Chapter Text
Will is teaching.
It is not an uncommon activity in itself, but he’s teaching with passion and intensity in order to violently ignore Jack’s looming presence in the doorway of the small auditorium.
Jack knows damn well what he’s doing– he’s not the head of the behavioral science unit in the FBI for nothing. The lecture that Will is expounding upon is about fingerprints: the circumstances which make the perfect set of prints, where they're most often found and on what surfaces, and how long it takes for them to disappear. It’s an important subject, but Jack’s patience is waning with every new slide, and he’s considering making a scene before Will closes out the lecture and finally looks over at him. He takes it as his cue and comes over to Will’s unorganized desk that the man is fastidiously decluttering.
“Will.”
The man glances up only to his collar at the greeting, and immediately looks back down again.
“Jack,” he replies neutrally.
Jack sighs, not knowing nor particularly caring how to sugarcoat the request that got passed down from higher-ups. He knows that Will’s not going to like it, though.
“You don’t usually take this long to make a request. How bad is it?” Will muses. In between the greeting and now, he put his glasses on, and so he looks Jack in the eye while speaking.
“They want you in New Zealand,” Jack starts. “There’s been a string of murders– they’re in groups of three, the bodies are displayed, a couple organs missing from all of them. The New Zealand government wanted to keep it internal but they haven’t had a serial killer since the 90s and they’re worried about a third killing spree. This was passed on from well above me, and I’m not happy about it, but I can’t do much about it either. They want you on the first flight they can get.”
Will, who had stilled at the news, now pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t have the funds to cover a round trip to New Zealand outta the blue.”
“They’re going to cover your flight, and Dr. Bloom kindly offered up a contact who you’ll be staying with for the duration. His name’s Dr Lecter. He’s gonna sponsor you through the investigation because he consults with the government in a similar manner to you.”
“You told Alana about this before you told me?”
“I’m not giving you the chance to say no to this, Will. You were requested for by the goddamn New Zealand government. Do your thing, enjoy the views, and don’t cause an international incident. I already emailed you the flight details, it’s tomorrow at 6pm.” Jack turns to leave but stops, and throws over his shoulder, “Dr. Lecter’s information is also in the email. He’ll be picking you up from the airport.”
With that, Will is alone in the auditorium, mind racing to thoughts of the near future.
The future comes a little more quickly than he’d hoped.
He gets Alana to cover for his dogs, thank god. Before leaving, he gives Winston a kiss on his little forehead and gets his neck licked for his efforts. He’s gonna miss his family.
Will packs enough to last him a week. He has a small, black carry-on suitcase and an overfilled backpack; he hates wasting time in airport baggage claims when he can help it.
Jack gives him the files on the six previous murders on the way to the airport, which he rifles through idly. Will would love to say that the murders aren’t pretty, but they very much are. Each tableau is a work of art, and while there isn’t affectionate care, there is a deep sense of intentional placement and its resulting satisfaction.
If he weren’t on his way to the airport and sitting next to Jack Crawford, Will would slide into the killer’s mind and oversee the recreation of these pieces privately. There’s something alluring about the way they’re displayed. It’s disturbing as all hell, of course, but it’s thought-provoking, and unnecessarily aesthetic.
Jack looks over at Will, who’s in his own world, and sighs. He does that a lot these days.
“We’re here.”
Will neatly shoves the folder into his backpack, and mutters a quick, “thanks for driving me,” before sliding out of the car.
If Jack hadn’t driven him, it’d be a wonder that Will made it to the airport at all. He has to stop four separate times to find his passport or ticket in his overstuffed backpack, and nearly loses them both going through TSA.
The flight to Los Angeles isn’t awful, all things considered. He doesn’t have any room to look at the files, and he doesn’t want the bored-annoyed-feeling-like-wasted-potential businessman to his left to snoop at the documents in the already too-cramped space they share. He can’t sleep well on flights, so he decides to listen to music and zone out instead. It works, for the most part.
They land. He goes from the domestic terminal to the international one. The throng of people is so overwhelming that it actually has the opposite effect on him; he feels invisible, anonymous. He can’t read anyone because everyone is moving in a faceless blur, and it’s a calming thought.
Will reboards a much larger plane, and realizes that this will be the first time he’s traveling to the Southern Hemisphere, and also another continent.
He wants it to feel significant.
It doesn't.
This flight, he has a premium economy class flight instead of economy. He knows damn well that Jack (nor the stingy American government) paid for the seat, and his opinion of the New Zealand government rises. The seat is comfortable, larger, and has a bit more privacy than the previous flight warranted.
His mind is distinctly not focusing on the file in his backpack. It’s been burning a hole for the last 6 hours, and he feels like a preteen boy pulling out his first stolen copy of Playboy Magazine when he finally grabs the papers after liftoff.
The murders are astoundingly eloquent. There’s symbolism and double meanings etched into every part of the scene, from the surroundings to the positioning of the body to the wound pattern. He’s gonna have to brush up on his animal symbolism and Greek/Roman mythology, as those seem to be some of the most common themes in the tableaus.
He’s about to slide into the killer’s mind when a flight attendant interrupts him. “Anything to drink, sir?”
His eyes fly open and he subtly slides his hand over the images. “Do you happen to have whiskey?”
“Yes sir, we have blended whiskey.”
“I’ll take that, thank you.”
“Alright. We’ll be serving dinner in an hour.” With that, she turns to ask a different passenger the same question, and Will’s mind quiets a little bit.
He runs a hand through his haphazard curls, breathing deep. Sinking into a mindset like that on a plane– a tiny, confined space with many potentially life-threatening modules– would be an extremely stupid plan. He’s waited half a day, he can wait til he makes it to New Zealand to start working again. His fingers idly curl against an image, and a faint rush of something hot runs through his chest to his shoulders at the thought of seeing a display in person.
He tries to tell himself it’s disgust; the whiskey comes before he has to face that it isn’t.
Dinner is delicious, and soon they dim the cabin lights for passengers who can sleep. Will likes the gesture but thinks it isn’t for him until he’s waking up to the announcement that they passed the international date line, pushing them a full day ahead, and there’s only an hour and a half left in the flight.
His neck is sore as anything, and cracks when he turns it. His shoulder aches and his lower back is killing him. He gets up to stretch properly, and decides to go to the bathroom with his little pack of travel size toothpaste and toothbrush.
Will looks in the mirror and sighs with a bone-deep weariness. He looks like he crawled out of the nearest dumpster. A day-old beard is growing through his usually close-shaven face, and his flannel button-down shirt is wrinkled as hell. His curls are mussed, not in the fun post-sex way, but in the raggedy, slept-in-a-chair way. Surprisingly, the bags under his eyes are not too bad, but that barely counts as a win considering all the other points.
He straightens out his shirt (to unnoticeable results), brushes his teeth, and returns to his seat just in time for the seatbelt sign to flash on.
The first wave of turbulence drops his stomach, and he grabs onto the handrests with a white knuckle grip. Opening the window cover, he looks out to the wind-scraped clouds and the ocean below. He can see the makings of a green island in the distance, but it still feels too far.
The wind dips the nose of the plane, and the seatbelt sign flashes again. A soothing male voice comes over the intercom, talking about a ‘normal bit of wind while we’re coming into Wellington’, and Will feels anything but soothed. Their goddamn tin can is jostling about like a puppet on a string. He would rather swim than feel the violent dips of turbulence ever again.
The plane lands with Will’s eyes closed. He’s never been more grateful to feel an engine cut off than when they pull into the gate.
He realizes that for all his time in the plane, he never once opened his email to alert the man picking him up about his flight time. Fuck, he’s gonna have to get a cab. Or worse, call the man. It’s a humiliating endeavor either way.
He gets off the plane, rolling his little bag and carrying his backpack through NZ customs. He’s technically there on personal business, not because it’s true, but because it’s the path of least paperwork. On this, he and Jack agree. Getting through the line still takes a whopping 20 minutes.
Once through customs, he follows signs for baggage claim, which also happens to be the same direction for a bathroom and the taxi stand.
He goes to the bathroom, washes his hands, and then rinses his face off with cold water and dries it with a rough paper towel. He does not want to have to call this man.
He leaves the restroom, slowly making his way towards the taxi stand when–
“Mr. Graham?” a steady, softly European accented voice behind him asks.
Will turns, eyes flicking up to the stranger, and… they stay on the man’s hazel eyes. There’s half a second of a heady rush , every single indescribable emotion intoxicating and intense, before something slides back into place, and he sees a neutral but polite face with astounding cheekbones gazing at him.
“Yes, that’s me,” he replies, finally dropping the eye contact. He re-establishes it out of curiosity when he asks, “I'm assuming you're Dr. Lecter?” Unbeknownst to Will, a faint smile curls at his lip.
The eye contact is like taking a sip of cool water. It’s calming, meditative; nothing like the first impression. It ignites a spark of hunger in him to see more, to get that intensity back. It’s also completely unobtrusive, and he finds he doesn’t mind this connection.
“Please, call me Hannibal,” the man responds. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s be on our way.”