Chapter Text
He’s the kind of person you would want to push simply to see what would happen.
Will Graham, very good at appearing harmless, sits at the table with his pale, dusky, vibrant features, and the dark shadows under his eyes and translucent skin gave him the impression of a nightmarish insomniac.
The sunlight streaming through the plate-glass windows of the cafe is warm, almost hot, a comfort to the dead world of a chilly spring in the countryside. Will has his eyes closed, enjoying the sunlight against his skin, lost in the solitary of the empty restaurant. The hum of the fluorescent lights is giving him the undertones of a headache, but not one bad enough to justify the aspirin bottle burning a hole in his jeans pocket.
It’s nice that his cop shift just ended, but on a Friday night in this tiny town, Will’s got nowhere else to be at. The only waitress on duty watches him with kind of a wary good humor- he tends to hang out here after his shift because the coffee doesn’t suck. He’s already changed out of his police uniform. Not much of a use for the K-9 unit in this area, so his workload has been rather undisturbed lately.
Today, as the sun starts to lengthen shadows on the asphalt in the parking lot and white background noises of the highway and broken refrigerators fills the loneliness of twilight; the peace is broken by a tinny whine, which strengthens into a gas-fueled roar. Will opens his eyes in surprise to watch several black motorcycles sweep into the lot like angels of death descending upon the unworthy. Sharp black boots kick the bike stands out and the patch on the back of each leather jacket is a picture of a red stag with the words “HUNTSMEN” emblazoned beneath it, except for one jacket, festooned with the title “CANNIBAL” above the stag.
The group of bikers tramp into the cafe, bell announcing their presence, and spread out into the booths with a clamor one usually associate with a herd of horses. They look as out of place in this nowhere town as ink staining clear water, and none of them notice the cop who pretends to keep his eyes down.
Only one man, however, sees the flick of dark blue eyes taking in as much as possible, admiring these fatales whose boots snap like gunshots against the linoleum.
“We’ll be headed to the bar later, right?” An Asian woman with dark hair calls. She passes too close to Will’s table and knocks his beer bottle over. The shattering of glass and liquid splashing the floor is extremely loud. He jumps up to get napkins.
“Im so sorry!” The Asian woman cries, partly to the waitress and to Will.
“It’s okay,” Will responds as he scrambles out of the booth to help clean up. “Accident-”
Suddenly the pair of boots Will had been watching come forward and stop in front of him, and the man with the ‘CANNIBAL’ jacket crouches down and is cleaning up the broken bottle pieces.
He looks up at Will, who puts the pile of napkins in his hands. The man wipes up the beer as best he can before the waitress comes over with a mop.
“Hannibal Lecter,” the man says to Will, standing up and stepping closer to him to give the waitress more space. “A pleasure to meet you.”
Will looks at the rim of his thick glasses, pretending he’s looking at Hannibal, and clears his throat. He doesn’t actually need to wear glasses like this, but uses them to avoid eye contact. It’s been pretty successful so far; he’s only had to look directly at one person this week. A record.
“New in town?” He asks, backing up marginally because this man is way too close. Hannibal smells like motorcycle exhaust and cigarettes- and a leathery cologne Will wants to bury his face in for some reason.
“I am,” Hannibal says, standing still for a moment, and Will can feel the biker’s eyes upon his plaid shirt, the dark veins in his arms, and the shadows under his eyes. He knows he should be making eye contact and being pleasant- why the hell is this guy talking to him anyways?-but he’s frozen in place like a rabbit in front of a car. Like a rabbit stuck watching headlights bearing down from a 16-wheeler semi.
Little rabbit Will manages a smile and notices Hannibal’s gang is spreading out supplies on the table- they’ve got rope, bleach, trash bags-
Will’s mouth moves faster than his rational thought, and to his horror he hears himself saying, “Planning a killing spree?”
Hannibal follows his eyes to the gang. Will expects an awkward explanation, quickly assuring him it’s not what it looks like, but to his surprise Hannibal chuckles and responds, “Perhaps.”
Will is so surprised his looks up and meets brown eyes, so light they’re almost red, like sunlight shining through a glass of wine. There is nothing going on behind them. They have the flat stare of a shark, predatory and hungry.
Will’s cordial, awkward cheer hits a brick wall. His stomach is twisted into something acid and fearful. But he is caught and held by the way Hannibal’s pupils widen in what is unmistakable attraction. Rabbit Will’s breath is caught somewhere between his lungs and his lips, brain telling him to put obscene distance between himself and this man. He struggles to come up with a proper response, struggles to remember what social protocol deems appropriate in this situation.
“Can I buy you another drink?” Hannibal asks, still looking at him.
Will, in a daze, shakes his head and turns around, gathers his coat up. “I’m good.” He says. “Thanks anyways.”
He squeezes past Hannibal and almost slips on the slick residue of the beer. Hannibal shifts to catch him but Will steadies himself and hustles outside before he can embarrass himself further.
He fumbles with his keys by his car and watches while the rest of the biker gang purchases a creative variety of alcohol, and the Asian woman talks to the waitress and hands over what Will assumes is compensation for the broken bottle. Will can see Hannibal talking to a blonde woman, and he ducks down beside his car when the two of them turn to the windows. He wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans and puts his face in his palms, considering something stupid, potentially embarrassing, and a little bit dangerous.
Under here, face-to-face with his reflection in the driver door, he wishes his eyes weren’t so bright, shining feverishly in the dusk. Maybe it’s a fever that is driving him to do this. Maybe it’s just a severe lack of caring. Whatever.
He stands up and gets into his car, takes one last glance at the biker gang in the cafe, and twists his key in the ignition.
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The bar is crowded and hot and way too loud, already bumping and rolling with people dancing and spilling their drinks and generally making a riot of themselves. The bartenders look like they’ve been sampling every drink they pass along, laughing and arguing with the masses around the bar. Will is the only one not covered in tattoos or wearing leather.
He feels small and out of place, pale and skinny and not very intimidating. This bar is known for its violent fights, so Will usually avoids coming in because the police force is preyed upon here. Off-duty cops get dragged off and beaten without time to call for backup. He pretends to belong, though, walking in with a confidence he doesn't feel. He thinks he’s pretty good at pretending. Been doing it his whole life.
Once he finds himself pressed to the bar, Will orders a whiskey and swallows a generous mouthful as soon as the glass touches his hand, looking over the crowds and searching for one specific set of auburn eyes.
This isn’t the only bar that tumbleweed bikers frequent, so he’s surprised when he spots the clan of black leather riders in the corner, standing around and smoking. Hannibal is there, leaning against the wall and scanning the crowds too, and when Hannibal’s eyes meet Will’s he doesn’t look especially surprised. He takes a drag of his cigarette, the red burning end lighting up his face for a moment, and exhales a curl of smoke from his lips when he turns to talk to someone beside him.
Will orders another whiskey for courage, and has barely lifted it to his lips when somebody is pushed into him and the tumbler smashes into his mouth. He spits out broken glass, mouth bleeding, and turns to see a man with a buzz-cut smirking at him.
“I know you.” The man shouts over the music. “Fucking cop.”
The word ‘cop’ draws attention. People turn to them, interested now.
“Hey, yeah,” someone else calls. “His buddy got me the other day on route 50.”
“We don’t fucking need a cop here.” Will is pushed from behind into the buzz-cut man, who shoves him back.
Will doesn’t think, just reacts, throwing a clumsy punch that barely glances off the man’s shoulder, but buzz-cut dude punches him right back, a heavy fist to Will’s stomach that knocks the wind out of him. Will pretends to falter, and Buzz-cut gets cheered on by his buddies as Will doubles over. While the attention is on Buzz-cut, Will regains his breath and stands up to shove the man, hard, into a bar stool which tips over with a crash, trapping Buzz-cut underneath.
Will is suddenly aware that the entire bar had gone quiet, watching the spat, and when it is obvious the fight is over hoots and hollers announce Will as the winner.
Somebody pulls the heavy barstool off of Buzz-cut and he comes back at Will, humiliated and angry now, but Will ducks behind a larger man and dives into the crowd, swims along until he finds himself at the bathroom. Besides the broken glass dripping down his chest, his whole shirt is soaked with blood and whiskey, but no one notices the way he’s bleeding onto the floor as he squeezes by.
At least the distraction worked. Everyone has seemed to forgotten law enforcement in their midst.
In the dirty mirror of the noticeably quieter bathroom, he checks his lip, which is split in four different places and gushing blood, along with a slit along the side of his tongue, which is also bleeding heavily. He finds a roll of spare toilet paper in the stall and stuffs a cheek with it, looking like a root canal survivor or a particularly angry chipmunk. There’s not much he can do about the blood on his shirt, but he takes it off anyways and tries to wash the whiskey off in the sink. The paper towel dispenser is, of course, empty, so he just wrings out the shirt and sniffs at it, and then washes it again. The bathroom is chilly and goosebumps rise up along his body.
He eventually puts his damp shirt back on, examining it in the mirror and decides that most of the bloodstains on his shoulders and chest aren’t that noticeable. He takes out the toilet paper and rinses his mouth with nasty tap water, spits blood back into the grimy sink.
Returning to the club, Will is rethinking this adventure, since Hannibal and his gang seem to have disappeared into the dark of the dancefloor and the crowds are getting rougher. There is more pushing and knocking, more beer and sweat and who knows what else slicking the floor, plus his new friend Buzz-cut has just spotted him and is now coming across the room.
Will crouches behind a table and blends into a group of college yuppies, waiting until Buzz-cut has lost him before he ducks through several sets of doors and pushes out the backdoor into the alley behind the club.
The garbage cans back here are overflowing with cigarette butts and- gross, are those used condoms? There’s a couple of motorbikes back here too, standing in a row.
Will leans against the brick wall and takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, his headache throbbing painfully now. Above him, a tiny light buzzes, surrounded by moths. His breath is misty in the evening dark.
He didn’t know what he was looking for when he came to the club, but this wasn’t what he had in mind. He should probably just go home to his empty house and drink till morning, as per usual weekend habit, since it’s obvious that whatever spark he felt with a stranger isn’t meant to be followed through like in movies.
It’s even colder out here than in the bathroom. His tongue is still bleeding heavily and rather than spit blood like a villain in a Quentin Tarantino movie, he swallows, gags, and ends up spitting it out anyways.
He has unscrewed the bottle from his pocket and is tipping a few aspirin back, dry, when he is shoved from behind. He goes down hard on his knees and elbows against asphalt and there is a hand twisted tightly into his hair that slams his head down into the ground once, twice. The aspirin bottle is knocked from his hands and bounces once, spilling an arc of white pills across the ground like aerial spray. Will can’t see, there’s blood dripping from his bruised nose, and he goes down on his side when his attacker kicks him in the ribs.
He twists around as far as his caught hair can allow, catching a glimpse of the assailant- it’s Buzz-cut. Will tries to curl around himself but doesn’t get far as Buzz-cut jerks him back, exposing Will’s throat. He can see a glimmer of something jagged in Buzz-cuts other hand and he fights harder, tries to call for help but barely gets a sound out before he’s hauled up again by his hair.
“Dontcha know,” Buzz-cut grits out, “this place is ripe for pig killing?” and now Will can see the man has a broken bottle in his hand, gripping it by the neck.
Will throws an elbow back but gets the bottle gashed in his forearm for his trouble. Buzz-cut twists him up and moves to pull back and stab the bottle into his throat.
Instead of puncturing his neck, severing arteries and splitting his windpipe, the bottle is jerked downward and pierces Will’s shoulder in a deep, ripping stab.
The hand twisted in his hair disappears suddenly.
Will falls to his knees and tips to his side before he sits up, scrambling to put his back against the dumpster just outside of the ring of light. His shoulder is white hot agony and he’s trying to hold the wound shut, gushes blood into his fist.
Hannibal is there, wrestling with Buzz-cut on the ground, but Buzz-cut has the weight advantage and pins Hannibal beneath him after a few moments of struggle. For one confused moment Will thinks Hannibal has his hand against Buzz-cut’s crotch, but then Buzz-cut screams, high and strange, and staggers upwards on his knees to fall backwards onto his back.
A spray of blood follows and Buzz-cut makes a horrible gurgling noise, doubled over his middle.
Hannibal’s face and chest are wet with blood; it drips down his forearms and onto the ground. He sits up and Will can see a fucking Liston knife in his hand, slick with blood all the way to his wrist. Hannibal’s teeth are red when he bares them in something that might be a snarl or a smile.
Will ducks his head and heaves bile when he realizes that Hannibal just gutted Buzz-cut from pubic bone to sternum.
Hannibal crawls over and rolls Buzz-cut’s limp head to the light, examines the whites of the other man’s open eyes. He leaves him on the ground while pulling up his own shirt to wipe the blood from his face, then beckons Will closer.
“Come here,” he says, “let me see.”
Will’s legs feel like water and he’s trembling so hard he’s not sure if he can stand up, so Hannibal crouches down in front of Will and soothes his bruised and cut face with his thumbs. He’s tucked his Liston knife back into his leather jacket after he wiped it off on his pants. Will’s vision is blurry, headache now ten-fold the pain it was earlier, a screaming blaze of agony blossoming from where he was bashed against the ground.
His fear and adrenaline has kept him from feeling his wounds, but as the excitement fades away he can feel the screaming pain of the horrible cut in his shoulder. He’s bleeding everywhere, thick blood soaking his shirt, dripping from his hands and falling to the ground in wide splats. Hysterically, his eyes roll from the blood on his shoes to Buzz-cut’s slit body, and it takes a minute for him to realize Hannibal is talking to him again. He can’t understand what he’s saying, but when Hannibal waves a finger across his field of vision Will tracks it with his eyes and Hannibal smiles.
“No concussion,” He is saying, pleased. “But we have to get you to a hospital right now. If exsanguination doesn’t get you, the shock will.”
Will simply smiles at him, not comprehending. His shoulder is starting to not hurt anymore, which is worrying. Hannibal still has his bloodsoaked shirt, and he finds a clean corner of it to wipe some of the dirt and cigarette ashes from Will’s bruised nose and mouth. Will closes his eyes when Hannibal wipes the fear-sweat from his forehead and lets the murderer wash the blood from his face.
“Get up,” Hannibal says, offering Will a blood-washed, sticky hand. Will grips it tight, grounding himself, and hefts himself upwards to lean heavily against the wall. Some of Buzz-cut’s blood is transferred to his own palm and he shudders, rubs his hand back and forth across the denim of his jeans until his hand is raw.
“Wait here one moment.” Hannibal says, and steps back into the club, leaving Will with Buzz-cut’s fucking corpse for company. Will tilts his head forwards so if he passes out he’ll fall so the shoulder wound is held shut against his fist. The pain is incredible, has Will crying out of tightly closed eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Buzz-cut’s body anymore. The stench of so much blood would have made him throw up again if he had anything left to heave.
He doesn’t think of calling 911. Doesn’t think of calling the police force on Hannibal for the murder.
Hannibal comes back with one of his biker fatals, a delicate, thin woman whose blond hair is flipped over onto one side and curls into one large ringlet. She takes a step back at all the blood in the alley, but at a low word form Hannibal she lightly steps around the scene, examining it, before nodding to Hannibal. Hannibal goes over to one of the bikes, presumably his own, and pulls out the grocery bag of potential murder supplies Will recognizes from earlier at the cafe.
It’s almost too ironic. Will starts to laugh, high-pitched and frenzied, and is not sure when the whole situation took a humorous turn and doesn’t really care why. Hannibal and the blonde exchange a look.
Hannibal pulls out the box of latex gloves, takes out a pair and tosses the rest to the blonde, then walks around to Buzz-cut’s corpse. He pulls on the gloves and wrestles Buzz-cut’s leather jacket off of his limp body. He doesn’t seem too bothered by the fact that Buzz-cut’s fucking organs are slipping over to one side or the way the body squishes when Hannibal flips Buzz-cut over onto his stomach to get the coat off.
He steps over to where Will is watching with wide, scared eyes, and offers him his arm like they were going to go get seated at the goddamn opera. Will hesitates, then puts his hand through Hannibal’s elbow, and is lead to Hannibal’s motorbike, the largest and slimmest one of the lineup. It’s a beautiful matte black California 14000, and it looks, quite literally, like hell on wheels. The bike looks like Hannibal in the same way dogs look like their owners, as if it was custom built for him, and Will has a suspicion it was.
Hannibal stuffs Buzz-cut’s coat in a saddlebag, borrows a helmet from another bike, and straps it to Will. It’s the first time Will’s been on a motorbike in a long time and he straddles it awkwardly, but he’s lightheaded and dizzy and the world starts to darken at the corners as Hannibal sits behind him and wraps his arms around him to reach the handlebars.
Hannibal revs the engine, kicks out the stop and they speed out of the parking lot, leaving the blonde behind with a black trash bag in one hand and a bottle of bleach in the other. Alone on the dark roads, it’s like they’re riding a great raging beast of light and exhaust, sweeping corners and blazing down the highway as free and deadly as a great bird of prey. Will tries to stay awake for his very first time riding the roads on a bike with a hot biker that literally just saved his life, but as safe as he can be in Hannibal’s arms going 80 in a 55 MPH zone, the roar of the bike fades away and Will slips under.