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Will Graham considers the unassuming house in a small Danish village. The simple blocky house is far removed from the ostentation he’d come to associate with Hannibal Lecter. The worn paint and humble garden is similarly unsophisticated and nothing like Hannibal, but he can imagine him fussing over the tomatoes and herbs until the leaves are perfectly green and tender.
Will hesitates from his place across the gravel street. Why hide so thoroughly after all these years? After placing himself in prison for Will to find him with no trouble should he cave into his desires? He can’t understand Hannibal anymore, and it scares him for reasons he is unwilling to examine. Will finds himself teetering on the precipice. He drags up the lie he’s been telling himself throughout the whole journey - ‘This is for Alana. To keep Lecter from hurting anyone else. To put him back in his cage where I can ignore him again’. The lie gives him enough courage to step forward.
He doesn’t bother sneaking in. Three heavy knocks echo in the silence before the storm. It’s almost poetic, but when has anything between them not been? He lets the borrowed cold calm of Hannibal Lecter empty his eyes of emotion. Footsteps, a click and -
The calm falters as he adjusts his gaze to look up at a face that is vaguely familiar yet nothing that he’d expected. His nervous ticks return as he fumbles for words.
“Doctor.. Heimlich?”
“Lars? Hvem er det?” A timid voice calls out from behind Doctor Laurence Heimlich, and with his walls already down it feels like a stab to guts. As familiar with that feeling as he is.
“Et øjeblik, Lucas” Heimlich replies before stepping out to the porch and closing the door behind him.
“Was that Hannibal?”
“Mr. Graham -”
“Why are you with him?” He knows his voice is rising, but the panic from so many unexpected variables is rising with his anger. The door cracks open behind Heimlich and Will feels his breath leave his body. Bespectacled brown eyes peer out, feathery honey brown hair falling into them. Their eyes meet, both searching for familiarity within a stranger’s eyes.
Then Hannibal drags his eyes away to look up at Heimlich questioningly. The doctor’s tension mellows into something resembling smugness that sets Will’s teeth on edge. He’s taller than both of them. A fact that becomes more pronounced as he bends down to kiss Hannibal on the nose. Heimlich sends him back in with a comforting whisper, and once again Will finds himself denied entry.
“Explain.” Will manages to speak through the turmoil of his violent emotions.
“If we may speak privately, Mr. Graham. Come walk with me.”
Heimlich leads him away from the house and into a pleasant path in the woods. Will’s steps are predatory as he follows behind. In the cover of the woods, it’s the easiest thing to draw out his knife and press it against the doctor’s throat. Heimlich, to his credit, calmly raises his palms in placation.
“What did you do to him?”
“I healed him. Hannibal Lecter has gone to rest. He won’t harm anyone now.”
Beads of red drop onto the knife as he presses harder.
“ah - I made use of.. techniques you may be familiar with to induce amnesia. He’s forgotten what he was, and you’re free to forget Lecter as well. Unless - “ A wicked grin cuts worse than the knife. “Unless you don’t want to forget Hannibal Lecter? You came here looking for him, did you not?”
Will takes a grounding breath, but Heimlich is scratching at the veil covering the truth.
“You’re harbouring a fugitive.”
The words ring with hollow formality. Something Heimlich picks up on and delights in despite his precarious position.
“You want Hannibal Lecter. You need him. It’s admirable that you held out this long, Mr. Graham. He told me a lot about you, when he still remembered.” A tilt of his head and another welling of blood. “When he was still yours, not mine.”
The feeling of loss Will feels is overwhelming. He masks it by driving the knife harder into Heimlich’s throat.
“Ah-ah, Mr. Graham. What will my husband say if you slit my throat?”
It’s only now that Will notices the glint of a ring in Heimlich’s raised hand. He snarls.
“You’re sick, Heimlich.”
The look he gets back in return is of malignant triumph.
“You’re sicker.”
Bile prickles the back of his throat. The dark thoughts swirling inside his mind isn’t just from looking into Heimlich’s cold livid eyes for too long.
“Give him back.” It comes out in a hoarse whisper. The truth always chafes.
“After you’ve all but abandoned him? He waited for three years under my scalpel, Mr. Graham. He put himself in a cage when you told him to fly just so he could wait for you.”
There’s a note of genuine protectiveness in Heimlich’s words that pushes uncomfortably against his chest.
“But the cat got to the canary first, didn’t he? As they say. One man’s trash.. is another man’s treasure.”
Something dark and ugly tries to rear its head, but Will swallows it down, trying to regain the pretence of righteousness he’d held on to for three years within the cultivated comfort of a faux family.
“There’s a new serial killer. Families are dying, Heimlich. We need Hannibal Lecter’s mind.”
“You should at least have the decency to stop lying to yourself. It’s no wonder Hannibal gave you up.” Heimlich says, words dripping with derision.
They dig into Will’s chest as if Heimich had spit acid.
“I’m -”
“Slip ham!”
Hannibal’s voice, familiar yet so different, interrupts them again. Hannibal stands a few feet away from them with a rifle pointed at Will. Everything about him is so different from the Hannibal he used to know. His usual three piece suit replaced with rumpled plaid and a hunting vest - more reminiscent of Will’s own attire. His hair is softly hanging down instead of slicked and parted, the way he saw it once in that morning many years ago when Hannibal was the stability that Alana couldn’t provide. In a way, he still is. In the worst possible ways.
But not like this. Not with fear and uncertainty clouding the murderous intent in his eyes.
And Will understands now. The need to claw away at the false docility to set free the beautiful predator within.