Fandom: Red Dragon/The Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal

Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham

Rating: R/NC-17

Beta: Malakai_Amlug & elfinessy (thank you very much, to both of you)

Summary: Sometimes running is not possible as the past catches up with you.

Notes/Warning: This is a slash story which means that it features two grown up men in love with each other and physically expressing this emotion in various forms. If you are in any way or degree homophobic, disgusted, disturbed, feel threatened or weirded out by such a relationship, please do not read any further and don’t write me any stupid e-mails to preach about the wrongs or rights of homosexual relationships.

Disclaimer: The characters portrayed in this story are by no means mine and belong to Thomas Harris. If you want to have some picture as a guideline for what these guys actually look like I would strongly suggest watching the movie versions of the books, which were done by DeLaurentis Pictures. As for the musical help I had with this story. The chapter titles and the paragraphs of lyrics in each chapter are songs composed and performed by Placebo. Therefore they are not mine either. I am not making any money with this and purely do it for my own amusement and entertainment.



CHAPTER TWO – The Crawl


“That could not make you stay
It’s way too broke to fix”


The air was more humid than he preferred but then again he had spent the last years in Brazil and so had had enough time to get used to it. The time spent with Clarice had been quiet and peaceful. He had stayed out of public during his stay in Rio de Janeiro. But when he had decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time to move on, things had changed.

For years his surrogate sister had been kept calm and complacent with the help of drugs and hypnosis. When he had stopped drugging her and she had awakened, she had started screaming and only stopped once he had tranquilized her. Realizing that he couldn’t keep her anymore, he had committed her to the best asylum he could find and packed his belongings to leave yet another home town. The decision to come to Trinidad had been a spontaneous one. It was not like he came here because of the culture. It was nigh on impossible to find a big, good opera house here or bigger galleries. Something had just told him to come here and that was why he was wandering around the alleys of Trinidad.

The narrow street was dusty and too dirty; to be expected in the Caribbean but it didn't mean he had to like it. The children playing outside ran after a lumpy ball. From a small garage at the end of the street a small and dirty dog jumped after them, its small pink tongue lolling as the animal tried to keep up with the much bigger humans.

“Dog!”

Hannibal froze in his tracks, turning his head in the direction of the familiar voice and watched Dr. Alan Bloom stepping out on the street, beckoning to the filthy animal. The man looked tired, and there was something anxious in the way he walked. Hannibal was stunned for a moment - what was the FBI forensic psychiatrist doing here?

“Dog! Come here!” the call was underlined by a determined wave of his hand but the dog just stood still and blinked confusedly at the doctor. “Dog!”

“Alan, leave him be.”

The new voice took Hannibal by surprise but he immediately slinked into the shadow of a tree to watch the interaction without being noticed. If Bloom's Chicago slang had been a surprise, the new voice was a soul-felt shock. What fate had brought him back to Will Graham?

The former FBI profiler joined Dr Bloom in front of the garage. He was heavily tanned and his sun bleached hair stuck to his sweaty face. He wore khakis which were oil stained in some places, sandals, a rumpled t-shirt and a tattered Fedora. He wore sunglasses too. He turned his face to the side, Hannibal was able to see the long scar following the curve of his cheek.

“Let the dog run after the children.” He crouched down to pet the small animal which jumped up at the man. The tired laugh this was able to provoke made Hannibal frown because he knew how vibrant and alive Graham had once been.

“What do you want, hmm?” He reached into one of the pockets of his khakis and took a piece of dried meat out which he held out to the animal. “Here you are, wise guy.” The treat was rewarded with a slobbery doggy kiss and then it bounded down after the kids, playing with their ball.

Will got up again and walked up to Dr Bloom, squeezing his shoulder as he passed him by. The gesture was like everything else about him, tired and wary. The other man followed his former colleague to the top of the street. They passed Hannibal without even noticing him. Close up he was able to see the exhaustion in Will’s blue eyes.

After the two friends had disappeared around a corner Hannibal made to follow them, always staying far enough back to stay hidden from them. He watched Will closely, noting how the way he moved, the things that made him flinch almost imperceptibly. He wanted to hear what the two talked about – they were too far away to hear them – but so he had to read their body language instead. It seemed like they were having an argument.

Dr Bloom was wildly gesticulating with his hands, seemingly emphasizing what he was talking about, while Graham just listened, and shaking his head tiredly in negation from time to time. Whatever Bloom was trying Graham to convince of; the other wasn’t inclined to agree with him.

Hannibal followed them through alleys and streets until they reached a small cantina. The establishment was in a narrow side alley almost hidden from sight. It didn’t look like a place tourists frequented, more like the clientele only consisted of natives.


“Don’t go and lose your face
At some stranger’s face”


The interior was dark but surprisingly clean. He noticed the table Graham and Bloom had chosen and picked his own as close as possible, easily remaining hidden in the shadows. Sitting down he picked up the menu and scanned the food on it. They were mostly traditional Caribbean dishes but there were also Indian, Chinese and Mediterranean dishes. A glance over at Graham and he noticed that the two friends had already gotten their drinks. In front of Bloom was a glass of lemonade. The glass from which Graham was drinking was filled with a milky, white liquid.

“Sir?” He looked up at the man waiting on him. The dark face was of middle age and open, laugh lines around his mouth. “What can I get for you, sir?”

“I’ll take what the blonde gentleman over there is having.”

“A glass of soursop squash?”

“Yes, and a bowl of chilled cucumber soup. That would be all.” The man scribbled his order on a small notepad and turned back to the counter, behind which a young girl cleaned glasses. Only a minute later a glass was placed in front of him and spoon with a serviette laid out for later use.

Hannibal refocused his attention on the table with the former and the current FBI profiler and watched the one-sided conversation taking place, one-sided because Graham seemed to have nothing to say at all to his friend. Bloom was the one doing the talking. There was a lot of frustration in Bloom’s demeanor and a lot of indifference in Graham’s.

Suddenly the animated man jumped up from his chair and glared at his opposite. Loudly he hissed: “How can you say that you don’t care?! You have to come with me. It is for your own safety and although I would never ask you to get fully involved you might even be able to help.”

This only provoked a shrug from the other man and Bloom plopped, resigned back on his chair. Now that he was speaking quietly again with Graham, Hannibal started to think about what he had meant. We need your help. The only ‘we’ that would dare to demand the former FBI profiler’s help would be in fact the FBI and when combined with the offer of safety it could only mean that they wanted Graham to lead the search for him.

So now Will Graham knew that he was somewhere near. Of course he didn’t know that it was actually such close proximity but he was now aware of the danger he could be in if Hannibal was interested in killing him, which he wasn’t quite sure of. It was true that in the past he had tried and failed to kill Graham but somehow the urge to finish what he started back then wasn’t there.

Eyeing the blonde man closely he noticed that he wasn’t nervous or in any way effected by the news he had just received, in fact it looked like he was relieved. Why, that remained to be seen. Maybe Graham was glad to know where he had been all this time. Not knowing could be worse than knowing after all.

Again Bloom was talking to Graham and again the same disinterested stare at the glass in front of him. It didn’t look like Hannibal needed to worry about Graham hunting him any time soon. The man was more than disinclined to help with what the FBI was unable to do themselves.

The waiter returned to his table and put a bowl cucumber soup in front of him. When the delicious smell of the food caught his attention, he noticed that he hadn’t even tried the drink yet. Hannibal took a small gulp and a surprisingly good flavor spread over his tongue. He hadn’t expected the drinks or the food to be of such quality. The look of the establishment betrayed its worth. But then again this wasn’t a place of a lot of money. Probably the patrons/owners couldn’t afford redecorating the cantina.

After a few spoonfuls of soup and some more squash a movement to his left caught his eye and he glanced up to see Bloom throw a couple of crumpled bills on the table and dash out of the establishment. Obviously the two men had had another argument and this time Bloom had preferred leaving to starting another round of discussions.

Hannibal noticed how the waiter slinked over to the now lonely man and bent low to talk to Graham, who shook his head and said something in return. The frown on the dark face made him wonder how Graham had answered but he knew soon enough why it hadn’t been to the waiters liking. A glass of rum was brought to him but this time from the little girl. The man had taken over the cleaning, stealing glances at Graham.

The protectiveness of the waiter pleased Hannibal. If Graham was unable to take care of himself he needed others who took care of him. It irked him though to what the former special agent had come. He could remember all too clearly a time when he had had to watch his every step around him to keep from being discovered and now the very same man was reduced to indifference and self destruction.

He watched Graham pay for his drinks and decided to keep an eye on him. He needed some time to decide on what to do with him anyway.


“The lie will unfurl
Lay me down to crawl”