Shot In the Dark

Part I

 

It’s been a long day.

 

Okay, so they’re all long days. Whatever. It’s still been a long day.

 

Diana, bored out of her fucking skull, adjusts her hair under her blue hood and presses a hand against the oval window. “So what’ve we got?”

 

Chunks of Garret Hobbs are being blown away and the man is crying but he won’t put down the knife. His daughter can’t scream anymore, with her throat cut to ribbons. It takes much too long for Hobbs to die.

 

Bigger bullets next time.

 

A month in the hospital, staring at the walls and thinking over and over I know why he did that.

 

And then another trail of victims, organs missing, and the late night in the doctor’s office when things clicked into place—

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I don’t care about his trauma.”

 

“Look at you! You pissed your pants, you filthy little beast! You apologize . . . Faggot, freak, harelip—"

 

Days staring at the walls again, sedatives and painkillers for a few months, alcohol after that.

 

A one night stand with a woman in a bar, who didn’t care that he was drunk and scarred. He never tells his wife. Ever.

 

“He’s out.” “I know.” “You could help. You know him better than anyone except—" “Leave me alone. Leave me alone. You don’t even have any pull with the Bureau anymore, you think I don’t know that? I don’t owe you any more favors. Leave me alone. I’d never find him anyway.”

 

Diagnosis: melanoma, metastasized.

 

A card on fine, heavy paper, with a Florence postmark, expressing condolences and a hope that he’ll return to health soon. He tears it to pieces, flushes it down the hospital toilet, and doesn’t tell the Bureau.

 

Quietly falling asleep as his wife sleeps curled in the uncomfortable armchair, whispering a goodbye to her, sorry that she’ll wake up to find him gone.

 

Diana makes a face as she draws her hand back. “I make that adultery, abuse, two deaths, and deliberate neglect of duty. 10008943705. Send him down and give him four with Chainsaw. He can teach the son of a bitch about responsibility.”

 

For the moment, Will Graham sleeps impassively on.

 

***

 

Will gets lucky, though he doesn’t know it; his guide is one of the good ones, keeps him calm through the initial confusion and panic of I’m dead oh god I’m really dead and explains the sentencing process as they travel to his new residence.

 

“This is a nice place,” says his guide as they step inside. “Someone up there likes you.”

 

“You mean” – Will nods at the ceiling – “Upside?”

 

“Nuh-uh. Out in the liveling world. How nice your place is depends on how much you’re mourned.”

 

Will looks around the apartment. “Oh.”

 

The older man smiles a little ruefully. “Sorry. You’ll get used to it, but it still hurts, doesn’t it.” He offers a hand. “You get settled in, and you can find me if you need anything.”

 

“Thank you,” Will says, shaking the proffered hand, and he means it. “Uh – I just have one more question. If I wanted to find someone here, a woman, how would I do that?”

 

“You could check the directory, but you’re gonna need a lot of luck to find anyone specific. Know anything else about her?”

 

“She’s been here a long time. Her name is Eight-Hour Chainsaw. I think she’s a contractor.”

 

The guide double-takes. “Eight-Hour Chainsaw? Are you looking to contract her?”

 

“No,” sharply. “I just – wanted to catch up with her. I know her a little.”

 

This time, the guide actually blanches, to Will’s surprise. “You know Eight-Hour Chainsaw. Oy. Well, ah. Well. If you want to talk to her, you just have to go to the Crescent and ask for her. You know her?”

 

Will nods, puzzled. The guide shakes his head and says again, “Oy. Welcome to Downside, Will. I think you’re in for a hell of a time.”

 

***

 

It’s a nice place. Will lies in the bed that night and thinks about that.

 

(In Virginia, Jack Crawford sits in his now-empty house and lifts a glass of brandy to the memory of Will Graham, brightest and best of his students before Starling came along. The knowledge that he cracked both of them beyond repair is hard.

 

At Quantico, the old guard among the instructors talks at coffee breaks about his death, about Garrett Hobbs and the Red Dragon – very quietly, they talk about Hannibal the Cannibal, currently at large, and about Graham’s part in catching him. They call him brave; they call him a little crazy.

 

In Florence, Hannibal Lecter spots a small notice in a week-old Miami Herald a tourist has left in a café. He lifts his wine, unaware that thousands of miles away Crawford is doing the same, and thinks with a smile of the scars the courageous Will wore.

 

On Sugarloaf Key, Molly sits down on her half of the bed, turning the wedding band she knows Will didn’t always honor over and over in her fingers, and cries herself to exhaustion.)

 

He’s not sure if he’s glad it’s such a good apartment, or if he’s sorry.

 

***

 

Six days after Will’s arrival in Downside, there’s a pounding on his door that suggests that someone is annoyed and this door is standing in her way and she holds it against the door personally and would possibly torch the door’s ancestral forest if she could.

 

It is a very eloquent pounding.

 

Will is understandably cautious when he opens the door.

 

“What does it take to get you to pick up a phone, you son of a bitch?” demands Eight-Hour Chainsaw the moment the door is ajar enough to see Will’s face.

 

“Oh, shit,” Will sighs.

 

“If you didn’t want to see me, you shouldn’ta gone namedropping the minute you got here,” Eights points out, correctly interpreting that sigh. “Let me in. I brought coffee.”

 

In spite of himself, Will feels his mouth quirk up into a lopsided smile. “Regular housewarming, huh?”

 

“It’s going to be a house-sitting-on-Will’s-chest-and-interrogating-him if you don’t let me in.”

 

Will’s smile falters, but he steps back and lets her in. She catches it – of course – and frowns as she steps in. He can practically see her make the decision to not pursue it for the moment.

 

“Nice place,” she comments absently as she wanders towards the kitchenette to dump the pound of ground coffee on the counter.

 

“I know. Someone from downstairs brought me the bowls. She was nervous.”

 

Eights snorts. “Like I said, if you didn’t want attention, you shouldn’ta dropped my name.”

 

“I didn’t know it would have such an effect.”

 

He lowers himself into an armchair as she bustles around, clattering a kettle and searching for filters. Once the coffee is percolating, she ambles into the living room and perches on the coffee table opposite Will. It puts her well inside his personal space, close enough that she can lean in and touch him. She doesn’t.

 

“So.”

 

“So?”

 

“So here you are.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What’d you do?”

 

“Stole five bucks from my parents when I was five years old.”

 

Eights snorts. “What did you really do?”

 

Will leans back, folding his arms loosely. “Don’t you know already? You must have looked at my file to find this place.”

 

“Nope. I played a great game of telephone back to your guide, Eli, and he told me where to find you. Just as fast and more fun.”

 

He shakes his head, a slight smile on his lips, and says nothing.

 

“. . . Soooo,” prompts Eights, “when were you planning on letting me know you’d ended up down here?”

 

“I was going to come see you.” He drops his eyes. “Day after tomorrow.”

 

A second of silence.

 

“You’ve got a sentence.”

 

No response.

 

“You’ve got a fucking – with who?”

 

“Four hours with Chainsaw,” he answers, quiet and flat. “Coffee’s done.”

 

“Like fuck you have four hours with Chainsaw. I’m taking it.”

 

“The coffee’s done, Eights.”

 

Eights leans forward, cups his face in her hands, and forces him to look up at her. His hands come up to her wrists quickly, but he doesn’t try to push her away.

 

“You are not serving that sentence, Will. You don’t deserve it.”

 

“Oh, really? You know I don’t?”

 

“Four hours? I’ve contracted for a lot of scumbags who deserved a sentence like that a lot more than you, and half of ‘em had shorter sentences, and I contracted for them anyway.”

 

“No.” Will pushes her away, now, and stands up to get out of her space, away from her. “I am not going to let you – or any other contractor – serve this for me.”

 

She stands, grabbing his wrist. “Oh no you don’t. You are not walking away from me, Will Graham.” She shifts the grip so that she’s holding his hand in hers, fingers interlaced, and gently tugs him to look at her. “You don’t deserve it, Will. You definitely don’t deserve Chainsaw.”

 

“You said he’s not the top guy anymore.”

 

“That doesn’t mean he’s not good. He’s fucking vicious. Let me take it. I can handle him no sweat.”

 

“No.”

 

Eights nearly snaps. “What the fuck is this, Will? Some kind of chivalry? That’s pointless and it’s stupid!”

 

“Goddamn it, Eights, would you drop it?” Will shoots back, voice rising. “I’m serving this! That’s final!”

 

She throws up her hands, stepping away from him. “Fine. But don’t you think for a fucking second I’m letting you just serve this without explaining why you won’t contract me. So you spill, now, Will Graham, and no bullshit.”

 

“Because I deserve it.”

 

“I said no bullshit.”

 

“It’s not!” he snaps, and then turns away to the window, muscles twitching in his jaw as he clenches his teeth. “You oughta read my file,” he grinds out after a minute.

 

Eights is watching him closely, now, anger draining away as his rises. “I’d rather hear it from you.”

 

“I cheated on my wife,” he mutters. He’s not looking; he can’t see Eights react, and having started, he barrels on. “I killed two people. Three. I killed three. Freddy Lounds, he died because of me. Lecter was right. I – had to do something awful to my stepson, and it doesn’t matter it saved his life, he never looked at me the same way because I meant it when I said it, I had to mean it then even if I never meant it before or again. And I wouldn’t help again after the Dragon and who knows how many people might have lived if the Bureau had had me.”

 

He rests his forehead against the glass, breath making foggy clouds on it. “Four hours with Chainsaw isn’t that much.”

 

He startles when Eights’ hand slides over the tense muscles of his shoulders, as she hugs her arm around him.

 

“I can handle pain,” he whispers, before she can speak. “You should see some of the scars—”

 

“You shouldn’t have to,” she murmurs.

 

“No.”

 

She rubs his back, soothing up-and-down lines.

 

“I’m going to anyway.”

 

“Yeah.” She sighs. “I know.”

 

The coffee on the counter gets cold as their breathing fogs over Downside.

***

Neither of them get much sleep, and Eights knows that because when Will tries to get her to go home she threatens to hit him over the head and take his sentence whether he likes it or not if he doesn't let her stay.

He lets her stay.

They talk for a few hours -- after brewing a fresh pot of coffee -- mostly about Downside. It turns out that Will has barely left his residence since getting here, and though he never says so outright, Eights suspects it's because he didn't want to run into her. It pisses her off and makes her want to hug him at the same time.

She does ask, off-handedly, how he died, and is surprised when he laughs. "Metastasized melanoma. I always said I wanted to die in bed. I never figured I actually would." He runs a hand through his hair. "It's weird to have hair again. I lost it all from the chemo. Lost a lot of weight."

"Get used to it," she says with a grin. "This is the shape you'll be in for a good long time. Every time you torch you'll get that hair back."

She goes quiet abruptly. Chainsaw torches his a lot. He likes the clean slate.

Will notices the silence. "What does it feel like?"

"Can't really describe it. You'll feel it."

She catches relief in his eyes, for a moment, but it's gone so fast that she figures she doesn't have to put herself through the unpleasantness of extinguishing it herself.

Some hours later, she comments, "You oughta sleep."

Will is across the room, looking out the window again. There's a rueful twist in his voice when he asks "Will it make tomorrow any easier?"

"Probably not," she allows.

"I don't think I could sleep."

"I could find you some sedatives."

"No. No, that's okay. Thank you." He blows out a sigh, lacing his fingers behind his neck. "It's going to be bad, huh."

"It's going to be bad."

He turns. "And you'd take it."

"In a heartbeat."

"What if it weren't me?"

She shrugs, leaning back on the couch and putting her feet up on the table. "Depends. I don't take every contract that comes into the Crescent. None of us do. Some people do deserve their sentence."

A thought strikes him. "Did you ever -- no." There's a lot of force behind the word, an admonishment of himself. "No. Never mind. Forget I asked."

"Well, you didn't."

"Makes it easier, then."

***

Morning comes.

Morning goes.

Afternoon comes and Will is pacing like a caged animal, knowing that that's exactly what he is and knowing that Eights is watching and he can't help it, he thinks of Lecter's unshakable stillness in his cell and envies the doctor for a moment. If he could stop his feet, stop his thoughts, just once . . .

Afternoon wanes, and evening and switch time is drawing near when there's a knock on the door. A voice outside, carefully pitched to casual boredom, calls, "Will Graham."

Chainsaw loses a little of that casualness when Eights opens the door.

"Aw, Christ." He looks her over. "Is that what you're wearing to work nowadays?"

"You sure took your time getting here," she shoots back, leaning against the doorframe.

A smirk; he leans closer as if to kiss her and husks, "The anticipation's part of the fun." Straightening, he cranes his neck to see around her. "So who's the

lucky gentleman whose place you're taking? Will Graham."

Eights catches a flicker of surprise in Chainsaw's eyes when Will obeys the implied wish and comes to stand next to her in the doorway -- only a flicker, and she doubts most would catch it; Will certainly won't -- which means that Chainsaw really wasn't expecting Will to be his sentenced, to be affected by the torturer's privilege of control. Will looks pale under his tan, but his chin is up.

Eights knows the glint in Chainsaw's eye. She knows it intimately.

Chainsaw puts his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat, looking Will up and down. "Well well well. Pretty."

"You must be Chainsaw," Will says. He's hoarse, voice quiet, but steady.

"The one and only."

"I've got a sentence with you."

Chainsaw smiles. "Looks like you do."

Eights closes her eyes, pained. "Will, it's not too late for me to take this for you."

"Yes it is," Chainsaw cuts her off, and slants a terrifying grin at her. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, baby? But take a look at him. For the next four hours" -- he steps forward and curls a hand around the back of Will's neck -- "he's mine."

His fingers move like he might fist them in Will's hair, yank his head back; Will sucks in a breath, visibly frightened, visibly fighting the fear, visibly angry at the effect Chainsaw is having on him. Chainsaw laughs and pulls closer, inhaling deeply.

Switch over. The light disappears and night doesn't fall, it plummets.

"Oh, Willy," Chainsaw whispers in his ear, "I am gonna have fun."

"That's enough," Eights breaks in. "Would you fucking save it for the dungeon?"

Chainsaw laughs again and releases Will, stepping back and grabbing Eights by the hip, yanking her to him. "Sure, baby. I will fucking save it for the fucking dungeon, fuck yes I will. You gonna come pick up the pieces four hours from now?"

Eights grabs his face in both hands and kisses him, hard and hungry and angry. He nips her lower lip as he pulls away, and he's just bubbling with laughter, now.

"You gonna ask me to go easy on your boy-toy, babe? Gonna promise me something in return?"

"I ain't stupid," she murmurs, and disentangles herself from his grip. As she brushes herself off, she adds, off-hand, "And if you think we've fucked, Chainsaw, you need to get your eyes checked."

"What, not even pity-sex?" Chainsaw gives Will a considering look over his shoulder. "I'd do him. Whatever." He smiles brightly. "C'mon, Willy. Let's go."

"It's Will," Will grits as he passes Eights, his eyes fixed on Chainsaw preceding him down the hallway.

The torturer lets out a whoop of laughter. "That so! Lemme tell you something, Will. Your name is whatever the hell I want it to be."

Eights is willing to bet he raises his voice on purpose, so that she can hear him as they round the corner. "For the next four hours? It might as well be mud."

When they're out of earshot, Eights slams the door of the apartment with a noise of frustration, spins, punches the wall.

***

Chainsaw's estate is spacious, sprawling, and utterly gorgeous. It looks like one of those majestic Southern plantation houses had a wild night with an Italian villa and dropped the result on the top of a hill in Nebraska, big sky country. Inside, Will notices leather couches, at least two fountains, a huge mahogany table in the dining room.

He notices, but he doesn't see, because his feet are still docilely following Chainsaw, who absent-mindedly tells Will "If you touch anything and get it dirty I'll feed you your fingers," and then follows that with an equally absent-minded, "Actually, I might do that anyway. Eh, if there's time."

The dungeon is down a long flight of stairs that twists sharply three times, putting them under the house, inside the hill. It's a large room, echoey -- tile and metal, Will identifies, not stone -- and dark when they step in.

"Hold on a sec," says Chainsaw's voice from the darkness, conversationally. "And there we go."

Lights snap on overhead, momentarily blinding Will. He flinches. When the spots clear from his vision, he sees that in the center of the room is a metal table, bolted to the floor; to the side, an armed chair, a stool, also of metal. There are leather restraints on the table and chair. A large hook, like you'd find in a slaughterhouse, dangles from the ceiling a couple yards from the table. Everything gleams, clean and sterile.

Ranged along two walls are whips, chains, shackles, knives of every description, black cases that give away nothing of their contents, although one looks suspiciously like an electric drill set. On the third wall, the one facing the door -- a place of honor -- are hung two chainsaws.

Chainsaw shrugs off his trench coat, leans out the door to hang it outside, and then crosses his arms, watching Will with a smirk. He wants to see Will's reaction to the room.

And then he wants Will to go the center of the room, next to the table.

And then he wants Will to strip, and then he wants Will to lie on the table.

And then, once Will is on the table, naked with his heart pounding in his ears -- Chainsaw flips a switch and the lights disappear, except for a bank of blindingly white ones directly over the central workspace.

"I'll be right back," says Chainsaw's voice. "Feel free to move about the cabin."

The door closes with a clang.

Will counts his heartbeats, which turns into seconds, which turns into minutes. Ten minutes later, the metal tabletop has warmed beneath him, and there's still no sign of Chainsaw. Will finds that if he wants to, he can sit up and swing his legs over the edge.

He doesn't particularly want to. He thinks he can see what Chainsaw is trying for -- he wanders around in the dark, he feels the torture implements, he discovers that the door is locked, and the combination of sensory deprivation and snatched glimpses of what's in store come together to scare him further. It's all very Poe, "The Pit and the Pendulum."

I'm as scared as I'm going to be, you son of a bitch, he thinks, glaring towards where the door (probably?) is. It's a stupid sort of defiance, because he's so frightened he's shaking, he could practically scream; it's less a refusal to be scared further and more a recognition that he is as scared as he possibly can be already.

More time passes, and now he could scream from pure frustration. It's difficult to judge how long, precisely, Chainsaw leaves him waiting on the table; Will guesses it's not quite an hour, long enough for the adrenaline to drain and leave him feeling sick.

When the door opens with a click, echoing loudly, Will almost relaxes with relief that at least something will happen now. It will be bad, but once it starts, it will have an ending.

The relief dwindles when Chainsaw wants him to lie on the table and put his wrists and ankles in the restraints, and when Chainsaw himself tightens the leather buckles to the point of discomfort. It disappears altogether when the lights above him snap off, and a chainsaw sputters and roars into life, so loud against the hard surfaces of the room that it becomes Will's entire world for a few seconds.

Then the blades come down on his left hip and his leg is gone.

He was only half-right. There will be an ending to this, yes, but in the meantime, it's not just bad.

It's vicious.

***

A couple hours in, after Will has lost every extremity at least twice to Chainsaw's chainsaws, or his knives, or in a few cases his pliers, and after he's torched three times, Chainsaw looks him over as he dangles by his bound hands from the hook and shakes his head.

"You seriously didn't have sex? Not ever? Shit." He runs a hand over Will's stomach, the flat of his palm pressing hard against the fresh cuts there. Will cries out. "The things I would do to you if I had the chance."

Will's head drops to his chest as Chainsaw takes his hand away and sucks noisily at the blood on his fingers.

"What was that, Willy? I didn't catch it."

"G'wan," Will repeats, panting, and can't manage any more than that.

Chainsaw sighs, and reaches between Will's legs with his other hand, the one holding the knife. "It's no fun if you invite me, though."

***

Just over three hours. Will is on the table again, unbound but commanded to be still. It turns out that case was an electric drill. Chainsaw pauses in his work, cocking his head as if listening.

"Right on time," he says, pleased, and puts down the drill for a moment to stride across the room and prop the door open. He returns, cracking his knuckles, and grins down at Will as he picks up the drill again.

"Can I ask a favor? I need you to be real loud for the next hour. Let's make that happen, okay?"

Every time you torch, your throat is reborn. The screams can never end just because you're too hoarse to make another sound.

***

When Will gets to that last hour, though -- when he starts talking about Chainsaw ripping every gram of sensation from his body for Eights' listening benefit -- when Will finally starts crying in intermittent, painful sobs that have to fight their way out of his chest, she stops being envious and gives herself over to the sympathy, the guilt, the comfort he'll allow her to give.

Will breaks like an artery springing a leak, which is an unfortunate simile, but too accurate to ignore. His horror and anger and pain comes out in spurts, ebbing and flowing like a pulse, but always narrow and high-pressured. And when he finally slows and stops speaking, he's pale and shaking as if from loss of blood.

Eights has ended up curled up against him, holding him, because he doesn't seem able to curl against her. She thinks that the illusion that he's comforting her instead of the other way around might be helping him. Whatever. Whatever it takes. And whatever it is, it's helping; her ear is pressed against his chest, and she can hear when his heart starts to slow, and when his breathing evens out and becomes the snuffly wheezing of someone who's been crying and is done.

"You're gonna be okay," she whispers when he's quiet. His chest resonates with a half-cough, half-laugh.

"Not for a while."

"Maybe not." She hugs him tighter for a moment, then sits up, arms still loosely draped around his waist. "But you are gonna be okay. You can deal with this." A small, rueful smile. "You've seen some shit, right?"

He swallows. "Never been the shit before." He blows out a breath, shakes his head, and adds under his breath, "Never like that."

She keeps herself from saying Change of perspective's good for you -- too flippant for the moment -- and keeps herself to a soft "Yeah."

Will lets out another breath, and rubs his face with one hand. "I, uh. I think. I think I might take you up on those sedatives, if the offer's still good."

"I can see what I can do," she replies, straightening and absently smoothing her shirt.

"Thanks." He touches her knee, once, lightly. "And thanks for being here. And the coffee. And for -- picking me up."

Smiling, she pats his cheek. "Any time."

It takes about five minutes of wandering around on the street to find someone with a pocket full of  pharmaceutical sleep who's only too happy to do Eight-Hour Chainsaw a favor. She delivers the pills to Will, extracts a promise from him that he'll get out of the damn house and they'll get food together later in the week, and leaves. There's a vague awkwardness in the air that she recognizes as the I need some time alone to process things tension. She gets it.

Besides, she thinks she might go visit Chainsaw.

***

When the door shuts behind Eights, Will tries to make it to the couch and only manages to get to the coffee table before collapsing to the floor, grabbing the wood like a drowning man, and letting out all the sobs he still couldn't bring himself to release around her. A week of not letting himself think about being dead, about eternity -- a lifetime he's not sure he's proud of -- four hours of being tortured to death over and over and over.

If before, the artery had only sprung a leak, this is the same artery split lengthwise with a razor; everything comes out in a hot, dizzy rush. It doesn't last as long, and it leaves him feeling ill.

But it's out. That's something.

Whatever the pills are, he dry-swallows two, takes himself to his bed, and sleeps dreamlessly for a long time.

***

"Thought you might show back up here."

"Shut up and kiss me."

"How's Willy?"

"If you shut up right now I'll let you do that thing with the wires."

"Oh yeah? Which thing with the wires? . . ."