Hannigram Oneshots

The Red Dragon (Part 1)

Hemlock and hayloft

Will Graham was stuck, in every way conceivable. He had become disillusioned with the mundane nature of life many years ago. He often spent uncounted hours dissociated. Lately, his mind had been taking him back to his past as a coping mechanism. Mostly reliving the good memories, which wasn't a long file to sift through. He was back in the state of Louisiana, age 18. A lanky, poor boy, who fixed boat motors, and lived with a distant father. In his memory, Will couldn't construct all of his dad's face. It was a polaroid burnt at the edges, dark, ashy, and fragile. He kept it in a locked box, buried under a bed stuffed with shoes.

Will's mom was never really present in his life. She'd skipped town before his 6th birthday. She couldn't handle it anymore and had the gumption and power to leave. At the time he just felt jealous of her, over the years it settled into a quiet resentment for her not taking off with him. All Will could remember about his mom was her face. How soft it was, how kind she seemed compared to his brash father. But it was bittersweet, everything in Will's life was. Fast and clear, but not lasting long enough for him to process.

The little income they made came from him and his dad's collective work on boats; they shared that one interest. It was the only thing that really ever brought them together. Every other waking moment they fought and argued.

He'd remembered the smells of his hometown more vividly than his own mother's face. That was the best part of his youth, the scents that trailed his every step. The ground right after a thunderstorm was the open sea. The oils spilled and drained during his work hours, akin to sweet rotting trees. The hemlock that grew around his dad's house fence line was musty parsley; left forgotten in a dark basement. The hayloft in the barn was a woodsy and dry scent filling lungs with apprehension. And lest he forgets, the smell of that field. He'd hop the fence marking the end of their property line after his father's snores guaranteed safety. He would run through the woods with faerie-like speed, knowing the path as well as the back of his hand. Will would find his spot and lie on the green blanket of grass, perched against a tree. The bark tangled into his curls as he craned up at the night sky. This was a beauty he often admired alone. There were one or two souls who had the luxury of memories with Will in that secret field. Fingers entangled with each other and the grass below them. Young love knowing all too well what the fallout would be. But laughing into the dark anyway, pretending like they held some form of control. Dancing in their little wonderland and watching the immeasurable cosmos swirl by.

Will mused about what it would be like if Hannibal had been there when he was a young man. If they had been the same age, what would they have become? Lovers, perhaps? After all, our past circumstances reflect our present actions. Could Will and he have had a normal life with normal problems? Or would he have lived with him in the state of Louisiana, killing with Hannibal and becoming an artistic version of Bonnie and Clyde? What am I thinking? Will's mind almost pulled him out of his daydream at the sudden aggressiveness in his brain. But he skidded past it, not acknowledging the thoughts again.

Will had slept around a lot when he was younger. He remembered bringing people back to his dad's place at midnight, knowing which boards not to step on. He'd get a beating if he was caught with other boys. Daddy didn't raise any queer. He didn't fuckin raise me at all. Most of the people Will brought back were older men though. He didn't care for most of the teenagers in his town and thirty to forty-year-old divorcès were very easy to find. He could go into any bar and act a certain way and they'd be all over him, like dogs chasing steak. They always told him how pretty he was, how perfect and skinny, how beautiful his heart-shaped lips were. They'd stroke and pull at his hair and say how soft and feminine it felt. Will liked the compliments, most men his age weren't as gentle or kind; the symptoms of generational homophobia in the deep south, along with internalized anger and fear of their own. It made it difficult to find someone his age, who had a shred of decency. He thought that the older men were more caring because they saw him like a doll. Something pretty to play with and treat well but throw away when you're done with, he was okay with that knowledge. He knew he was too soft and delicate for the boys that loitered in his hometown.

At the back of Will's conscious mind, he held the thought that Hannibal and his psychoanalysis could figure out why he leaned that way in seconds. He would give a wordy and metaphoric answer, in that accent of his it would sound like old poetry. It didn't take a genius to figure out, Will Graham had daddy issues.

Over his time in Louisiana, he saw the faces of many men that wouldn't make it out. He realized that he was one of those men, or would have been under the slightest of different circumstances. He didn't think he'd move on from his hometown when he was a boy. He knew it was a place full of traps. One's you spend years laying in, eventually trying to gnaw off your leg when the metal teeth close around your ankle. A heavy realization for someone so young. Will had expected a quiet life of ordinarity, instinctively falling into his father's habits. Working at the local shipyard, becoming a drunkard, dying of heart failure in a cigarette-filled trailer...

"Will? Are you there?" Hannibal's voice drilled through his skull. The anchor was ripped away, the boat rocking as he went in, blind against the perilous sea. He opened his eyes and started breathing heavily.

"I-I-I d-don't..." he was in the early stages of hyperventilating. The comedown was becoming more and more disorientating.

"Breathe Will. You don't have to talk, just focus on your breathing," he looked down, concentrating on Hannibal's grounding voice. His gaze then shifted to his watch. It's 6:48 pm. I'm in Baltimore, Maryland and my name is Will Graham. He repeated the exercise Hannibal had taught him. His breathing was still ragged as he looked up at his psychiatrist. His eyes were dark and filled with interest. In me? Yet they were dead in the water at the same time. For some reason, Will's eyes trailed down to Hannibal's lips. They were as impassive as carved stone. Though he saw them momentarily curl up into a smile after his breathing steadied. Like a wolf bearing its teeth at prey, a chase that would finally be fun.