WRATH: A Hannigram Fanfiction

15- Le Voleur

     Hannibal's outburst seemed to have shaken Jack just a little bit. He put Will on administrative leave, giving him time to recover from what had happened. At first, Will's shoulders had fallen in overwhelming relief, but he quickly grew bored over the next few days. Hannibal tried his best to help, providing Will with all of the information he could glean, but it was never enough. Will was never satisfied; he never would be satisfied until he was worked into the ground, his blood mixing with the victims' in solidarity.
     Jack still let Hannibal enter the office every now and again, asking for insight that Will would normally provide. Jack wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, so he brought someone else in to do the job. Hannibal felt an odd satisfaction from doing so; he liked being Will Graham. Seeing things the way he saw them. It increased the need inside of him, the need to make Will happy in any way he could.
     One day, in the middle of a meeting with Jack and a few agents, Hannibal had zoned out thinking of Will. He was thinking of that desolate house in the middle of nowhere, taking shots of whiskey and sleeping close to the front door.
     He stopped everything. He didn't want to sit here and do nothing.
     Jack was locked in place, pointing at something in the folder, and the other officers had their expressions frozen in mild interest. It was like a painting, a photograph. Humans were nicer when they couldn't speak.
     Hannibal slipped the Angel Maker folder out from under Jack's fingers and took it to the copy room. He stood there patiently as each paper was scanned and printed one by one, slightly lower-quality versions of the originals. Once it was all recreated, he took an empty folder and placed the papers inside. He slid the replica folder into his briefcase and took the original back into the meeting room, placing it right back where it had been before.
     Then, he sat back in his chair and allowed his painting to come back to life.
     Jack had absolutely no clue. No one did.
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     "They think I'm too unstable," Will said, showing clear disdain for Jack's opinion. "I've already seen the worst of it. What, am I going to have a panic attack looking at a folder? Fuck." His voice was surprisingly loud in the quiet office.
"I think Jack's trying to make himself look better," Hannibal admitted, sitting in his chair with his legs crossed as he watched Will pace. "If it were only up to him, he would have you back on the field right now. He doesn't seem to care much for your well-being."
Will looked suspicious. "Are you trying to alienate me from Jack Crawford?"
     Yes. "Jack Crawford alienated you all by himself. After everything you've been through, he has the gall to get angry with you for snapping."
"I'm the one who was malnourished and hadn't slept in a while. I put myself here."
"Maybe, but Jack has locked you in." None of this was Will's fault. He wouldn't have been malnourished and sleep-deprived if Jack hadn't placed him under so much stress. It all came back to Jack's foolish actions.
Will lightly placed his fingers on his inner elbow, where the bruise from the IV had turned green. "If it makes you feel better, I'm going to quit," he said.
"Are you?"
"I'm going to find the Shrike, and then I'm going to quit. I can't leave until I find justice for these girls. This Angel Maker is standing in the way."
"And what if someone else is murdered after we find the Angel Maker? Another killer to draw attention away from the Shrike?" It was almost humorous how naive Will was being. He truly didn't understand that this was a cycle that wasn't going to end. "And it happens over and over again..and you can never find him."
Will clenched his hands into fists and turned to face him. "I," he said through clenched teeth, "am going to find Garrett Jacob Hobbs."
"I have no doubt about that." He loved seeing this other side of Will. He liked it when he threatened to bite. "My only question is when."
"As soon as I catch this Angel Maker."
Hannibal knew he had to be the one to spur on this conversation. "So you admit that you're willing to catch him on your own? Without help from the FBI?"
Will hesitated, considering the idea. "I couldn't," he said.
     What Hannibal had done was illegal. He wasn't going to risk his career only for Will to not bite the bait. "Hypothetically."
"..If it makes things quicker, then I guess so. Find who he is, hunt him down, turn him in. They couldn't bash me for that, could they?"
"I'm not acquainted with FBI procedure, but I don't see why they would. I think Jack would feel resentment towards the fact that you're better than him, but that's the only certainty in my mind right now."
A small laugh escaped Will's lips. "I'd be willing to find him," he confessed, "and damn the punishments. But I can't do anything without all of the details."
     Hannibal broke into a grin. He thought back to the moment in the office yesterday, playing with Jack's awareness and consciousness like it was a toy. Humans were just little toys. Wind them up and watch them go.
Will crossed his arms. "What do you know?" His voice was sharp and accusatory.
"I know a lot of things."
Will sneered back, leaning close to Hannibal. "Funny. What specifically do you know about the Angel Maker case that I don't?" He made air quotes with his fingers. " 'Doctor Lecter?' "
It seemed destructive for Will to say something like that, but it was actually exactly what Hannibal liked to hear. Any time he could be reminded of his supernatural identity, he wanted to be. He stood from his chair, satisfied that Will would keep his secret.
     He moved over to his desk and took the copied file from the top drawer. Will eyed it suspiciously. When he didn't reach out, Hannibal finally opened it for him to reveal the gruesome pictures from the scene. Will flinched, but once he realized what the pictures were his mouth dropped open.
"Hannibal." Will blanched.
"I took it."
"Hannibal!"
"Technically, I made a copy of everything. They'll never know."
Will broke into a grin. He shook his head, taking the file. "You bastard. You weren't going to tell me?"
"Not until you committed to finding him. I did something illegal, and now you're about to do something illegal. We're on even ground."
"Have you looked at any of it yet?"
"I was waiting for you."
Will began to sort through the papers, dividing them into stacks. Hannibal took his place beside Will, breathing in his scent.
"The victims were criminals." Will pointed to their pictures. One man, one woman. "Rapist and accessory, respectively."
"It's exactly what you thought. They were sinful, in need of forgiveness." Hannibal studied him, utterly captivated. "You're brilliant at this." He wondered how Will had captured so much knowledge, how he was always able to correctly predict these killers.
A soft smile appeared on Will's face, but it quickly vanished when he saw another photograph in the stack. It showed a dark alleyway, lit up by a lone streetlight that exposed a silhouette hanging from scaffolding. His arms were horizontal, crucified, and the skin on his back had been spread to resemble wings.
"Another one," he said to himself. He whipped around to face Hannibal, jaw clenched. "Did you know about this?"
"Not at all, no," Hannibal assured him— he would never have kept something like that from Will. "Cleveland." He pointed to the location and time stamp in the corner. "I don't remember Jack saying anything about Cleveland."
"He didn't want us to know." Will looked upset. Betrayed.
"He knew you'd make yourself apart of it no matter what he said, so he chose to say nothing." Hannibal's blood simmered; Jack only wanted Will when he was useful, and anything else wasn't his business at all. He treated Will like an animal. He grabbed the papers under the photograph, slapping them down on the top of the stack. "Read it," he said firmly. "You can figure this out much better than he could."
Will complied, skimming the incident reports as well as the notes taken by the examiners. He followed along with one paragraph with his finger— disembodied male genitalia found on the ground, far from the victim. Genitalia doesn't belong to the victim; assumed to be that of the killer in an act of self-mutilation or castration.
Will winced. "I think they're right about that," he said. "It would make sense. The killer's making himself pure, preparing to become an Angel. He knows he's going to die soon."
But Hannibal wasn't paying attention. He'd already shifted his focus to another page, furrowing his brow at what he saw. "Will. They already have a suspect."
"What?" Will's head snapped up, and he scrambled to find where Hannibal was looking. There, on another page, was an interview with a suspect's ex-wife. "How much shit did they do without me?"
"They found him with DNA evidence," Hannibal remarked, pointing to another page that was crammed with numbers and medical terms. Beverly's signature was at the bottom. "I had no doubts that Ms. Katz could do her job. Jack simply followed."
Both of them read through the interview, taking in the info on Elliot Budish— the suspected Angel Maker. They read about his experiences as a child, his run-in with a nearly terminal disease..brain cancer.
"He had a near death experience," Hannibal said. "Perhaps the tumor caused him to hallucinate something important."
"Not just something. A guardian angel." Will's breath hitched. "Shit."
"It fits everything you've discussed, Will. The cancer, isolation, creating angels out of sinners, captivated by salvation." Hannibal stared at him like one does an illusion, trying to decipher every twist and admiring his complexity. "How? I didn't know a person could be this insightful."
     "It's easy for me to put myself in their place." Will stared at the patterns of wood on the desk. "I'm inside their heads."
"And you certainly sink deep. I saw that in the motel."
"The issue isn't sinking, it's that sometimes you run out of air. You lose yourself, and the killer is all that's left." He flipped back to the last page of the interview. "I never know how I feel, really. I just float along. But that hope— that was real." He exhaled. "It was the most solid emotion I've ever felt."
"It doesn't matter the emotion, you just want something. You've put so much energy into feeling what others feel that you don't know how to feel for yourself."
"..I don't know who I am. How much of me is Will Graham, and how much of me is Elliot Budish?" He gestured to the file. "Garrett Jacob Hobbs? How much of them have I absorbed?" He buried his face in his hands. He was so lost— he needed someone to find him.
     "Will, don't spiral." Hannibal put his hand on Will's shoulder. "That's a question you can't focus on right now. It'll only ruin your ability to see clearly." He pointed to the papers. "You are Will Graham, and you're trying to solve this crime. What does Will Graham think?"
Will shook his head. "I think that he could still have a tumor. A resurgence that's making him think like I did in the motel. And...I think the barn where he almost died means a lot to him. He'll want to find his angel again."
"He'll go back?"
"He'll want to die there." Will's eyes widened. "When did you copy this stuff?"
     "Yesterday."
"There's still time, then." Will shoved all of the papers back inside, not caring that they were out of order. "Elliot knew he was close to death when he did the Cleveland crime, or he wouldn't have castrated himself. He's going to go to that barn to die, be it from his sickness or..something else." Will glanced at his watch. "Cleveland was three days ago. If he's not dead in the barn already, he will be soon. And I need to get there before that happens." He took off for the door. "I can't have him slip away that easily."
"Will." Hannibal called out to him, his voice echoing across the office. He quickly moved towards him, tucking the file under his arm. "I'm coming with you."
"You don't—"
He held up his hand. "I'm coming with you," he repeated. "You can't do this alone."
     He would not accept any other answer. He wasn't going to let Will throw himself into so much danger like that without backup. He wanted Will to be challenged, he wanted Will to growl and bare his teeth— but not at the expense of his life. If Will somehow were to perish..Hannibal couldn't even finish the thought. The idea of never seeing his Angel again after all of this time was horrific.
"It's potentially going to be eventful."
"I don't mind." He couldn't hold back the mischievous smile on his face. "I don't get to have a lot of fun."