Based on characters portrayed by Anthony Hopkins
and Edward Norton in the 2002 film, Red Dragon. Characters copyright
Thomas Harris. Story set within Red Dragon and contains spoilers for
the book and the film.
Do You Dream?
by elfin
"Do you dream, Will?"
"Yes. I dream of you."
*
Standing there, face to face with him again. They think a pane of
toughened glass will keep him from me, will keep them safe. Only a sealed,
metal box could do that. One day this remarkable man will die, and
still he'll reach those of us already touched by his evil.
As I looked at him for the first time since the court case that had put
him here, I felt the same mix of emotions I'd buried somewhere deep inside
me so long ago. Why hadn't I fought Crawford on this? Why hadn't I refused
to get involved yet again?
But I knew why.
I wanted this. I wanted to see him, to look into those piercing eyes
just one more time and know, for certain, that he hated me enough to want
me dead.
I'd had no idea, the night I went to see him, that he was the man I'd been
hunting. I think I knew what he might be capable of, if provoked,
but to think of him as the brutal, merciless killer who'd occupied my every
waking hour for so many months was inconceivable. He'd helped me before,
on a previous case, and we'd become friends. Become close.
He was a local doctor, highly respected in all the upper circles of life.
How was I to know that he'd just fed the symphony orchestra's third flute
player to its board of directors?
When I saw that book on his shelf, only curiosity had made me open it.
When I saw his handwriting there, an asterisk with the word "sweetbreads"
neatly suggested above one of the recipes, I couldn't believe what I was
seeing. I wouldn't believe it. I stared at it for too long and
when I turned....
As he stabbed me, as he was killing me, he spoke to me in the same tones
he'd used when we'd made love. Those gentle, harmonic tones, that
had for so long been like music to me, suddenly became the last thing I
was ever likely to hear. The shock he talked about wasn't just my
body reacting to disruption and blood loss, it was my heart and mind realising
just how wrong I'd been, how thoroughly he'd betrayed me.
I killed him - at least, I hoped I had - with more rage than I'd ever felt
before. And I didn't do it for his victims, didn't even do it to save
my own life. I did it to exact my revenge for his betrayal of me.
In his arms I'd felt safer than I'd ever felt before.
In his bed I'd been cradled against the horrors of the world, against the
evil of the men I chased.
That had been torn from me, and without it I found myself incapable of
facing the nightmares I'd faced before. Without him in the background
advising me, listening to me, loving me (if he ever did), I couldn't go
on. After several months of insanity, I resigned and left the place
I'd known for most of my life.
Molly never knew. When Crawford found Hannibal and I that night,
I died in my boss' arms, if only for a few seconds. For my wife, that
was experience enough for me to crack up, to at first distance myself from
her and then later to need her as badly as I needed oxygen.
I had to know that something in my life was real.
I questioned every word that had passed between Lector and I. The
conversations we'd had over expensive, excellent bottles of red wine.
The meals I'd eaten in his company, at his house (just the thought of those
made me sick).
We'd been friends for months when a serial killer's work had driven me
to him harder and further than before.
Late one night, I'd found the man I'd considered my partner, hanging from
a light fitting in the front room of his house. His back had been
slashed, his spinal chord severed from his skull and torn out so that it
hung like a tail behind him.
I'd left the crime scene in a daze, driven like a madman to Lector's house
and banged on the door until he'd opened it. Despite the hour - around
three in the morning - he was fully clothed, had a book in one hand and
a glass of wine in the other.
Just to see him, so normal after what I'd witnessed, I burst into tears
on his doorstep.
His response was to quickly transfer his glass into his other hand in a
practised balancing act, and lean out to put an arm around my shoulders to
draw me inside.
All the time, I remember clearly, he was hushing me, soothing me like a
parent would a child.
His house was warm as it always was, like stepping into a cocoon.
Seating me on the sofa, he fetched me a brandy and sat close by, book and
wine forgotten as he rested his hand on my back and listened to me recount
the horrific sight in Carl Bass' living room.
Now, I can't help but wonder if what I described turned him on. It
frightens me in a way it probably shouldn't that what happened between us
that night, when I was calmer and wanted the blanket of warmth and safety
he was offering, was the result of my story.
I believed for so long that the kiss, which I initiated and he responded
to with the barest of questions in his eyes, was simply a deepening of our
friendship; a mutual understanding.
To think that I'd been blinded by him, fooled by his lies, deceived by
the tenderness and desire he'd shown me, was for some reason more than I
could bare.
That was why I didn't fight Crawford on the issue of involving Lector in
the murders of the two families. I wanted a reason to face him once
more and see for myself if I'd been truly wrong.
Standing there, face to face with him again, I knew I hadn't been.
Interview over, I turned to leave but I could feel his eyes - those deep
blue eyes that I'd drowned in so often and been happy to do so - on my back.
"Will?"
I love his voice. I've always loved his voice. At nights, even
now, I can still hear him purring words of love and comfort to me as we
lay in his bed wrapped up in one another.
I couldn't bring myself to move. All the years that had passed and
still I was shaking just thinking about this exchange.
"I was protecting myself," he continued finally. "It was nothing
personal."
Still I just stood there, gripping the file I'd brought with me, unable
to turn, knowing he'd read what was clear in my expression.
"You killed me."
"What would you have done, Will?" I could hear the soft sadness in
his voice, the care for me that had always been there.
It was a question I'd asked myself a thousand times.
"I didn't want to hurt you but I'd left the recipe book out on the side....
Maybe I did that on purpose. Maybe I wanted you to know."
It was a strange confession but it changed nothing.
"It didn't change the way I felt about you, Will," his voice sang to me,
reverberating gently off the damp brickwork. "But I had no choice."
Slowly, I turned my head.
"No choice?" I knew I was letting my emotions lead me, he knew that
to push me would result in this. No one but him had ever seen the
part of me that had rested in his arms and taken pleasure in submitting
to his body. He alone knew me completely. It hurts to know that,
and it scares me.
"What would you have done?"
I shook my head once. "I don't know."
"I made the decision for you."
"You stabbed me!" I quieted on the third word, not wanting to rouse
the other inmates. This was more than anyone even imagined me capable
of. "You killed me." I closed back in on the cell, moving as
he did toward the glass.
"I loved you," he countered. He'd never said it, not in all the time
we'd spent together, not even - or perhaps not especially - in the afterglow
of love making. Hearing it now, so long after he'd hurt me more than
anyone possibly could again, brought every yell of hatred and every tear
of sadness back.
Trembling, desperately keeping my tears in check, I pressed one hand against
the glass. He smiled, and mirrored my gesture.
I didn't know if he was capable of love. But at the moment I wanted
to believe that he was, and that his words were the truth.
As we stood together, closer than we'd been in years, I knew he'd betray
me again and again until one of us was dead. I knew because he couldn't
stop. He took those things he held dear and smashed them until the
broke. And he carried on smashing them. I was one of those things.
"Do you dream, Will?"
Blinking the moisture from my eyes I lowered my hand from the glass and
stepped away. With one, single smile, I left him there.
He didn't call me back this time.
fin
elfin
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