The Last Temptation

The Last Temptation
Chapter 3: Days Go By

Story By: The Adrians
Song By: Dirty Vegas

Started: August 2, 2006
Finished: August 7, 2006

Authors' Note:

Woo! Lots of love to our readers. Uber special thanks to Q, darkangel985 (again), and Raven Black for their reviews. Thanks for the support, guys! We've been super motivated to get our asses up from the bed lately!
You can tell, can't you?
So chapter 2 was finished the day after our birthday, and we were busy the day of and the weeks leading up to. It was crazy. We hope that we'll get this chapter finished and put up in a timelier fashion for those of you who hate long waits. We know we do.
We hope this chapter is as exciting as the last two. We're trying for a decent story here.
For those of you who want to know the day, this chapter starts at the beginning of day 10 and ends mid afternoon in day 12. Days 8-11, not so important. Just that stupid mail time.

(We actually wrote this entire chapter on the 6th and 7th, mostly the 6th. It didn't take us 5 days to write. It only took us two. Bad us. The 2nd-5th we wrote the authors' note and chilled.)

Lots more love,

-T.A.

PS- Read and Review...

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Chapter Three: Days Go By

You

You

You...

It had been several days before Hannibal found his small post office box occupied. He checked it daily since he'd delivered his first letter- first because he knew it would be the first of many he'd write to Will, regardless of whether he replied or not.
It was with mild surprise that sunny Florida morning that he found his box filled with a plain white envelope with no return address. It was addressed to “H.”
Hannibal knew instantly it was Will. All other mail, he'd canceled after the FBI discovered his alias, Dr. Fell.
Lecter figured Will must have noticed the letter the day after he returned from Maryland.
Judging by the postmarking, the ex investigator replied the same day- and now, two days later, it arrived in the mail.
Lecter chuckled. The drive from his loft in town to Will's house by the beach was less than fifteen minutes. It was a bit sill that a letter should take two days to get somewhere only a few moments away. The doctor shrugged gently, locked his box, and walked back to the still-running Bentley waiting outside the post office. He dropped the letter into the passenger seat, shifted out of park, and began driving the short distance to his favorite coffee shop.
Looking at the odometer momentarily, Hannibal noted that he was barely over 500 miles. Most of the mileage was the drive from the dealership in mainland Florida to his loft. The other little bit was simply from driving around town. Now that he thought about it, having a car- especially his ever expensive Bentley, wasn't exactly practical. He could walk everywhere he had to go. Marathon was a relatively small island. Off the southern coast of Florida, filled mostly with rich retirees and the occasional well-to-do young family. Cars were really more of a show of wealth than an actual necessity.
Hannibal could tell why Will chose this place to relocate, though. It was quiet, well kept, and far away from Baltimore.

You are the whisper on my lips
A feeling at my fingertips
That's pulling at my skin...

From the post office to the small café, it was about a minute's drive. Hannibal parked outside the shop, took the letter and his keys, and headed inside.
“Hey doc!” A young blond man behind the counter called. He sounded happy.
The boy had only known about Lecter being a doctor recently. He'd forgotten cash. The boy had given him his coffee anyway, only asking who he should write the tab for. Hannibal had started to say Doctor before he really thought about it. Since then, the young man, Jeremy was his name, had fondly referred to Hannibal as 'Doc.'
He wondered if the young man would look quite so cheery if he knew exactly who he was giving companionable nicknames to. The kid probably never watched the news.
Hannibal waved gently, smiling that personable Hannibal smile as he took his usual seat at the large window of the café.
Since his stay at Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Hannibal had lost his taste for large glass windows, bit this one was a little different.
It was high, clear, thick- everything he usually disliked about windows lately, but frosted into the glass was a large pair of outstretched wings. Each feather had been painstakingly sprayed into existence. It was like looking up at the back of an angel. Hannibal admired the work endlessly over this coffee the last ten mornings. When he looked at the wings, he thought a lot about Will. He remembered the first morning he sat there, he decided that had Will been an angel, his wings would look exactly like the ones in the glass- large, feathery, and beautiful.

“You look happy this morning.” Jeremy broke Hannibal from the thought with his cheerful voice.
“I am Jeremy.” Hannibal replied, smiling.

Being a personable fellow wasn't so much a mask as it was a decoy, something to distract people from what wasn't so pleasant about him.

The blond nodded to the letter sitting on the table in front of Lecter. “Oh? Does it have anything to do with that?”

Hannibal's smile widened. “It does.”

Society loved people like Hannibal. He was charming, charismatic, classy, well educated, well dressed, and could lead a pretty engaging conversation.
Jeremy chuckled. “I see...Well, will it be the usual today, Doc?”
Hannibal nodded. The boy walked back behind the counter to prepare the cup of Indonesian coffee, and to let Hannibal have some privacy while he read.
Society turned its back on him once it found out that Dr. Lecter had depth and imagination that exceeded its own. Society didn't like Dr. Hannibal Lecter, murderer, or Dr. Hannibal Lecter, cannibal. He doubted the media would have even flinched if any of his tawdry thoughts of Will Graham had become a reality. Being homosexual was acceptable, but ridding the world of nuisances was not.
A society that is selectively open-minded is not open-minded at all. Hannibal thought, before taking out the long Venetian stiletto paper knife from his coat.
Jeremy heard the soft ripping of the envelope paper as he filled the cup with the full-bodied desert coffee. He heard an even softer gasp from the man behind him as he added the cream. He could practically feel the smugness rolling off the doctor in waves when he added the sugar. By the time he'd found a long enough stick of cinnamon for decoration, he was starting to think he could taste the other man's satisfaction. He set the mug down in front of the doctor and gave him a wink. “That good, huh?”
Hannibal looked up from the plain stationary below him and took in a deep breath.
“Dear boy, this is more than good. This is damn near fantastic.”
Jeremy laughed, shaking his head. “I'll take your word for it.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows and gave a slight nod as he took a long drink of his coffee. He finished it several minutes later, and was out the door before Jeremy even really noticed. He left a 5 dollar bill and a small note in his place. It read:

“Jeremy,
Sorry I couldn't stay to chat this morning.
It was urgent that I get home to reply to that letter.
I'll see you tomorrow.

-Doc”

You leave me when I'm at my worst
Feeling as if I've been cursed
Bitter cold within...

On the way home, Hannibal went over every line of Will's letter in his mind. From the indentation to the slightly awkward handwriting, down to the very words themselves.

Something had seemed a bit odd about the writing, he noted. The letters were shaky, and the ink was smeared in places, like the letter had been written with a left hand. Hannibal knew Will was right-handed.
Why would he write with his left hand?
He was either injured or trying to disguise his writing. The latter seemed unlikely.

Upon further inspection of the letter over the steering wheel, Hannibal found the spots where Will had stopped to readjust his grip on the pen as he scrawled out his reply. The words there were spaced a little further than other words where Will had simply lifted the pen. The very first words of the letter were written by the right hand. They were practically scribbled, but they were smooth and confident. Something had stopped will, mid-line and he'd switched hands.
Hannibal nodded. Will was most definitely injured. That must have been a recent injury. Will had been just fine before he'd left to see Jack.

Hannibal watched him almost everywhere he went.

He knew Will didn't bother much with routine. He got up, showered and dressed when he felt it necessary. He had coffee and often made very, very thick peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast.
Will didn't work, or at least Hannibal didn't think he did. He never got up early enough for any sort of business run in Marathon. He must have stopped fixing boat motors after Molly left. He didn't have anyone to support but himself. He was probably still being awarded damages after Dolarhyde's attack.

The day Will got the call from Jack, Hannibal followed the ex investigator all the way through town as he restless worked to control his screaming mind. Will didn't look behind himself- even after that fateful night. It made Lecter just a bit sad to watch the man that once had an awareness taught as a bowstring, let it go lax enough to not even notice something like man following him.

The day he left his home, the doctor had been living in Marathon for three days. He was in considerable amounts of pain- his left thumb broken and a very large gash marring his left forearm, but he was content. Content to start life yet again. This time, with something he'd been meaning to catch up with for over 11 years.

Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn't live my life without you...

Hannibal pulled into the underground parking beneath his loft building, locked the car and head toward the elevator, letter in hand. His loft was on the very top of an expensive hotel in the middle of town. Surprisingly, the loft wasn't as incredibly costly as he'd expected. And it put him at a very close proximity to Will.

The elevator only went to the 15th floor, the top floor of the rented rooms. Hannibal would have to use the private elevator- or take the stairs.
He used a key to open the heave doors of the private elevator, pressed the 3 button (there were three floors of lofts), and waited. The elevator opened to a narrow hallway that led straight to his door. He used a long iron key to open the antique door and stepped inside.
The loft looked a lot like his townhouse in Baltimore; fillwed with books and red velvet upholstered furniture, leather couches, and large decorative fireplaces. Hannibal smiled.
It even smelled like his townhouse used to.
The only thing it was missing was Will.

Hannibal slid off his shoes at the door. He disliked sweeping up the sand from his floor, even if it was hardwood.
Lecter then headed for the comfortably sized work room he'd turned into a study.

He wanted decent light to dissect the letter further, before he wrote his reply.

“Yes, Jack told me of your escape. But no, I haven't accepted any offers.” Hannibal smiled. Will knew his worst fear was on the loose, but still he'd turned down protective custody.
Gods, Will was brave. Hannibal never ceased to be amazed by the amounts of courage Will seemed to have.
The line about the witness was interesting.
“I don't understand that...”
So he didn't know everything about Clarice. He probably hadn't even met with her.
It was better that way, Lecter knew.
Best not to disturb the fragile Starling while she mourns her lambs.
She was probably in worse mental shape than Will was after that January evening so many years ago. Clarice had been strong, but never as strong as the doctor knew Will was.

Will had mentioned the loss of the doctor's hand. But Lecter figured that saying he didn't understand was Will's way of saying that he didn't believe it.

Such a clever boy.

Hannibal wasn't about to cut off his own hand any more than he would cut off any other part of himself. He broke his thumb the quickest and cleanest way he knew how to slide his hand from the cuff. He made sure that the blood from the cut gash he'd made in his forearm got everywhere. The bureau would want good proof of a severed limb. Lots of blood would do just that. He told Clarice to close her eyes. She'd obeyed.

He left without any trouble.

The line about fear, that was typical. Will was a slave to his fears. It was a wonder he slept at all really. The ex investigator 'knowing the end was coming' was a tad cliché, and not at all what Hannibal had had in mind.
The second parpahraph was what had Hannibal smiling back at the café. An answer to a query he'd almost forgotten he'd made.
“Do you dream much, Will?” He'd asked. Will never answered. But not now, in shaky scribbles he let the doctor know he starred in many a dream.
“You're in my thoughts as much as I'm in yours.” Will was right. He did take that as a compliment.
It was the last line that nearly sent shivers through Hannibal as he'd sat at his table, underneath Will's frosted glass wings.
“I can't help it...You made me this way...”
Will was already starting to realize what he wanted...
Hannibal picked another piece of mauve stationary from the box in his desk drawer, took up a pen and began writing a reply.

Without you...

Another two days passed before Will found a second white envelope- this time in his mailbox. The address was written in neat copperplate handwriting. It hadn't been Hannibal's right hand that had been lost, obviously. Will was ready to tear open the envelope, but stopped when the broken knuckles of his own right hand ground nastily against each other.
It was then that Will proceeded with cation, carefully ripping the top of the envelope to reveal more of the purplish paper.

My dear Will,
I was thrilled to receive your reply.
About my hand, not to worry- it's still fully attached. Just a broken thumb and a healing cut. Were you worried about me? I'd say the damage isn't half as bad as whatever has happened to your hand.
You say that you're certain the end is near. Do you really think so? I don't.
I'd like to thank you for finally answering my question, though. I was starting to forget that I'd ever asked it. Maybe someday you can tell me more about those dreams of yours. I'm a little vain. But you already knew that.
What made you turn Jack down, Will? Have you finally decided that you're through with him using you...or is it something else, I wonder?
As always, I admire your courage, dear boy- and your insight. I think you knew about my hand.

You still amaze me.

Yours,
Hannibal

Will breathed out a long sigh.

Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn't live my life without you
Without you...

So this is the game he wanted to play. He wanted to warm Will up an dget him to trust again before he swooped in to do god knows that.
Hannibal didn't know he knew about what exactly Clarice had been witness to. He didn't think he knew that Clarice had been pent up in a cellar while Hannibal tried to brainwash her into becoming his sister. He didn't think Will knew that Mason Verger, a man who Will had seen on life support after Hannibal had visited him one night, meeting with special agent Paul Krendler and plotting together the murder of the doctor.
A much different kind of meeting between Hannibal and Verger's boars could have killed Lecter, but survive he did- and with enough vengeance to give Krendler a lobotomy with Starling as a witness. The end was fuzzy. Jack just barely brushed over the details of the second escape.
Knowing all the details didn't help much. Lecter was unpredictable. Will never really knew what exactly he wanted. He knew that these letters would go on for as long as Lecter wanted them to. He knew that eventually they wouldn't be enough, and Hannibal would have to come see him, if only for a while. What Will wasn't sure of was what the doctor would do once he saw him.

“You say you're certain the end is near. Do you really think so? I don't...”
Maybe there was something Hannibal wanted besides his death...No. Not that. Will shook his head violently. Not anythint like that. The ex investigator stared down at the paper while he walked back inside.
“My dear Will...” That was normal.
“I admire your courage, dear boy...” A little reminiscent of the past, but not uncommon.
“You still amaze me...” He hadn't heard that one in a while...
“Yours, Hannibal...” What did 'yours' mean? Will didn't really want to guess. For the last five nights his mind had been guessing for him, throwing him mockeries of many memories with Lecter. All of them ended with Hannibal asking Will to join him in some foreign country. The last few nights, Hannibal didn't stop with the travel request, he wanted Will's body too. And every time, Will gave himself up on a silver platter.
The ex investigator shivered. He wasn't liking that expression so very much when associated with Lecter and himself.
Will sat at his counter and looked over the letter again.
What would he do if that was what Hannibal wanted?
Would would he say?
“No sorry, Hannibal. I've dreamt of fucking you for the last however long, but...” But what? But nothing.
God...Why hadn't the real Hannibal asked Will to go with him 11 years ago?
It was probably his fault. In those moments when all reality finally came crashing into Will's mind, he'd panicked. That was what kept Hannibal from asking him to just give in and come away from a painful future.

You leave me when I'm at my worst
Feeling as if I've been cursed
Bitter cold within...

Will was within seconds of slamming his hand into another wall, when he heard the phone ring.
He sighed again, leaning over and picking it up from the charger on the wall.

-”Will Graham.”
-”Will? This is Jack I know when you left, we weren't on good terms-”
-”What do you want, Jack?”

A pause

-”I called to tell you that we think Lecter is in Florida.”

No shit...Will looked down at the letters.

-”I see...”
-”Now Will, we don't want you to worry so-”
-”I'm not worried, Jack.”
-”Well, we just-”
-”Just leave me be,Jack. Leave me the hell alone. If Hannibal's in Florida, so be it. Maybe he just wants to get away from all of you assholes. I know if I were him, I wouldn't want to go back to Baltimore- Chilton or no.”
-”Wait just a second, Will. You aren't like he is, you aren't-”
-”What? I'm not what? Insane? That's not what the doctors at Bethesda think. That's not what Molly thinks. You want to know what I think, Jack? I think if Hannibal wants me, then he'll come and find me. I'm not going to go out of my way to find out, especially not with the intent of shoving him back in that stupid gerbil cage at Baltimore.”
-”Will...”
-”No, Jack. Don't 'Will' me. I'm done. Goodbye.”

Will exhaled furiously. That wasn't even half of what he'd wanted to say, but it was still more than he would have said had Jack called any other time.
In a way, Will was happier.
He lowered his head, chuckling a low, mirthless chuckle. He looked at the letter resting on the counter in front of him.
Well...what was he waiting for?
He pulled another piece of paper from the box, picked up the pen in his left hand, and began to write.

Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn't live my life without you
Without you...

Dear Hannibal,
It's good to know that I was right about your hand. I guess I did know the whole time. I don't know how you know about my hand, but I can guess. It's the handwriting, right? I slammed my hand against a wall. The wall's fine. My hand is suffer two shattered knuckles and three broken bones. I shouldn't say suffering. It isn't really. The doctor I went to gave me plenty of Vicodin. I'm tempted to tell him that it doesn't have the mind-blowing pain killing effect it has for people that haven't been on morphine for months at a time in the past.
I got a call from Jack today. He called totell me that he and the bureau THINK that you might be in Florida. I told him that I was done with the buruea and to go fuck himself. It felt good.
I turned down the protective custody because I want to see this through myself. I don't want them hindering me.
Like I said, I'm not afraid anymore. If there's anything else that made me turn down their help, you'll have to see me to find out.
I have a question for you. That night, when I found out...Was it because I panicked that you stabbed me? What I really want to know is if you ever had anything else in mind...Tell me when you come to see me.


I'll tell you about my dreams then too.
Fondly,
-Will

Days go by and still I think of you
Days when I couldn't live my life without you
Without you...

Like before, the paper was folded, slid into an envelope with only Hannibal's P.O. Box address written on it, and walked out to the mailbox. If this was to become frequent, Will thought he might type up address labels for Hannibal too. He shook his head then.

Hannibal wasn't someone you used typed up address labels for.

You only use those for people you don't care much about.
Will wasn't even going to bother lying to himself-

He cared...

Without You

Without You

Without You...