FOUND: A Hannigram Devil AU

12

It was the first dream he'd had since their deal.
The abyss of darkness that Will was floating in began to feel more tangible, a familiar feeling on his skin. It was a cold, wet feeling, and the wonderful silence was now replaced by the rush of the ocean.
Slowly, Will opened his eyes, surprised to find himself staring at the night sky. The full moon shone down upon him like an unblinking eye. A breeze made the hairs on his arms perk up. He was laying on his back on the shore, wet sand between his fingers. He smelled and tasted salt.
He sat up and rubbed his head, slowly taking in his surroundings. He was at the bottom of a set of rocky cliffs that stretched far upwards. He brought himself to his feet and backed away, trying to see how far they reached.
Standing at the top of one of the cliffs, staring directly down at him, was a glowing white figure with antlers.
The dream was over as quickly as it had begun. The moon lowered its lid and blinked, shrouding the world in darkness, and Will was back to the comforting void.
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Officially, Will was on administrative leave until next Wednesday, a week after the vigil. He found the idea to be silly. An order to stop working wasn't an order to stop thinking— the cases were always going to dominate his brain. It shouldn't matter if he was in an office or in his bed. Also, was a week really enough to cure all his mental ailments? He didn't think so.
Still, he tried to take it optimistically. Jack felt bad for him, at least as bad as Jack could feel. Seeing a suspect commit suicide right in front of him must have been "psychologically traumatizing" for Will, he said. Will had had a final chance to tell the truth, but he didn't. He stood by and watched as Hannibal corroborated his story, those hypnotic eyes boring right into Jack's. Jack had listened to every word and, more importantly, he believed it. It was a chilling sight, made even more so by the way Hannibal squeezed Will's shoulder as he walked past.
     Will had dug himself a hole, sure, but he couldn't disregard how Hannibal was throwing the dirt on top of him.
     Still, when Jack called to say that he'd scheduled him an extra session with Doctor Lecter, Will agreed to go. He drove himself and got there early.
     Now he sat across from the Devil.
     "Do you want to talk about what happened?" Hannibal smiled to himself, as if the idea of dodging the subject was ridiculous. There was nothing else to talk about.
     "I want to talk about you," Will replied. "Why you do what you do."
     Hannibal paused. "Society has always been drawn in by the 'eye for an eye' principle. You get in return exactly what you've given to others."
     "Murder for murder."
     "And information for information."
     The connection clicked. "What do you want to know?"
     "Why did you shoot Nicholas Boyle in the head?"
     Will's eyebrows drew together. "I told you this. He..I got him in the stomach, and I knew that if he cried out, everyone at the vigil would find out. I panicked." Will leaned forward, hunching his shoulders. "I silenced him."
     Hannibal looked pleased. Will got the impression that the two of them were playing a game, one that Will hadn't been told the rules of. "Killing him was more important than interrogating him."
     "I wasn't thinking at all, to be honest." He picked at his fingers. "It was instinctual. Break a vase..sweep the pieces under the rug."
     "But you knew what you were doing was wrong?"
     "I'm not answering that until I get my info. And you got two answers out of me."
     Hannibal rested his arms on his chair, palms up. "I can't promise to tell you everything. But I can promise that I'll never lie to you."
     "Did you know what was going to happen in that house?"
     Hannibal shook his head. "I can't see or fix the future. It's too flexible, subject to change. I can't fix the past, either— all I can do is affect the present. Manipulate it, halt it."
     That made as much sense as it could. "Why did you help me?"
     "To prove to you that you can trust me."
     This answer stunned Will into silence. Hannibal picked up on his expression.
     "I promised to help you, Will. Guide you through your therapy. It's important to have a therapist who will keep all of your secrets, no matter what."
     "What happened to 'danger to yourself or others'?"
     "I'm not a typical psychiatrist."
     Will let out an unexpected chuckle, which Hannibal returned. Will couldn't shake the feeling that he belonged in a padded cell right about now.
     "..I knew killing him was wrong," Will said after a long silence, "just like I knew it was wrong for him to kill Cassie."
     "But it felt different, no?"
     "It felt very different."
     "In what way?"
     "You have to—"
     "Tell me how it felt, Will." Hannibal's voice was suddenly stern, and he leaned forward with a hard look in his eyes. "What did it feel like to kill him?"
     Will edged back slightly, intimidated by this sudden voraciousness. "Scary."
     "But what else? What festered in the back of your brain that you're trying so desperately to shut out?"
     After being reminded of the walled up part of his brain, Will thought of his sister. He thought of her screams. His fantasies of what he wished he could have done to the man who killed her.
     "..Justice," he replied softly. "It was..an eye for an eye."
     "Murder for murder." Hannibal nodded, satisfied. "And you came out on top."
     "..I won." Will's own words sent a shudder through him.
     "What does winning feel like?"
     Will forgot about his questions. He was too immersed in the discussion, too afraid of what he would find himself saying next. "I know what I want to say, Hannibal. I just can't bring myself to."
     "Did you feel powerful, Will? Was it nice to be the one delivering justice?"
     Will swallowed hard and nodded. "My sister didn't get justice," he whispered. "Her killer is still alive. But..Cassie can."
     "And she did."
     "And I got away with it."
      Hannibal didn't respond, letting Will bask in the meaning of the words. He was ashamed of himself, ashamed of any positive feelings that the murder brought about. That's what it was— not some kind of vigilante heroism. It was murder, on his part and and Nicholas's.
     Did Nicholas feel as much exhilaration as he had? He pushed the thought away.
     "Why do you kill people?"
     Hannibal's self-satisfied expression fell. "As I've said, I can't tell you that. But I want you to think about what we've talked about. Think about the principles of justice."
     "What's the point of all of this? What's stopping one of Boyle's family members for bringing justice to me? And then one of my family members to them? What stops this cycle?"
     "It doesn't become a cycle in the first place. Who would want to avenge a man that pervertedly killed his innocent sister?"
     Will tilted his head back, exhausted by the conversation. These sessions took a toll on him.
     "Think deeply about it, Will. Come up with your own theory. Why do I kill people?" Hannibal smiled. "I think you could come up with something very interesting."