Title: Writing the Handbook
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Sequel to "Outlook Stormy."
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.
***
There was no handbook for what he was trying to do.There were no rules to follow, no path that had already been blazed that he could stride down. He was making this up as he went along, hoping that he was doing the right thing.
Will sighed softly, running a hand through his hair as he glanced towards the doorway. In just a few moments, Hannibal would here, ready to start their session.
Could Hannibal see through him? Was there some subtle change in his attitude, some things that he did or said that let the other man know how repulsed Will was by just being around him? Was it possible that Hannibal was on to him, and was simply playing a game of cat and mouse?
If that had happened, then Will knew his life didn't mean much any more. Hannibal was simply waiting to deliver the coup de grace, to take his life and discard him.
His lips thinned into a straight line, his eyes narrowing. He wasn't going to let that happen. He wasn't going to let this .... this animal defeat him.
Hannibal was going down, and WIll would be the instrument of that defeat.
This kind of evil couldn't be allowed to keep existing in the world, roaming free and harming innocent people. Hannibal had gotten away with that for far too long.
It was past time for his evil to be put behind bars, to be neutralized. Will himself had suffered for it, and there were so many others who had died by Hannibal's hand who hadn't deserved that fate. He was going to avenge all of them, and he would have no qualms about doing so.
Tonight was the night that he planned to take his supposed "transformation" one step further, to make Hannibal think that he had turned into the conscienceless killer he was pretending to be.
The next step of his plan would be put into motion.
Once Hannibal actually believed that he was a killer, that he could and would kill without regrets, he would be one step closer to telling Will what he himself had done.
And once Will had any kind of a confession from Hannibal about the Chesapeake Ripper murders, then he could make an arrest. He was an FBI agent, after all, and he didn't have to be with other agents when he arrested a suspect -- especially if he had a definite confession.
He wanted that confession so badly he could almost taste it, feel the words on his own tongue. He wanted nothing so much as to hear those words coming from Hannibal's thin lips.
But again, there was no handbook for what he was trying to do. He had no idea of how to get that confession to come out, or even if it ever would.
And if it didn't, then his entire plan went up in flames. He needed that confession from Hannibal; everything that he wanted to do centered around that. If Hannibal wouldn't talk about the atrocities he'd committed, if he kept his crimes to himself, then Will's plan crumbled to dust.
Without that confession, he had nothing. There would be no way to keep Hannibal behind bars, or even to convince anyone else that he was the Chesapeake Ripper.
He had convinced Jack, but Will wondered how long that would last.
Jack was along for the ride at the moment, but there was no telling how long he would stay there. And no one else was going to believe him without solid evidence.
Chilton and Beverly both had -- and look where it had gotten them. Oh, Hannibal might not have killed Chilton with his own hands, but he had set up the scenario that had put the man behind bars in his own institution, and he might as well have pulled that trigger rather than Miriam Lass.
Hannibal had set everything up so carefully and skillfully that there were no gaps, no seams, no way for Will to find a way into those scenarios and tear them apart, expose Hannibal's part in them.
But Will didn't want those people to have died for nothing.
He wanted their deaths to be attributed to the monster who had killed them, laid squarely on his head. He wanted the world to know just what Hannibal Lecter was.
He was the only person who could unmask the reptilian monster he was dealing with. No one else knew Hannibal in the way that he did -- and Hannibal wasn't obsessed with anyone else.
That was the most frightening part of this -- knowing that he was the object of a cannibalistic murderer's obsession. But even though it terrified him to realize just what he had gotten himself into, he would see it through until the end. He had no other choice now. He was in too deep.
And he wanted to see this through. He wanted revenge for himself, too. He wanted to see Hannibal in the same place that he'd been such a short time ago.
He wanted Hannibal to feel the same despair he'd felt, to know what it was like to lose his freedom and to think that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Though that wouldn't really be ample revenge. Nothing would.
If only there was some kind of guide to help him! But it was no use wishing for something that he couldn't have. He would have to do this on his own.
He would just have to write his own handbook as he went along with this, and hope that it would stand him in good stead. Will closed his eyes, gathering his resolve around him like a suit of armor. In the distance, he could hear footsteps coming back to the room he occupied.
He would sit here and talk to Hannibal, and hope that he could hide his true feelings and his intentions. If he couldn't, then he was in more danger than he had thought he would be.
Opening his eyes, he turned his head to face Hannibal as his nemesis entered the room.
***
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