Title: House of Cards
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Table: Missing Moments Challenge, tv_universe
Author's Note: Sequel to "Unexpected Changes."
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.
***
Will looked around him, breathing a sigh of relief.He and Freddie had played their parts well; he wondered if somehow Hannibal could have been watching, if he had seen everything that had happened.
That was why they had decided to make sure they played out their plan, why they'd tried to make everything look as real as possible, just in case Hannibal had been following him and might have seen all that had taken place. Btu now, that didn't seem to be a possibility.
Or maybe that was just because he didn't want anyone to see what he had supposedly done, even if it was all an act with no reality to it.
He hated to think about what he had appeared to do; it was so foreign to who he was that he couldn't imagine himself actually going through with it. Killing a person wasn't something that he ever wanted to have on his conscience; he didn't think he could ever take a life.
Well, he had taken a life before, to save another life. But Garrett Jacob Hobbs had bee a murderer; he was going to kill his own daughter.
He didn't regret taking that life. He'd done it for the right reasons.
He and Freddie had put on this show to capture Hannibal, to lure him into a trap that he wouldn't be able to squirm his way out of.
This was only phase one, he cautioned himself. This had been the easiest part, really; the harder parts of their plan would come later, when he had to act and convince Hannibal that he was turning into a killer, that he was becoming exactly like Hannibal himself.
That was going to be the hardest thing he'd ever done. Even though he knew what it was like to be inside a killer's mind, it would be extremely difficult to act like one.
But he didn't have a choice in the matter.
He was the only one who could do this, the only one who could make the plan to flush Hannibal out into the open work. Hannibal didn't want anyone else as a protégé, he only wanted Will. And in this instance, they had to give the bastard what he wanted.
So he had to force himself to pretend that Hannibal was his friend, that he accepted a monster as a mentor, that he was on Hannibal's side.
He had to try to pretend that he was turning into something so foreign from his true nature that it made his skin crawl just to think about it.
If he didn't, then more people would die -- and he would feel that those deaths were on his watch, that they weighed heavily on his conscience, simply because he hadn't been able to implement the plan that he himself had come up with.
He had to force himself to act like Hannibal, as distasteful as it was.
The thought of becoming a killer, of being anything like Hannibal, was enough to turn his stomach. That was the last thing he would ever be.
Yet he somehow had to convince Hannibal that he was becoming a killer, that he was mesmerized by the way that Hannibal went about it, that he wanted to learn. He had to make his nemesis believe that he had shed all of his morals, all of his beliefs.
That wouldn't be easy for him to do; he'd never thought he was that good at dissembling. But he would force himself to do it, no matter how difficult it was for him.
He would do it for Abigail, and for all of Hannibal's other victims.
And he would also be doing it for himself. This would be his ultimate payback for all that Hannibal had done to him, for every wrong that he'd suffered.
Hannibal would end up behind bars, where he had always belonged. He would never be able to hurt another person, never be able to deceive anyone again. No one would ever suffer as Will had suffered, as the friends and families of Hannibal's victims had suffered.
Will's head jerked up as he got into his car; was that a flash of movement he'd seen amongst the trees in the woods? Was someone there, watching him?
Could it possibly be Hannibal in the woods? Could that monster have seen everything that had taken place, that macabre scenario that he and Freddie had played out for his benefit? If that was the case, then it hadn't been a wasted effort.
He sincerely hoped that if it was Hannibal, the bastard wouldn't go into that barn. If he did, there was a good chance that their plan would go awry.
He closed the door and started the engine, closing his eyes for a moment.
So far, everything had gone according to plan. Hannibal was starting to believe in his ruse; he was sure of it. Now he just had to keep it up, to make the monster believe that he was becoming the same kind of monster, that they were kindred spirits.
If he couldn't, the whole house of cards would come tumbling down around them.
***
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