Fic: Gaze Long into an Abyss (1/?)

[shadowesque]

Title: Gaze Long into an Abyss (1/?)
Fandom: NBC's Hannibal
Rating: PG-13 (so far)
Warnings: Brief violent and supernatural depictions
Summary: Written for hannibalkink: Hannibal/Will, Soulgazing (Dresden Files X-over or AU), Will is a wizard, which is why he hates eye contact: because Soulgazing is a horrible thing to experience., pre-hannigram, wizard Will Graham meets a therapist and gets an unwelcome surprise along the way, first person POV


You wouldn't think that the FBI would have some kind of special investigations unit. They already are like special investigations, right? And you'd be wrong. Even they have to deal with freaky shit--freakier than normal police. Serial killers, psychopaths, the sort of thing I teach a class of cadets about every week. And that's before you add in the supernatural element to it.

Human beings are capable of an enormous amount of evil. We don't need angry werewolves, poorly summoned demonic spirits, and vampires mucking around with the Nevernever, but we get that as an added bonus just the same. Sometimes a serial killer is just a serial killer. And sometimes something less immediately explicable is going on.

And then Jack Crawford comes to get me. At least he usually waits until the end of a lecture. I appreciate that, and I think he gets it.

It's the little things, with Jack, I appreciate. It balances out his being an insensitive jackass the rest of the time. He's just doing his job. And a little eye of newt and hair of dog doesn't endear him to his superiors. There aren't a lot of people who aren't magically inclined who understand the kind of shit that happens just under everyone's mundane noses. Jack does. He's seen it with his own eyes. That's why he heads this particular division. It's a pretty sucky job, but he goes at it with gusto.

Me, I just try to make it through every day back home to my dogs. (Hair of dog comes pretty easily, especially in the summer.) And if I do that much with only a few weird looks and not-so-behind my back comments, well, then it's a good day. Most people think I'm pretty strange. Being a wizard and keeping that a general secret does that pretty well. Being somewhere along the autism spectrum only increases that. On the other hand, it gives me a very handy excuse for a lot of my habits. The ignorance of others is indeed blissful sometimes.

So I teach mundane cadets how to catch regular killers. Psychos whose heads they'll have to try and crawl uncomfortably inside of to see what they see, know what they know. Figure out the source of bloodthirst, method, manner, and most importantly, reason. If you understand a person, then you can predict their movements. Catch them with their pants down. And yay, another unstable killer off the streets, inappropriate applause for all.

I'm a very imaginative guy. It's not usually that hard for me to figure out a human killer, even though a lot of the time I wish it was. Other creatures of the night can be a lot more complicated. But thankfully, I don't have to teach that half of my life to students who probably think of magic as Harry Potter type wizardry.

Of course, a guy in my position needs to be given clear bills of psychological health to keep giving the help that I do. I don't particularly like the idea, but it's become pretty mandatory that I at least talk to someone else in the field after a case. Usually I sit down with Alana with coffee and talk until it's cold sludge and the sun's starting to peek through the curtains. Alana Bloom is a psychologist who stands in for me in lecture when I'm busy with work. Or busy recovering. But she isn't my therapist. Just a very, very trusted friend, and that's something I could always use more of.

But now I do have a therapist. Of a sort. Hannibal Lecter was recommended by Alana, and I trust her judgment. I guess having more professional distance is a good thing. But I can't just tell this guy I throw around a little magic, right? He's been briefed about my teaching position and my help with SI, so he must already think I'm a little crazy. And after he meets me, he'll think I'm a lot crazy.

Hey, maybe he'll say I'm not fit to keep helping. Wouldn't that be a nice vacation.

I take him in when he opens the door to his office to let me in for our first (and potentially last) little meeting. Well-dressed in a tailored suit, complementing colors, unexpected patterns that at first strike me as strange, but then they settle into the background of what makes Lecter. Dark eyes, high protruding cheekbones, a slight curl to his lips that seems like a smile, but I can't shake the feeling that it isn't one at all. Not in a typically friendly way. I realize he must be taking me in in much the same manner. Maybe he's already diagnosed my crazy just by looking at me.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Graham." His accent is thick but pleasant, extending a hand for a firm handshake. I can admit that I hesitated for a moment, but it didn't deter him at all. His grip is steady and quick before ushering me inside.

"I can't say the same, but thanks." I'm not one for tact a lot of the time. Being blunt and honest keeps a lot of people away, but it's the way my brain works, and the ones that can stick around despite it tend to be the people I can rely on. I figure he's heard a lot worse anyway; people don't like it when you get in their head. Or their soul.

His office is massive for a psychologist. Maybe he likes the idea of wide open spaces. Modern furniture, nothing that takes up more room than necessary. A second level holds a miniature library. The decorations alone strewn around make me want to dissect his brain rather than the other way around, but I'm (usually) meant to save that for the psycho killers. It isn't that I don't like psychology, or I wouldn't be doing what I do, teaching what I teach. But using it on someone and having it used on you are two very different things.

As expected, Lecter doesn't take offense to my brusque nature. There's a little quirk of his lips my eyes eventually land on that is much more a smile this time. "I don't imagine it will be a normal therapy session with you. Most of the people that I work with don't already know the tricks."

"I can diagnose my own crazy, you mean."

The smile is gone, and he clasps his hands in front of him. His look might be called professional curiosity. "You think you are crazy, Will?"

"No." Well, maybe a little bit. Not mental ward crazy, and that's good for everyone else around me. There can't be something wholly right with someone who can chat with serial killers like I do. It's like their shadow is hanging around, suspended dust motes, and somehow that's more than enough for me.

Yeah. Maybe a little bit crazy.

"But I'm here for a reason, obviously."

Lecter leans, sitting on the edge of his desk and seems to expect me to continue. I'm not in the mood. I just keep looking at the office around me, and only sometimes do I glance in his direction, somewhere near him, not at him.

"Jack wants to know that you're not getting too close to your cases. Would you agree that it's a valid concern?"

I want to scoff, but it comes out as more of a huff of annoyed air. Close enough. "I'd find it funny that Jack's only getting concerned now. But I can see where he's coming from."

"So you are here only out of what you feel to be obligation."

"I go where Jack tells me to go." That makes me sound like his little puppydog that way, doesn't it? But it's true enough. I trust Jack. Like I trust Alana.

I don't trust Hannibal Lecter. Not yet.

"And sometimes those places are dark. There isn't any shame in this."

"I'm not ashamed."

Lecter is quiet for long enough that it forces me to look at him, at the cut of his suit, the wide knot of his tie sitting at the base of his throat. If anyone can be unsettling and comforting at the same time, he might be the first one to be able to pull it off. But for now, it's just unsettling. Funny how blood and gore and nightmares about dead people can seem almost commonplace to me, but this man can give me mental goosebumps.

"Not fond of eye contact, Will?"

"No," I hiss, "I'm not. Eyes are a distraction. They don't see enough, or they see too much, or you end up thinking about how their whites are really white or noticing burst veins instead of focusing on what's being said. So no. I tend to avoid eyes." It's not the whole truth. Hopefully part of the truth is enough to satisfy.

"Everyone's eyes? All the time?"

Lecter's prompting--no, he's goading me. Wants me to look. Maybe look and tell him what I see.

"Not everyone and not all the time. It's...prolonged contact that drives me up the wall."

"Because it's distracting."

I nod. "Because it's distracting."

"And, I would imagine, very unsettling. Maybe even upsetting."

That stops me. What an interesting way to phrase it. I still can't--I still won't--meet his eyes. But he does have my attention. "Why would you imagine that?"

He curls his fingers around the edge of the desk, eyes sliding away for a moment as if to gather his thoughts. I let my own eyes linger, less fearful about looking him where I’ve been avoiding, but I’m away again before he looks back to me. "They say that eyes are the window to the soul. Nearly everyone, I think, has that feeling, when they stare someone in the eye for too long. Discomfort. A shiver down their spine. But you're much more sensitive to that. You are distracted perhaps by medical reasons...but I think you're more distracted by trying to see the person within. The soul of whoever you are talking to."

If I'd had something in my hands, I swear I would've dropped it. I can't tell if he knows or if he's unknowingly accurate by a paranoid trick of karma. It must read loud and clear on my face, because his eyebrows bob up in a way that seems to indicate he's onto something. I fumble. "It's unpleasant," I admit. "To see someone's soul."

There's a lot with me and sight with people that has a negative history. I'll extend my senses when I need to, but I don't like Seeing people, even if it shows me something much like they really are inside. Especially that. Handy for rooting out nonhumans who pass for human, but I'd much rather do it a less invasive, less mind-searing way. And then there are the windows to the soul.

The words spill out of my mouth, and I just know I'm going to sound crazy. "I can make brief contact. Eye color. Enough to seem even the barest bit social. Which I'm not, let's face it. But too long with direct eye contact, and I just...dive right in. It only lasts for seconds at most on the outside, but it can last so much longer in their mind. In their soul. I can see who they are; nothing there lies to me. And they can see me right back. It's all very...metaphorical. It doesn't show everything. It's not a literal landscape. But it can show the bare bones." I can't help the shudder that rocks my spine up and down, and I have to finally sit in one of Lecter's damn psychotherapy chairs just to breathe again. "And I can't ever forget what I see there. None of it will ever fade, not even as an old man. The pleasant enough...and the dangerous, sadistic nightmares."

It's why I trust Jack. It's why I trust Alana. I've done the soulgaze with both of them at one point or another, so they know how I am, and I know how they are. They're good folk. Trustworthy. Stable. Human. And I must be fine to them, because they still talk to me. But they'll never say what they saw, just like I'll never say what I saw. Like a silent pact. I don't imagine it was pretty. I can only do it with creatures with souls. Some of them don't have one. Some do. Some are innocent. Some...

Some make me want to grab one of Lecter's pens and scrape my brain out of my eye sockets just to get it out. They can make even the sickest human psycho look like a hippie. I try not to think about the things I see in a soulgaze or with Sight often. Yeah, I must be very, very sane.

I'm startled when I suddenly realize Lecter is very close. When did he do that? He's crouched down, not close enough to be in my personal space yet, but close enough to be pressing up against it. I do meet his eyes this time. There's a kindness in them. And a darkness. And I don't just mean the color or the way they're shaded in the light.

I don't know which way is up for a moment, but I swallow and look away. Anywhere else but at Lecter. I don't want to see who he is. Yet. And I definitely don't want him seeing me. Bad enough he's a therapist who's supposed to pluck all the issues out of my head one by one and lay them in a neat little row. I don't need him doing the same thing to my soul.

"And do you still think it would be so raw and unrelenting to see me? All I wish to do is help you through your troubled times."

If that's true, I might be able to see it. If I can let him in, I can tell if I can trust him.

He hasn't called me crazy. Maybe he knows, somehow. Maybe he understands what I'm talking about. Has he dealt with wizards before? Does he believe in the forces of magic and the underlying supernatural powers in the world, like one must do when they work for SI? Or is he just humoring me?

"On the first date, Doctor?" I chide with a raise of my own eyebrows, even if I'm looking aside at the corner of his desk instead.

I get the impression of a smirk when he rises to his feet to settle himself in the chair opposite mine. And I don't know what it means. But he doesn't ask for it again, not this time.

"I'm not the kiss and tell type." He leans in, settles his elbows on his knees. "Another 'date', perhaps."

I'm starting to think I used the wrong word.