what you’re planning with the Grahams. But you’re planning something. Why wouldn’t you be? You’ve already cracked the lid, can’t resist peeling it back.”

Hannibal pursed at the name. Alana noticed this.

“You can’t comment on her last name anymore you know. They’re married. She is, in the eyes of the law, a Graham now.” Hannibal stiffened.

“They came to me,” Hannibal said, ignoring her words.

“Yes, they did.”

“I advised them against it.”

“I’m sure.”

“Are you suggesting I don’t have Y/N and Will’s best interests in mind?” he asked. Alana scoffed.

“I’m stating it as a fact.”

You stepped into the room with Hannibal’s cage. He looked up, quite surprised to see you. You held your purse in both hands, stepping closer to the cage.

“Hello love,” he said quietly. You let his words fall off of you like rain. They stayed for a moment, dripping down your arm before hitting the ground. “I don’t imagine you’re here to talk about the murder cases.” You shook your head softly. He walked up to the glass quietly. You stepped close to it, so you were really only a couple of inches apart.

“I came to yell at you,” you said. He raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever for?” You smiled gently and shrugged.

“Lots of things. Firstly, you didn’t kill Jack when you got the chance. I’ll never forgive you for not feeding him to me in soup.” His eyes went wide.

“Careful Y/N. Alana watches these tapes.”

“She would probably agree with me.” You took a deep breath. “Secondly, not coming to my wedding. I know you were otherwise indisposed but I thought it was rather rude.”

“I thought it was rude of you to get married.” You shook your head playfully. The same banter. Joking with a cannibal serial killer. Just another Tuesday.

“Third, I told you to leave.” The air seemed to calm.

“Does Will know you’re here?”

“No. I didn’t tell him.”

“Did he tell you he’s scared of his own children?” You raised a finger, shaking it gently.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Will is no longer my boyfriend I dated a couple of months. He’s my husband. You can’t wedge yourself between us no matter how hard you try.” You wanted to put your hand against the glass but you didn’t. “But I miss you.”

“Where do you work nowadays?” You shrugged.

“I had to get another secretary job but I’ve mostly worked up enough to take this amount of leave. My last employer wasn’t exactly the best reference.” He laughed.

“I suppose you’re right.” He paused. “Eating well?”

“Better. No people in the diet these days.”

“Pity.”

“Will!” You broke Will out of his thoughts. You were standing in the back of the Jacobi house. Will had just found a small sign on one of the trees. He was about to get into it but you had broken him out of his mind. “It’s Freddie.”

Will walked out from the trees and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Now are you just keeping America clean or is that evidence?” Freddie asked.

“You’re trespassing, Freddie,” Will said sternly.

“I was trespassing before the blood dried. When did they call you? Interesting to see The Bloody Valentines back at action. Beautiful ceremony by the way.”

“We aren’t talking to you,” Will said, grabbing your arm. You followed him.

“We’re co conspirators, Will. I did for you and your cause.”

“You didn’t die enough. You came into my hospital room while I was asleep. You flipped back the sheets and shot a picture of my temporary colostomy bag,” Will said, turning to her.

“Covered your junk with a black box. A big black box. You’re welcome,” she said.

“Justly so,” you argued carefully.

“You culled us the ‘murder threesome’. Little crude, don't you think?”

“You did run off to Europe together. Doesn’t help that the two of you ended up getting married. How does the Tooth Fairy compare to Hannibal Lecter? Haven’t seen anything like this since the Massacre at Muskrat Farm. Funny thing about that massacre. Not only did Dr. Bloom survived, she got rich. Lecter’s living in the lap under her care. What kind of arrangement you suppose they have?” Freddie asked.

“A complicated one,” you said sternly.

“Couldn’t be more complicated than your relationship with Hannibal. Both of you. You paid him a visit? Before you lie, know that I know that you did,” she said quickly.

“Good-bye Freddie.”

“I read your note before my office forwarded it to the Grahams,” Jack said, standing in front of Will. Hannibal swallowed, understanding.

“To whet their appetite or yours? You’ve placed him back in the pot and you’re letting him cook.”

“We’re all in this stew together.”

“Arguable considering how close Y/N is to drowning you.”

You stepped into the hotel room where Will was already sitting on the bed. You ran a hand through your hair and let the chilly cold wash over you as you entered the warm room.

“How are the dogs?” he asked.

“Good. The dog sitters said they were missing us but other than that, they’re okay,” you promised. You looked down at the dog that was laying on the ground beside the bed. “She’ll be right at home with them.”

You sat on the bed and Will sat up, putting his arms around you from behind. You smiled about him, happy to see he was feeling better.

“I’m worried about the kids,” he whispered.

“The kids who don’t exist?” He laughed gently.

“Yeah. I don’t want them to end up like me.” You nodded slowly.

“So that’s what Hannibal said that got you worked up.” You took in the information. “If the kid isn’t like you I don’t think I’d be able to love them as much as I love you.”

It was his turn to take in the information.

“You’re just saying that.”

“Nope. I’m serious. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I’ve had the pleasure of loving you Mr. Graham.” He kissed your neck gently and smiled to himself.

“I love you too Mrs. Graham.”

You let out a small sigh of relief.

Will screamed as he sat up quickly, sweating aggressively, blankets flying. You got up just as quickly, turning to him but he had already gotten up, rushing into the bathroom. You followed him, sleep that had just taken you over long gone.

You practically ran up to him. He was looking at himself in the mirror, fear in his eyes at his reflection. You grabbed him quickly and he turned to you, wrapping his arms around you. You didn’t speak. You didn’t ask questions. You just held him as close as you could get him.

Nightmares had come back. Neither of you had had those in a while. You rubbed his back and let him breath.

3x10

#will graham x reader #hannibal lecter x reader #will graham x reader x hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader x will graham #will graham imagines #hannibal lecter imagines #hannibal imagines

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vagaries-and-caprices-blog · 6 years

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Blood and Will Graham

Part 3: Will Graham’s reality, imagination, and dreams (”Hannibal” episodes: Apéritif and Amuse-Bouche)

Part 1: Wetness and the erotic

Part 2: Blood and “aesthetic distance”

Caveat In my analysis of “Hannibal,” I’m working off what the characters say and do in the final cut of the NBC TV show. I do not reference what is in the Thomas Harris books, other Hannibal-related movies, deleted scenes from the TV show, or even the published scripts (except when the script illuminates something relevant). Often the scripts have been changed, either in the performances or the editing.

Bryan Fuller has mentioned how the cast performances and directors affected rewrites and his own conception of “Hannibal”:

But with this cast and with a director like David Slade, they elevated the material so significantly that I was looking at the scripts that were coming down the pike, and I just thought, we are writing the wroooong show. [Laughs.] So it was a matter of grabbing the wheel, jerking it, and trying to turn the ship. It was acknowledging what the cast and the director had brought to the table and evolving it from that point.

The A.V. Club, “Bryan Fuller walks us through the first three episodes of Hannibal (1 of 4)”

OK, let’s get into it!

Apéritif

In the world of “Hannibal,” Will Graham’s experiences and thoughts follow three tracks. There is “reality” where his experiences are more or less objective, things happen and he observes or reacts to them. Then there are the scenes he imagines while awake, willingly using his “pure empathy” to de- and re-construct murder scenes to catch killers. He is disturbed by these images and his imagined role as the killer, but, at first, he seems able to separate these waking vignettes from his reality. Finally, there are his dreams, which come to him against his conscious will. Of course, the dreams are resonances from Will’s reality and his willed use of his awake imagination, but they also point to thoughts he does not want to acknowledge. As Hannibal says to Will when they first meet, “I imagine what you see and learn touches everything else in your mind. Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams.”

All three tracks will start to merge and confuse Will for a number of reasons, his own neuroses and trauma, his encephalitis, and Hannibal’s Lecter’s psychotherapy sessions which are pushing Will towards understanding his deepest and unacknowledged feelings. We are given a hint of this merging of imagination and reality as Will washes his face in the bathroom at FBI Headquarters. The water turns to imagined blood, surrounding his face.

We first see Will using his waking imagination to work on the Marlow family murders (which were Francis Dolarhyde murders). In this case, Will seems emotionally unaffected by the scene. He even pauses midway to ask for a security company telephone transcript to check his insight. There is blood but Will observes and describes it dispassionately. Then we see him lecturing about the crime at FBI HQ in a similarly dispassionate manner. Somehow he has been able to separate himself emotionally from his imagination.

But Will quickly loses this separation as he works for Jack Crawford on the Minnesota Shrike case. Will tries to keep himself from “being social” as he enters into the Nichols’ home. He imagines Elise Nichols in her bed and himself murdering her. That evening he has a dream about Elise Nichols; he sees her corpse next to him in bed, rising up in the air.

It’s important to separate Will’s waking imaginings from his dreams because often the dreams do not help him solve crime but are a reflection of his psyche. Further, Will waking up covered in sweat is not evidence that these are necessarily unpleasant dreams. They may seem like nightmares, but Hugh Dancy doesn’t always play them as painful or unpleasant. In the very first dream of Elise Nichols, he reaches out to her as if to a bedmate. When he wakes up, he is not overly upset, only very perspired; he pulls off his shirt and goes back to sleep. Even the music score is creepy, but noncommittal.

As Will observes Elise’s autopsy at FBI HQ, he has a waking vision of her hanging on antlers. In contrast to Will’s dreams, his imagination is useful and provides crime-solving details. Next Will sees Cassie Boyle impaled on the severed stag head; he gives his interpretation of the crime to Jack, but it is significant that Will doesn’t imagine this murder vividly. He can’t “see” this murderer (who is, of course, Hannibal Lecter). Will can only describe what is different from the Minnesota Shrike murders.

Cassie Boyle’s body on the stag head and the ravens pecking the body contribute to the Ravenstag image. Before Hannibal wakes him up in his hotel room, Will dreams he is showering, the shower curtain parts like theater curtains, and he sees the Ravenstag for the first time. The dream is not helpful for solving the crime; it is a reflection of a deep connection Will has made but which he cannot “see” or articulate.

Will tracks down Garrett Jacob Hobbs and arrives at the house. Now the blood, only hinted at in dreams and imagination, finally becomes real for Will. He touches Louise Hobbs first to help her and his forearms become covered in her blood. He enters the house, trembling and energetic. As Garrett Jacob Hobbs cuts Abigail’s throat, Will shoots and then keeps shooting (I count 9 times, but later Jack Crawford says 10). Now he is also covered in Hobbs’ blood, and, bending to help Abigail, her blood.

Hobbs says, “See? See?” and we understand that Will Graham has undergone a transformation from tidy, virginal imagination to messy, bodily knowledge. Will barely has time to register this transition because he instantaneously experiences the transference of his imagination and empathy (used to catch murderers) to reach out and bond with a victim. His double horror is that he has killed the victim’s father. He is completely overwhelmed by this experience.

By warning Garrett Jacob Hobbs, Hannibal Lecter manipulated the situation in hopes of “deflowering” Will. And he succeeds.

Amuse-Bouche

The episode opens with a dream. In Jack Crawford’s car on the way to Hobbs’ cabin, Will sees Hobbs hanging like a gun-range target flying towards him. As a dream, the image is not helpful to solving the crime, but a reflection of Will’s anxiety.

Will lectures on Garrett Jacob Hobbs at FBI HQ. We see him have a flashback to killing Hobbs. His imagination and reality are starting to blend.

At the mushroom-bed murder scene, Will starts off in his dispassionate imagining mode, but suddenly sees Hobbs as one of the victims. He admits this to Hannibal Lecter in his therapy session. Hannibal asks, “Is it harder imagining the thrill somebody else feels killing now that you’ve done it yourself?” Will looks stricken, thinks, and then nods his head.

Hannibal’s question is interesting because (a) it underlines the concept of Will having been transformed by his first kill (virgin to non-virgin), and (b) it can be interpreted in two ways due to multiple meanings of the word “harder.” It could mean, “Are you less easily able to imagine…?” or it could mean, “Do you find it more emotionally disturbing to imagine…?” Later in Coquilles (S1E5), Will indicates that BOTH interpretations are true when he tells Jack, “It’s getting harder and harder to make myself look. […] I can make myself look but the thinking is shutting down.”

Will is sleeping in Abigail Hobbs’ hospital room when he dreams of the Ravenstag again. Awake, he tells Alana, “I don’t feel sorry for myself at all, I feel…good.” Then he frowns. He’s confused and concerned that he feels good.

When rescuing Abigail from Eldon Stammets, Will (the experienced killer) now displays some self-control; he is commanding, not shaky and nervous. He does not kill Stammets (although he may want to); he shoots accurately and only once.

We wrap up with Hannibal and Will in therapy, Hannibal trying to get Will to “give voice to the unmentionable,” i.e., Will enjoyed killing.

Will: Killing Hobbs felt just. Hannibal: Which is why you’re here. To prove that sprig of zest you feel is from saving Abigail not from killing her dad. Will: I didn’t feel a sprig of zest when I shot Eldon Stammets. Hannibal: You didn’t kill Eldon Stammets. Will: I thought about it. I’m still not entirely sure that wasn’t my intention pulling the trigger. Hannibal: If your intention was to kill him, it’s because you understand why he did the things he did. It’s beautiful in its own way. Giving voice to the unmentionable.

[…]

Hannibal: It wasn’t the act of killing Hobbs that got you down, was it? Did you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good? Will: I liked killing Hobbs.

[…]

Hannibal: God's terrific. He dropped a church roof on thirty-four of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas, while they sang a hymn. Will: Did God feel good about that? Hannibal: He felt powerful.

It’s important to watch Will Graham’s face reflecting on that last statement.

Hannibal is encouraging Will’s inclination to kill and to become more experienced and refined doing it. But Hannibal wants Will to feel just, powerful, and good when he does it. He wants it to be beautiful in its own particular Will Graham way.

Part 4: Willed madness, merging reality, imagination, and dreams

Related side trips:

Entr’acte

Bloody Will Graham

as requested by @krey-9-jorce

#blood and will graham #hannibal #will graham #hugh dancy #hannibal lecter #bryan fuller #aperitif #amuse-bouche #wet hugh dancy #hannibal meta

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elfnerdherder · 7 years

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The Unquiet Grave: Chapter 13

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Chapter 13: When Silence Ensnares

He finds the first man searching the bathroom stalls.

Will isn’t quite sure what he’s going to do until he sees the gun drawn, subtle but still present in the man’s right hand. It lingers just at his side, and when the man turns away from the stall and comes face to face with Will, he reaches up with ungloved hands and claps them over the agent’s ears, staring deep into his eyes.

Falling in. Forever, Will would find himself falling in.

Neutralize, cover, recover, report, neutralize, cover –

No, no, no!

There is the sensation of resistance, but there is enough of Dolarhyde still swimming in Will’s veins that it’s paltry at best. He sweeps it aside with the sensation of fear, of running and running and running and there is no escape, Agent Jackson.

“P-please,” the man manages to stutter, and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

“Forget me,” Will urges quietly, and his voice isn’t quite his own. “Forget me. You were never here. You were never here, and you know nothing of Will Graham.”

My family, god, my family,

No, no! No, if he knows my family, he’ll kill them, he’ll put mirrors over them, too –no, no, no, no…

“Forget me and I won’t harm your family,” Will urges, and he imagines hands clawing into the man’s mind, swiping away any trace. It feels forceful, dirty, and when the man slumps against him, unconscious, Will eases him onto the toilet and lets his head loll to the side to rest against the partition.

“Forget me,” he says again, and it’s as much a genuine plea as a demand.

He takes the gun from it and disassembles it, shoving the pieces into his pack. The suppressor on the end confirms what the man had come there to do.

He feels dirty leaving him there, does it anyway, frantically tugging his gloves on before he starts crying over the potential loss of his family that in reality doesn’t exist.

The second agent he does not find, but that’s alright. He’s in a taxi headed towards Wolf Trap before he knows quite what he’s going to do –run? Was he considered an RA now, or was he merely someone under investigation, someone they weren’t quite finished with yet, so they would keep him around?

The files burn and turn his bag to ash. He holds it tightly to his chest and imagines what was inside of his own that was so abhorrent Dolarhyde didn’t want him to see.

“Everything okay?” the man driving the taxi asks congenially. He glances up in the rearview mirror to give Will a brief smile.

Will shakily readjusts his glasses and manages a nod.

“I think I’m coming down with something. Flu, maybe just a cold…something.”

“It’s that time of season,” the man says, accepting his excuse for the tremors and shifty eyes. “Half the team is down for the count on account of it. Colds, mostly.”

Will nods and looks out of the window where the sky is grey, bleak and uninviting. Cold.

“It’ll snow soon,” the man continues when Will says nothing more. “Snow…it’ll be a bitch to drive through.”

“Do you have winter tires?” Will asks.

“Oh yeah, big time,” the man promises. “I take good care of this here car.”

He pats the leather arm rest beside him, and Will manages an agreeable smile, although it can’t stay. His thoughts are with Dolarhyde, with a man who knew from the core of his heart that something was wrong but had no way to fix it.

The smell of betrayal that Will found at the crime scenes make so much more sense, now that he knows just what Dolarhyde had been begging these men to do.

He just wanted someone to see.

“Up to the house?” the man asks.

Will looks up from the faded spot of material near the knee of his slacks, and he shakes his head. “No, no…just here is fine. By the mailbox.”

He fishes out cash and passes it over. On seeing his gloves, the man lets out a disturbed noise.

“Christ, if you were cold, you could have asked for heat!” He laughs and looks to Will, eyes bright. “I’d have turned the heat on for you!”

Will manages something much like a grimace and he shakes his head, climbing out from the car.

“It’s fine,” he assures the man. “I didn’t want to spread germs.”

The man is still laughing and shaking his head, even as he pulls away.

Will then heads deep into the forest to take the long way around to the house.

It’s a brisk walk, and it helps with the pounding in his head that urges him to run and run and run and run. He forces himself to keep the steady and even pace of a person that knows where they’re going and what they’re going to do once they get there –he doesn’t, but he can’t afford to panic now. He thinks of Dolarhyde who has been calm despite the fracturing of his mind. He thinks of the man he’d just left unconscious in a bathroom stall. He’s taken enough steps that he can’t afford to panic. He has to act.

Just what he’s supposed to do, though, Will isn’t sure.

He comes up on the back of the house, and when he steps onto the property he is suddenly aware that he’s not alone. Will’s arms tingle, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, so much so that he lets out a quiet hiss of breath and sets his bag down in one of the browning and sleeping bushes nearby. He slinks through the grass, then presses himself to the side of the house where he slides with utmost care, careful of the exposed skin on his face and neck. He feels the sensation of birds in flight, of a bug trundling along. When he reaches the edge, he peeks around the corner.

Hannibal Lecter stands on the porch, looking mildly perplexed.

He’s dressed far more to the cold than Will is. Fall is bitter in Wolf Trap, out in the open forest with nothing to warm it. His scarf is snug, and the hat on his head looks to be wool-lined and soft. Will watches him as he paces along the porch just long enough to turn about so that he can once more knock on the door with two firm, solid thuds.

“Dr. Lecter?”

He’s speaking without entirely intending to, stepping around the side of the house before his mind can quite decide if that’s a good move to make. Hannibal turns, and he smiles politely, albeit confused as he takes in Will’s pink cheeks and the faint sheen of sweat he no doubt has at his hairline. It’d been a brisk pace through the forest, after all.

“Agent Graham,” he greets, and he steps off of the porch to shake Will’s gloved hand. “I called your cell phone, but you must have been out of service.”

“…Fishing,” Will explains, and he gestures back towards the woods.

“Is the fishing particularly good at this time of year?”

“Yes…if you know the right bait.”

Dr. Lecter would be the perfect bait, if they knew how to use him. Had the FBI already called him? The EBAU? Purnell? Will studies his amiable countenance –as ungiving and uninformative as every other time he’s looked at him to try and see. He thinks of the way that he’d written ‘smile’ though –pleasantly surprised and warm. Will sucks in a breath, hollowing out his cheeks, before he exhales raggedly and gestures off towards the door.

“…Come on in,” he says, and he’s leading Hannibal into the house before he can change his mind.

Hannibal is quiet, and the dogs greet him as warmly as they do Will. Their snuffling and whuffing noses prod and poke for treats that the good doctor cannot give, and Will feeds them, his gloves still firmly on.

“Is this a bad time?” Hannibal asks.

“No, why?”

“You were fishing but returned with no equipment, and although I am no expert on what one wears for the task, you’re dressed for office work rather than legwork.” Rather than sounding amused at his deductions, Hannibal sounds grave. “Are you alright?”

Will opens his mouth to reply with something inane and rather circular, but at the sound of wheels on gravel, his throat tightens and he loses all ability to speak. He glances from Hannibal to the door, then strides down the hall towards the master bedroom to get a better angle of the driveway without being seen because if he’s seen, then they’ll know, they’ll know, they’ll know.

Hannibal’s car is out in the driveway, though; they’ll know, no matter what.

They know.

“Agent Graham-”

“Why are you here?” Will demands, and he peeks through the window and watches an agent get out of a sleek, non-descript car. It’s their purposefully common-looking clothing that tips him off, and he glances back to Hannibal with a scowl. “Why did you come here?”

Hannibal pauses, guarded. Whatever he sees on Will’s face, he doesn’t quite like. “I thought to finally return your key to you, but if this is a bad time, I-”

Will doesn’t wait for him to give options in regards to timing and the illness of it. He grabs Hannibal by his lapels and shoves him into the wardrobe, climbing in after him and shutting the doors behind them. It’s cramped, and in the tight space he is more than aware of every inch of Hannibal that is pressed against him, the cologne that he wears with the most careful of application. Their breathing intermingles, and when Will turns his head from the now secure doors, they are almost nose-to-nose.

“Will, what is happening?” Hannibal murmurs, and it sounds entirely too calm. Despite being roughly handled, he doesn’t fight back and for that Will is eternally grateful.

“Shh,” Will urges, and his ears strain to catch the slightest of sounds.

Read the rest on Ao3 here! (I didn’t have time to edit/copy it over all the way here, got to run to work!)

A special thanks to my patrons: @hanfangrahamk @matildaparacosm @starlit-catastrophe @frostylicker Frosty Lee, Duhaunt6, and Superlurk

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bonearenaofmyskull · 7 years

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Hi! I keep watching the S3 finale and slinging between the theory that Will planned Hannibal's escape and his lines are actually subliminally gesturing his intent to slip away with Hannibal; and the theory that Will decides to be a martyr ("found religion"), kill the Dragon and die with Hannibal ("kill them all") in which is ultimately murder/suicide. I know the latter is the popular theory but the former haunts me, particularly due to Will's last conversation with Bedelia! Thoughts? Thank you!

This is something I’ve written quite a bit on previously but not recently, so I hope you won’t mind if I mostly just defer to Bryan Fuller on this one. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Variety that came out right after the finale, and fwiw, I agree with Bryan: the way he describes it is the way I understood it from watching the show.

Fans already seem to be speculating about Will and Hannibal’s intentions in that final scene — from your perspective, was Will hoping they’d die from that fall, or planning for them to survive? What was going through his mind in those last moments?

All season long, it had been developing this story of Will’s realization, even as he is going into Europe to track down his friend, that his agenda — as Chiyoh (Tao Okamoto) points out — is “I have to kill Hannibal in order to not become Hannibal.” And he gets so fed up with the machinations of the relationship and Hannibal sawing his head open and trying to get at his brain that he’s just like “f–k it, I’m done with you, I’m walking away.” And yet, as he states in the finale, that was all a ruse to get Hannibal to turn himself in. And so it was kind of a band-aid on a bigger wound, and then when Will is pulled back in to the Red Dragon arc, he’s asking Bedelia, “is Hannibal in love with me?” and Bedelia is saying “is this a ‘can’t live with him, can’t live without him?‘” And essentially it is, and that’s sort of the conclusion Will comes to at the end, “I can’t live with him, I can’t live without him. This is the scenario where the least amount of people can die,” meaning, “the two of us.”

I think when Hannibal says, “This is all I ever wanted for you; this is all I ever wanted for both of us,” Will is forced to acknowledge that what they just experienced was actually a beautiful thing. He lingers on that feeling of, “it was beautiful and I will desire it again, and I will be chasing this feeling.” And as he said to Hannibal earlier, “I may not be able to save myself, and that’s just fine.” I feel like we were very honest with the audience in terms of saying exactly what Will does at the end — we said it a few times.

The foreshadowing was delightfully heavy in this episode.

And yet it still feels like a little bit of a surprise at the end. [The post-credits scene with Bedelia] was very intentionally setting up another season of the story … essentially saying that Hannibal could’ve survived….

As you said, Bedelia and Will actually discussed whether he and Hannibal are in love with each other in the penultimate episode, and it feels like the show spelled out the answer fairly clearly, even if it’s not an overtly sexual love — but where do you think Will lands on that, in the end?

I think that’s what motivates the leap, is his realization that Hannibal was right all along. As beautiful as that felt to him, he understands that it is a place that who he is will not survive in, and so his option is essentially to pull the plug on the whole story, and that’s the only way he’s going to win himself back. It’s a sad gesture in so many ways….

When did you come up with the idea for this finale — was it between seasons, or further back?

It came about halfway through season two and we knew that Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter had to work together to defeat the Red Dragon, and that was a big move forward in their relationship, that the two actually hunt side by side … we needed something much more impactful and much more intimate, and Steve Lightfoot started talking about Sherlock and Moriarty and Reichenbach Falls and then it was like, “of course, that’s exactly what we need to do, and that murder-suicide for Will is what’s going to define his character and his last heroic act,” and it just felt perfect, so hats off to Arthur Conan Doyle. (x)

My problem with the theory that Will was planning a true escape for Hannibal has two parts (besides the fact that that just isn’t the story they told, as Bryan said here).

First, it doesn’t follow a logical character-growth arc for Will. I suppose the argument must be that Will discovered that he missed Hannibal too much and therefore decided to run off with him after all, as he talked about wanting to back in “Aperitivo.” But that just ignores Will’s struggles with his compassion and morality: he’s mortified by what he’s caused to happen to Frederick Chilton, he feels responsible for the attack on his family, plus the original thought he’d had that he’s afraid of becoming Hannibal (which he feels is very real when he finds killing Dolarhyde beautiful). At no point do they tell the reverse story that Will is warming up to the ideas of killing or becoming like Hannibal. He doesn’t come away from Frederick Chilton’s maiming going, “That was gr9,″ or the attack on his family thinking “My ex is gr9,” or anything else he goes through. This version of the story is just not present.

Secondly, it’s not in keeping with the style of storytelling that the writers engage in on Hannibal. Bryan withholds information a number of times to generate big reveals, but he does it in a way that is driven by emotional content rather than intellectual content. In other words, Hannibal isn’t a story that you can “solve” the way people try to solve for the big twist in, say, Mr. Robot., or an M. Night Shyamalan movie, or trying to make it so the monolith in 2001 is a metaphor for a film screen. The theory that Will was planning Hannibal’s escape–while emotional in the sense of being romantic–is a story that would have to play by “solving”: the plan was X, Y, Z, but Will really planned A, B, C, and blah blah. (And in the meantime, shoehorning some goofy explanation in to make his conversation with Hannibal at the Chesapeake Bay house be #CODE since they didn’t actually, yanno, discuss escaping, but instead talked a lot about dying for a friend.) I mean, maybe Bryan’s special touch could make this feel a lot less like “solving,” but I’m pretty skeptical.

Another facet of the issue of style of storytelling comes down to the secondary role the romance plays, next to the horror, and IMO, this is one of those places where fandom, being so primarily caught up in the relationship, goes astray with trying to interpret the story. Shipper goggles, I guess. Hannibal may have some things in common with a romantic comedy in terms of trope and device, but it has nothing in common with it in terms of tone and mood (and theme), and make no mistake: nothing controls the nature and quality of a story more strongly than tone and mood. In spite of the title, this is how you know it’s more Will Graham’s story than Hannibal Lecter’s story. Hannibal is horror about loneliness and grief and trauma. It’s not about finding love and mischievous reunions and getting off scot-free. It’s not about to let Will off the hook that easily, frankly.

None of this is to say that some part of Will won’t always want to run off with Hannibal. He says so himself, and, in the sense of a subconscious thing, or a while-falling-to-your-death kind of revelation, he may very much want to escape with Hannibal even while he plans and tries to kill him. It just isn’t what he was endeavoring to achieve in “The Wrath of the Lamb.”

#hannibal meta #will graham #hannibal lecter #hannigram #bryan fuller #season 3 #the wrath of the lamb #Anonymous #bear answers #yes i am attempting to get my fandom life back together again #going to try to get several meta posts done this week #and finish a story #*crosses fingers*#long post for ts

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