Chapter Text
Fall time in the state of Virginia was aways pleasantly cold and crisp. The sight of the changing leaves were nature's treat for the eyes and an annual reminder that the seasons were cycling once again. There were many things to like about Virginia during these times. There were many things to like about Virginia in general, what with their beautiful, diverse landscapes from the famous Appalachian mountain range to the popular Virginia Beach coastline and their oh so rich place in American history.
The state motto is Sic semper tyrannis roughly translating to "thus always to tyrants". In contemporary parlance, it meant tyrannical leaders will inevitably be overthrown. The phrase also suggests that bad but justified outcomes should, or eventually will, befall tyrants. Victory would go to the people. Such a powerful motto for the state. But for one particular person, she was feeling anything but victorious.
A feminine figure draped in a dark blue coat donning a large hat of roughly the same color, walks slowly and awkwardly through the streets of Quantico on a cane. While the people around her, dressed in their best suits, quickly bustled about around her, she alone was moving at a snail's pace. Eventually she reaches her destination and hesitantly looks up at the sign of the building she's far too familiar with.
FBI Academy
Once she enters the building, she goes through the usual protocols of checks and security. She hands over her purse and wallet as well as her cane. When she goes through the metal detector, it goes off with a loud beep.
"Ma'am please come back", the security guard gestures to her.
She turns around to him and knocks on her left side with her knuckles. He nods as he raises his hand in confirmation and let's the security guard on the other side with the handheld metal detector attend to her instead. Once she clears her, she gathers her belongings and goes on her way. Up the elevator, through the halls, and into a certain room where she's met with a few men in suits. They waste no time offering her a chair and getting some recording equipment together.
“State your name for the record please”, one of them requests as he turns on the tape recorder.
The woman hesitantly opens her lips, but doesn't speak.
“Ma’am?”
A separate agent behind her offers to take her hat and coat, a sign of common courtesy, but also to make her comfortable for this godforsaken interview she agreed to. She removes her hat first, revealing long locks of wavy blonde hair and sky blue eyes, and then came her coat. The agents across from her look her up then down, not to check her out, but to see the scars that she had supposedly been left with. As their sources have documented, the woman before them is indeed missing her left leg above the knee, a crude metallic prosthetic now in the place of what was once flesh. The agent with the recorder looks her in the eyes, then down at his report and repeats himself.
“State your name for the record please”
This time the woman obliges.
“Dr. Bedelia…Du Maurier”, she starts out slowly with a tremor in her voice.
“I am here to report…on Hannibal Lecter…and Will Graham”
~~~~~~
3 MONTHS EARLIER
~~~~~~
Will Graham had never believed in the afterlife. He never even believed in God. But if this is what death felt like, then it was anything, but merciless.
If what the good book said was true, then he should have been freed of all of his burdens and groaning experienced as a living being on earth. Except he was doing a whole lot of groaning. Because he still felt every ache and every pain that a mortal body would feel in its flesh and bones. Maybe even beyond that. Whatever he was feeling on the outside, he felt tenfold, maybe a hundred-fold on the inside. It doesn't take him long to realize the truth. That he was still very much alive. And apparently not alone either.
Though he had yet to open his eyes, he could undoubtedly feel another presence in whatever space he was currently in. He couldn't be sure where he was, but given the heavy sensation of his body sinking into something soft underneath him, he was likely in a hospital. He had after all, been in this position several times before. The faint beeping noises surrounding him could only support his hypothesis. That was until, the presence spoke to him.
“Are you awake?”, a familiar feminine voice reaches his eardrums. He shakily lifts his lids and looks up to the dimly lit lights above him. Despite his senses still being in a state of disarray, he's able to register the soft, wooden tone as belonging to Chiyoh. He jerks his eyes to move in her direction, but can only see a black shadowy blob approaching him, then abruptly stopping once at his bedside. She leans ever so closely to his face until they can practically feel each other's breath on their lips. He can see her much more clearly now.
“Good”, her ebony eyes locks with his as she smiles, showing teeth.
A split second later, he's met with a violent and powerful blow to the face. He grunts loudly, fairly sure he heard the sound of bones crunching upon impact. Blood spatters from his mouth as he coughs and gasps, speckling the blue sheets with deep crimson drops that quickly soak into the fabric. Will takes shallow breaths, shaking from the sudden sharp pain radiating in his cheek. The sensation coupled with the metallic taste filling his mouth triggers a jarring reaction in his brain. His eyes gradually widen as the red on the sheets overlap with flash memories of darkness. It's all coming back to him now. The slaying of the Great Red Dragon in a ritualistic dance of death.
Him stabbing Dolarhyde’s heart with his own dagger from the front. Hannibal viciously ripping his throat out from the rear. The blood that was spilled onto the ground and splashed onto them both. The moonlight had made it look oh so black.
“See? This is all I’ve ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us”
”It’s beautiful”, he remembers whispering to him in pure ecstasy before pushing them both off the cliff.
Then came the sensation of the chilling ocean waves taking them down under, putting them completely at nature's mercy. Everything thereafter is pitch black, like a film strip snipped mid-way during a viewing in the cinema. There is nothing. And panic quickly begins to set in.
“Where’s Hannibal?”, he dares ask. But instead of an answer, Chiyoh shoots him an icy glare and quickly walks out of the room, leaving him by himself. He feels his heart sink into his stomach and his hands beginning to sweat. His eyes dance around in their sockets as he thinks of the impossible.
Did he actually kill Hannibal Lecter?
The possibility of it makes his heart beat so fast that he feels the room spin. He almost instinctively begins searching the room for clues; medical equipment, bloody used bandages, and another medical bed in the distance away from him. Except theres no sign that it had been used recently. All signs pointing towards nothing promising.
Just as he thinks he'll have to resign himself to the truth, he spots a small creature standing in the center of the room, looking directly at him. A small, raven-colored deer, young and barely able to stand on its own. Will stares into its deep, dark eyes, seeing his own reflection peering straight back at him. He can't help, but feel perplexed at its minuscule and mediocre form. It was certainly no stag. But it is a confirmation.
He pulls the covers off of himself and slides out of his bed onto the floor, all while maintaining eye contact with the deer. He rips the medical equipment off of himself and hobbles himself over to the creature. It twitches its ears and tilts its head curiously at him. He tries to reach out to it, but when he comes inches away from touching it, it turns its back on him and begins trotting away.
He feels inclined to call out to it, but soon realizes the best thing to do is follow wherever it was going. And so he does just that. He trails the deer outside of the room and out into the halls of whatever behemoth of a structure he's found himself in. Despite its black hue, he has no trouble spotting it in the darkness and he can hear its hooves echoing quite clearly. After what seems like an eternity, the deer turns a corner and seemingly disappears into the moonlight. Will follows its tracks and finds himself in a vast garden encased by large stones.
He looks around in search of the deer, but soon finds a figure sitting on a marble bench in the distance looking up at the sky. Will moves a few steps closer to get a better look, but already knows exactly what or rather who he’s looking at. The tall, imposing figure registers his presence and turns towards him, curving his lips into a familiar smile.
”Hello Will”
~~~~~~
Will stands still, continuing to stare at the man before him. He instantly feels himself filling up with a multitude of contrasting emotions; relief, distress, calm, anxiousness, contentment, dread, and an overwhelming sensation of derealization taking over him. He can’t find the words to speak as his lips part and tremble. Hannibal no doubt notices this and continues to speak in his silence.
“It is good to see that you are awake”, he says quite nonchalantly as if he isn't covered head to toe in cuts in bruises. Will stumbles as he takes a few steps forward, closing the distance between them, still unable to process if this is another figment of his imagination or not.
“It feels like I’m in a dream”, he finally manages, nearly choking on his words.
“Your mind has yet to adjust", Hannibal chuckles a bit before switching to doctor mode. "You sustained some fairly heavy injuries. Though...I don’t recall you having a broken nose”, he furrows his brows, curious at the new and still very fresh wound on Will's face.
“Chiyoh…punched me in the face when I woke up”, he attempts a sniffle out of his blood-filled nostrils. The doctor raises his brows in amusement before giving a small nod of satisfaction.
“Good for her”
“Allow me to set it for you. Come, sit”, he scoots over a bit to give Will space to come next to him. He quickly obliges and shuffles over to sit on the marble seat. He flinches when the cold surface makes contact with his sensitively bruised skin and again when Hannibal begins examining his nose with his fingers. He's familiar with pain, maybe even intimately acquainted with it. But he'll never get used to it.
"This garden is one of my favorite places in the estate”, Hannibal begins to explains as he angles his face to get a better look at Chiyoh’s handy work.“It’s one of the few places where you can bask directly in the moonlight while still remaining within its walls. Quite ethereal”
True to his word, the garden was something incredibly surreal. The elements were Victorian in nature, but also had a certain gothic appeal to it. Everything the moonlight touched, even the moths fluttering around, appeared to be glowing. It was as if the space itself was taken from another dimension and brought to this very place. The silence was absolutely serene. But it wouldn't last for long.
“Aren’t you going to say anything about it?” Will practically slices the air with his words, annoyed that Hannibal seems to purposely be avoiding the obvious.
“Did you want me to?”
He decides not to answer to that, now thoroughly regretting even asking him in the first place. He would’ve never gotten a straight answer anyways. He rarely if ever does from this man. He winces as Hannibal presses his thumbs on opposite sides of his nose, trying to get a good grip on the shattered bone.
“There is nothing to be said Will” he says, seemingly clarifying his stance on remaining passive about past events. “I understand your actions just as much as you would understand mine”.
Without warning, he jerks his nose back to its proper position, causing Will to yelp rather loudly.
“Good as new”, the doctor smiles, nodding at a job well done, while his "patient" holds his face with his eyes squeezed shut from the sheer magnitude of the pain. With the bone now properly in place, fresh and old blood alike begins dripping into Will's hands. He slowly peels his fingers off of his face and looks at his shaking palms, seeing a very familiar sight. Blood truly does look black in the moonlight. And he can't help but admit that it's beautiful.
“Where do we go from here?”, Will asks. A simple yet very complex question that's vital to their future.
“Where would you like to go?”
“I don’t know”
He truly didn't. He didn't even know what to think of the fact that he and Hannibal are still alive. Everything about that fateful night was moving moment by moment in an ebb and flow of contradictory patterns. And now, he feels a disturbing amount of calm stillness. What's he to do about that?
“I have a few ideas" Hannibal proposes. "But first let us heal physically”
Yeah. That sounded good.
"Does it intimidate you?", Hannibal asks, limping quite rigidly on what may possible be two broken legs. Maybe even a broken spine and a few shattered ribs given that he hit the water first. Not to mention that initial bullet wound through the gut. His abnormal pain tolerance makes it hard to tell even if he looks worse off between the two of them.
"It's eerie...but oddly calming", Will looks up at the buttresses above him as he passes them by. It turns out that this massive structure he was in was the estate of the Count Robertus Lecter in France. It also happened to be another home that Hannibal Lecter had grown up in. Another hall of his beginnings that he was now quite literally stumbling through. A feeling of deja vu floats around in Will's mind. What was it with Lecters and castles?
Hannibal stares at Will pleasantly, the same way he always does when his mind is elsewhere and he's looking at anything, but him; up, then down, then up again as he grins. But his lips soon fall into a frown and he turns away from him.
“Will, I must advise you to not to leave my side during our stay here”, he says quite abruptly. Will looks to him, raising a brow in annoyance. Despite the lack of context, he was pretty sure he knew what he meant.
“Keeping me on a leash?”
But Hannibal doesn't chuckle, not even a little bit. Instead his face is stern, concerned even. “It is very easy to get lost within these walls", he starts to explain to him. "You may find yourself in places you do not wish to be. Or cannot escape”
Will can only stare at him in confusion. Again, the man doesn't give him a straight answer and sticks to his metaphors and allegories. Even if he was speaking in literal terms, he isn't exactly sure what to do with that information. If anything, it just annoys him even more, so he decides to change the subject to something a bit more concrete.
“How did we get here?”
“Chiyoh brought us here by boat", Hannibal suddenly perks up. "I performed first aid on the both of us until we could get to land”. That was a clear of an answer as he was ever going to get from him. But some part of it didn't seem to make sense. Something was off.
“How did she even know where to-”
It was then that Will came to a rather startling conclusion. Even if Hannibal did manage to pull them both out of the ocean after their descent, the timing of their escape just seemed too perfect. The only way this could have possibly worked out was if Chiyoh had been aware of all of Hannibal's activities since his escape from the hospital. Maybe for even longer than that. Her loyalty to him is, after all, unbound.
“How long was she watching us?”, he asks the older man quite directly in a low tone. He's not even surprised when he looks back at him with a stupidly wide grin.
“Bold of you to assume she had ever stopped”
The hair on the back of Will's neck prick up at the sound of those words. He slowly turns his head to look around, at every window, every rooftop, expecting to see the glint of a sniper telescope aimed at him. He shudders a bit, feeling an old ache from his right shoulder. He decides right then and there that it's best to shut up and stop questioning Hannibal. At least for now.
After quite a long walk down many a corridors, the two men make it back to their room. Will is first to enter, but stops in his tracks.
“Oh”
There in the room was a slender East Asian woman sitting in one of the stools. She donned a long, flowing cream colored white robe with intricate red bird and floral patterns and her jet black hair was tied into a loose bun. She shared many similar features with Chiyoh, but appeared to be around the same age as Hannibal. And she was…gorgeous. So much so that Will is left speechless.
“We uh…must’ve gotten…the wrong room”, he stammers.
“Nonsense. I have been expecting you Mr. Graham”, the woman stands and walks towards him. She speaks in an accent identical to Chiyoh’s, but with a much softer tone. It’s airy and comforting to the ears.
“Will, this is my aunt. The Lady Murasaki”, Hannibal introduces her with a slight smile.
Will widens his eyes and looks at Hannibal then back to the woman. He had heard of her in his conversations with him back in Baltimore, but never expected her to look like she did. He didn’t even expect for him to have any living relatives. Or ones he remained in contact with for the matter.
“It’s…nice to meet you”, he awkwardly extends his aching arm. But Murasaki moves well past his hand and closes in on him. Will nearly stops breathing when she places her hand on his chin.
“You are healing quite nicely my dear”, she tilts his chin from side to side to get a better look at his face, conveniently ignoring the fresh wound that was made there a mere hour or so ago. She doesn’t break eye contact with him or rather he couldn’t look away from her. It was like she had paralyzed him with her gaze alone. “You did not wake for several weeks. You had Hannibal quite worried”
It’s only when she lets go of his face that Will realizes what she had just said. He had been out for weeks, not days. His sense of time was definitely off. Murasaki chuckles softly at his confusion, covering her mouth with her sleeve.
“There is much I wish to discuss with the both of you, but first some sustenance. You must be quite famished”
He hadn’t thought about it, but now that he was awake, Will couldn’t help but notice that his stomach was completely empty. He could practically feel it touching his spine. Food sounded pretty good right now.
“Chiyoh will be here shortly with something to eat”, Murasaki assured the two of them before gracefully leaving the room with a smile. And just like that, she was gone.
“She seems nice”, Will remarks in a whisper.
“Yes, she is. But do not let appearances fool you”, Hannibal smirks.
“Who do you think taught Chiyoh and I our skills in marksmanship and martial arts?”
Speak of the devil. A good thirty minutes after their encounter with Murasaki, her attendant comes into the room with a cart carrying food. Will makes no attempts to hide his animosity towards her for her past transgressions.
“Chiyoh”
“Will Graham”
The two of them stare each other down for a good minute while Hannibal looks at them both with a smile. Of course he was enjoying this. Chiyoh breaks eye contact first and strolls into the room, uncovering the lid, revealing a soup of sorts.
“Zuppa Toscana. Bread soup with kale and potatoes”, she announces, serving first to Hannibal who’s seated in front of a coffee table and then Will who’s sitting up in his bed.
“Enjoy”, she says without so much as a smile.
“Thank you Chiyoh”, Hannibal nods to her with a smile before she exits the room with as much grace as her Lady.
Will stares at the dish in front of him. With how his nose is now, he can’t really smell if anything is off. He takes his spoon and shifts through the liquid dubiously, looking for maybe a worm or even crushed beetles.
“Rest assured. She has not tampered with your food”, Hannibal takes a bite to prove his point.
He sighs and decides to dig in. To his surprise, it’s very good. Simple and hearty like country styled soup. He continues to take spoonfuls into his mouth as Hannibal chuckles.
”Zuppa toscana originated in Tuscany in the 1800s. Its ancestor is minestra di pane and was originally created as a way to not let leftover stale bread go to waste for those in poverty”
If Will weren’t so tired right now, he would roll his eyes. He’s become accustomed to Hannibal making every meal a culinary art history lesson, but he’s also learned that over time it becomes quite an earful. He once even mentioned that trout was a “Nietzschen fish” of all things. Like that made any sense.
“Legend has it that Leonardo da Vinci himself ate this dish. I’m glad you like it”
“Better than your ‘soup’ in Florence”, Will mutters back, knowing full well that it’ll shut him right up. It does.
They eat in silence for a while as the bitterness simmers in the air. There's many things in their history that have never been spoken about and left unresolved, this being just one of them. For Will, it was more or less an impulsive jab for an attempt for some peace and quiet. For Hannibal, it seemed to be a bit more.
“It is a shame that it was the last dish that I had prepared for you”, he remarks in a tone laced with a certain sorrow which Will picks up immediately. Now the silence he had craved for was becoming unbearably awkward, so he decides to humor him by continuing the conversation.
“How much does your aunt and uncle know about you?”, he asks with genuine curiosity.
“Everything. I have hidden nothing from them”
Will raises his brows skeptically as he takes another bite of soup. “Your aunt seems to take it in stride”
“Yes. Though it was not always the case”
He hums, still very much taking Hannibal’s words with a grain of salt given his history of telling half truths and whole lies. But since the floor was open, he decides to dig further.
“And your uncle?”
“He tolerates me”
Will blinks a few times in response to his answer. “Tolerate” was a strange word to use when it came to him in any capacity. Whatever relationship Hannibal had with his uncle, it was definitely a strange one.
“I take it you two don’t exactly get along”, he eyes him from the side, trying not to get too caught up in the mystery.
“I prefer to limit our interactions to the bare essentials and pleasantries. For his sake and mine”, Hannibal huffs out his nose.
Tension. That’s what Will feels in this relationship. That’s something he can definitely relate to when it comes to having any sort of relationship with Hannibal Lecter. If he can make Hannibal feel this way, then Robertus Lecter must be one hell of an entity.
It was definitely intriguing.
~~~~~~
“You and Murasaki seem to be doing well”, Hannibal remarks as he attempts to chop vegetables on a cutting board, his arms still healing from their bruising and atrophy from lack of use. Chiyoh, donning her uniformed black and white dress, assists him in the kitchen with his culinary occupational rehabilitation.
“The Lady and I had much to catch up on. I was relieved to know that she had not changed much over the years”, she answers, picking up the vegetables and putting them in a bowl for later.
“Yes. It’s one of her greatest qualities”, he affirms while panting and sweating. Doing anything while injured was quite taxing, but he had to rebuild his strength. The last few weeks, he had mostly remained still in his room to rest, but also to keep an eye on Will who had remained in a coma. Other than that, he spent days in the garden to relax and stretch out his legs.
Chiyoh hands him a dry towel to wipe off his sweat. He immediately takes it for use then turns on the sink to wash his hands. The sound of running water fills in for the vast silence in the room. Chiyoh’s eyes gradually go blank, memories of the past seemingly grabbing her away from the present moment.
“Do you resent me for leaving you in a cage? Unable to go home?”, Hannibal asks without looking at her, snapping her out of her trance.
Chiyoh takes a deep breath in and breathes out. “I have given it much thought…but no. This is home”.Her expression then hardens into something else entirely.
”Though I do resent your choice in…acquaintances”, she enunciates the word as she looks at Will who’s sitting at a table not too far away. He turns to look at her, but she snaps her head away and turns off the sink tap.
“You seem to not like Will. Tell me why”, Hannibal asks intrigued, wiping his hands on a dry towel.
“What is there to like about him?”, she immediately hisses back.
“Many if you get to know him”
“The last time we got to know each other, he tried to help me ‘open my mind’ ”, she widens her eyes as she begins peeling potatoes. “I returned the favor by pushing him off a train”
Hannibal smiles proudly, reminiscing of the moment Will informed him of her deed in the Uffizi Gallery.
“And the broken nose?”, he leans his head closer to her, hoping to hear something interesting. She turns her head with a silent rage in her eyes.
“A warning”
He leans back and raises his brows affirming her actions.
“Point taken”
~~~~~~
Will stood in front of the mirror in his and Hannibal's room. It had been the first time that he had taken a good look at himself in a while. His hair had grown out, but his face was clean shaven, likely to keep the hair from growing over the wound on his cheek. The stitches had already been removed and a pink, raised scar was now in its place. He pulls open his gown, revealing a multitude of wounds in different states of healing. Some bruises, some cuts, and some with stitches still lodged in his skin. He looks like hell.
“Do your wounds bother you?”, a seemingly disembodied voice speaks to him. Will snaps his head around to see Hannibal a distance away, there in the flesh. He blinks once to make sure he's actually there, before turning back around.
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around it", he covers himself up. "That this is real. All of it”
Hannibal smirks as he slowly walks towards him with his hands behind his back. “Scars are powerful things aren’t they? They have the power to remind us that the past was real. And you now have quite the collection of scars”. He comes directly behind him, both of their reflections now clearly in the mirror, lips nearly touching his ear.
“It’s best to never forget who gave you the best of them”, he whispers, sending a shudder down Will's spine. He winces as he recalls all the injuries he received from Dolarhyde that night. Every stab. Every blow. He glares at Hannibal's reflection in anger, knowing he chose the exact moment, the exact words to trigger this reaction in him. The other man stares at him in the mirror with a rather blank expression.
“Do you regret not dying, Will?”, he asks him, eagerly awaiting his answer.
“No”, he says back almost immediately.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life”