We Grow Accustomed To The Dark

Chapter 2

"It is me. I am his madness. For years he's been looking for something to put his madness into. And he found me."

― John Fowles, The Collector

***

This was a dangerous game he was playing, but there was something in his system that wouldn't let him be. It was a tick that he had been able to find control over through most of his normal days by cleaning his house meticulously or straightening his office. But neither of those would suffice, not when the pictures of Princess Odette resting in her lake in a piano raptured his mind.

He could barely focus on his psychiatric work as an empath's words continued to swirl through his head on repeat.

"You never answered my message."

Will hadn't sounded or looked hurt by the lack of participation on Hannibal's part, but with the two sides of Will that Hannibal had seen, he wasn't exactly sure if he could place what was going on in Will's head in the slightest.

"I wasn't sure if you understood it. I worked so hard on that last one. It took me hours. I didn't realize that piano strings were that sharp when you cut them."

Both faces that Will had presented to Hannibal had been carefully stitched together and Hannibal wasn't sure if he could believe either one. The unconfident, spineless teacher with a mental disorder was most certainly who Will had crafted for the outside world. Someone that would be left alone. Someone that people would avoid. Someone that no one would look twice at.

The cunning, vibrant man that had eaten dinner with Hannibal had to hold as much truth to it as the man the outside world saw. The problem with a disguise was the fact that no matter how hard one tried to change who they were, the disguise would always be a self portrait. Hannibal was just having trouble trying to pin down which parts of Will were the real ones and which were fake and between the two sides it was proving impossible.

There were mental instabilities there, that much Hannibal was certain of. The autism couldn't be missed, despite how subtle it was. Will was probably more around the line of aspergers if Hannibal had to guess where on the spectrum Will landed. Will was able to function decently in public, though sensory overload probably played a big part in why the man was so rude. With the empathy disorder added to the mix, Hannibal could understand the want to keep as low of a profile as possible. There would be a lot happening in Will's brain all at once and that only made Hannibal want to tinker with the man a little more.

"But that was my design."

And this was Hannibal's. A body left in answer to Will's. Something to hopefully show the multifaceted man that there was something to talk about and work towards if fate had lined up the pieces to fall perfectly.

This kill had been one that Hannibal had been planning for a while, a recipe already picked and ready, but plans had changed slightly and Hannibal couldn't say he was much put off by it. He worked diligently to make sure each aspect was as perfect as was possible. Each bruise and cut was made with only the intention of creating something beautiful, something to possibly stand up against dear Will's Swan Lake. Something akin to the oil paintings of Odilon Redon or Vincent van Gogh.

When the call came early that next morning, Hannibal was not at all in the least bit surprised. A body found in a park, an art display that could have only come from one of two people and that was enough to send Jack needing someone to supervise a certain, unstable Will Graham.

Hannibal had purposefully left his schedule open to accommodate such a phone call, despite the small fight he put up with Jack about how he couldn't be present for all crime scenes Will was involved in because it just wasn't possible to maintain his own medical practice while running about the state of Maryland.