Carnivore, Won't You Come Digest Me?

Chapter 12

"When I first began to envision the Ripper, he looked like me," Will says, three glasses of wine in. They've started on the bottle he brought over, and Hannibal looks up from his translations with a raised eyebrow.

Will's cheeks are a lovely pink, medium-rare steak, his eyelids heavy, but his eyes are still sharp when they meet Hannibal's. The food has been cleared away and so they sit at Hannibal's modest table, nothing but Will's journal and their wine glasses between them. His mouth is wet with wine and his own tongue. Hannibal gets the impression that he keeps drinking for something to do while Hannibal reads.

Will's handwriting when not in pictographs is slanted, rushed. He writes with purpose and is not gentle with the paper. It speaks to a predisposition towards aggression. And yet, when he writes certain words, his hand abruptly gentles. The 'R's and 'P's in the Ripper's name are written softly, the 'I' dotted like the brush of fingertips down a lover's cheek.

Hannibal smiles, and looks back down at the paper. "For comfort's sake?" he asks.

Will shakes his head. "I think it was just easier, at first," he says. "But as I got to know him, he changed."

"How so?"

"He got darker," Will says. His eyes are glassy with alcohol, and they leave Hannibal when Hannibal looks up, fix on the kitchen counter where the first empty wine bottle is. "Monstrous. He grew claws, and sharp teeth."

He doesn't say it with revulsion, or fear. Rather, Hannibal imagines his expression is the same that men wore when facing their old gods. There's awe in the corners of his mouth, something longing in the way he curls his fingers around the stem of his wine glass.

"I'm sure Freud would have a lot to say about that," Hannibal says lightly, drawing Will's eyes again. He smiles. "You literally pictured yourself becoming this monster as you got to know him."

Will presses his lips together, something like shame making him lower his eyes. "Is that so strange? To seek connection? I want to understand him."

"I can tell," Hannibal replies, nodding down to the journal. He turns a page, already several deep in the translations Will gave him. There are other things folded into the pages, clippings of newspaper articles regarding previous murders – not the same that were on the wall and the whiteboard, but others. Suspected additions. Hannibal recognizes a few of them from his own hand, but they were older, across jurisdictions and state lines, so he doubts police have made the connection. And they never will if he has his way.

Will's cheeks darken, he bites his lower lip and takes another drink of wine. "I'm not crazy, Agent Lecter," he says, defensively. Hannibal blinks at him.

"I never said you were," he replies mildly. "Will, you must understand – I am not coming at this from a perspective that wants to do you harm."

Will doesn't answer. He sighs, rubbing a hand over his mouth, and rests his elbows on the table, fixing Hannibal with another look. "We are not blitz hunters, Agent Lecter," he says calmly, steadily. "We evolved for the chase – the dogged pursuit of animals that simply cannot outlast us."

Hannibal smiles. "Do you believe the Ripper is your prey, in this scenario?"

Will sighs again. "No," he replies. "I don't think he's anyone's prey. Even yours."

"I don't think he considers himself to be prey at all," Hannibal replies coolly. "But I would also argue, the way you write about him here, he's not a predator either. He's...other."

"You know the color blue has been found to promote feelings of trust and sanctuary in people?" Will asks. Hannibal blinks, tilting his head to one side, but allows the sudden change of conversation topic. "People who wear blue are usually considered to be more trustworthy, more honest. And blue is the color of the daytime – it's when we feel the safest. When the bigger predators can't hurt us."