Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Will woke up to a pounding head, surrounded by darkness. He felt the space beside him- empty- by force of habit. It always took him at least a few seconds to register where he was. He couldn’t stand the feeling of a mattress anymore, too unstable, not solid enough. Waking up on a mattress felt like waking up in a quicksand, like if he struggled too much, he’d sink right through and disappear without the strength to pull himself out.

He’d first switched to sleeping on the floor beside his wife, finding himself waking up every hour to reach up for her hand and make sure she was still there. He needed something constant to remind him where he was, keep him in the moment. Something to tie him to the spot, keep him from drifting too far from the shore.

They both thought it would improve, his wounds were still fresh, so fresh that he still couldn’t smile without crying out in pain. They didn't expect it to get so much worse with time. Molly had begged him to go to a therapist- not to skip his appointments. She’d even resorted to the threat of another mental hospital once, but they both knew it was an empty threat. She couldn’t bring herself to put him through any kind of entrapment like that again.

He’d had to move into the closet after depriving them both of sleep so many times. He just couldn’t keep himself from waking up in the middle of the night with hands around his throats, suffocating his screams. He woke up gasping, unable to force air into his lungs, one too many times. It scared her shitless the first time, thinking somehow, another serial killer had snuck into their house and gotten to her husband once again.

They tried their best to make it work, but no amount of sleeping pills on either side helped. For Will, they just made it worse, made his dreams so much more vivid. He woke up screaming instead of gasping, once so loud that their neighbors, knowing their history with killers, had dialed 911 before Molly had the opportunity to calm her husband down. Usually, false calls were met with angry faces full of scorn and irritation, all they met Will with was pity. He'd been a cop himself once, given that same look plenty of times, where it was needed.

That was the day they decided to move. As much as he hated them, staying with Molly’s parents felt like the only way to save himself. Even her father’s face was softened upon seeing his son in law’s, upon seeing the elaborately carved symbol over his once blue eye. It was a miracle he still retained some sort of sight in the thing.
The nightmares didn’t stoop then, only growing worse with the unfamiliarity of the house they stayed in. The noises of animals outside helped him snap out of it sometimes.
There was a fair sized guest bedroom just down the hall from Molly. They both determined it would be best if he stayed in it after he’d once again woken her up. He was better about screaming now, in fact, all of his episodes were becoming fewer and farther between. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t quiet his shaking, or his kicking legs. He refused to call it trembling, hating when Molly used that, or the word tremor. He wasn’t weak, nor was he a child. Grown men didn't tremble, not when they had a wife and child to protect.
They’d managed to finally find homes for those dogs, even the hideously ugly ones, but Will missed them terribly. Thinking it might do some good to have a good guardian dog with him, Molly and her parents had conspired to get him one. He was his constant now, a massive ball of fur that liked to lay right in front of the door and bark at anyone who so much as looked at Will or his wife and son the wrong way.

Not that he got out much, or at all. He made enough money off his early retirement. At first, he’d tried to return to some sort of normalcy, but everywhere he went, stares followed.

Will wasn’t able to stand waking up in a bed, in the middle of a room that wasn't terribly familiar to him, so ignoring his wife’s protests, he’d moved into his closet, finding it much easier to wake up in there. It was too dark to imagine the shadow of Hobb’s or Dolarhyde standing over him, too confined.

He only woke up once a night now, and half the time, he knew exactly where he was. Still, he kept a pistol close, not too easily accessible, but just in case.
This instance was the first in nearly 5 years that he hadn’t dreamed, it seemed like something to celebrate, but he wouldn’t.

He reached up to flip the light switch, thinking better of it when he remembered how sensitive his left eye still remained to light. Instead, he groped for the laptop he kept near him, usually he fell asleep working on. The screen flickered to life- 3:41 in the morning.

He reached up for the door knob, feeling his way up the wood in the dark as if he hadn’t done the same routine nearly everyday for years.

He pushed it open, grateful he’d woken up before the sun. He got up, swaying as his legs threatened to collapse again beneath him. He desperately needed an aspirin, but he no longer kept them within arms reach. Too many times he’d woken up, taken one, and forgot just to do it again an hour later. He’d overdosed this way-accidentally of course- a few too many times.

He made it to the kitchen without much trouble, fumbling for the bottle in the dark. He didn't care what his hands caught as long as it would help. He knew the pills by the shape of the bottle now, he was sure if he concentrated enough, he could probably identify them by the sound they made when he shook them out onto his palm.
He dumped a handful of Tylenol into his hand, Advil spilling out as well since he’d combined the two bottles. He groped for the cup cabinet, disappointed to find it free of the cup he’d usually use to swallow a pill. He checked the dishwasher, thanking himself silently for actually loading it earlier. It was probably an old shot glass, but its days of partying were long over, replaced by the sound of the tap.
The pills went down easily, tasteless.

So did the alcohol he drank so he would pass out again. A part of him hoped he wouldn’t wake up.

Will ran his hands, soft now without the callouses of a cop, through his wife’s brown hair, almost blonde, like his, with the sun’s bleaching.
“Are you sure you can do this?” she whispered against his mouth.

“Shut up.” he mumbled, not wanting to let the monster take one more thing from him. He dug his head against the crook in his wife’s neck, sighing as she ran her own hands through his hair, ran her thumb across his scar. It didn’t bother him, it felt like she was taking back something that had been stolen from him, like she was making it hers.
He should’ve listened to her. He couldn’t push himself that far again, he’d thrown up halfway through trying to be intimate with her.

She’d put up with it for a while, acted like everything was fine. Eventually, Molly had grown tired of having an empty bed, so she’d made the decision to fill it again, a decision that didn’t involve Will Graham, only his signature at the bottom of a piece of paper.

At least he got the dog in the divorce.

Chapter Text

The scar across his face felt like a beacon, drawing all the unwanted eyes straight to it. He kept his head down, but it wasn’t much help. He’d never liked attention very much, especially not this kind. 

He hardly made trips to the store anymore. There really wasn't any use for it. He simply lived off alcohol and the hope that if he went without food long enough, he could starve this sickness out of him. The hunger did its job poorly, it never replaced the aching feeling in the pit of his stomach, only joined it. 

For the most part, the only other thing he bought was dog food, and even then, his neighbor, and older woman who was (thankfully) blind as a bat could handle that. Somehow, even without her sight to witness the ugly past written on his face, she maintained the same irritatingly stubborn pity as the rest of the world. Perhaps she could smell the stink of alcohol coming from his house when the wind shifted. Despite the hatred he had for pity, he actually liked this woman enough to tolerate it. Maybe it was because she understood what it was like to be different, at least, to a degree. No one would ever understand the isolation Will felt, knowing he was so incredibly alone in this world. What is ordinary without acceptance? What is uniqueness without loneliness? You can’t have both. 

Or maybe, it was that she reminded him of Reba McClaine, another victim of the dragon, although he wasn’t really the dragon’s victim, was he? No- it was another monster that had set his sights upon him. Even from prison, he was still pulling the strings. 

He’d escaped recently, sending him spiraling again, of course. How was he supposed to feel safe knowing he was the greatest enemy of the most dangerous man in the country? He didn’t even want to think about how many times Lecter had fantasized about killing him- practically salivating at the mouth when he’d heard the news of his demise. 

‘Snap out of it’ if he wasn’t in public, he would’ve pressed his hands against his eyes and groaned. As much as he’d tried not to slip back into the mindset of a murderer, he couldn’t seem to stay away. He hadn’t slept in days. Every time he closed his eyes, he was there, standing there with that same horrid grin, as if he could see straight through your soul- he could pick you apart like a vulture until you were nothing but blood and bones. 

He shivered, although it was hot outside. Even before the incident, he’d found himself freezing half the time. Being ‘stick thin’, as he’d heard more than one person call him, it was difficult for him to regulate his temperature.

He missed sleep, more than anything. It was the only escape he truly had nowadays, even the alcohol wasn’t hitting the spot lately. 

“Excuse me,” he muttered as an employee passed him. Thank God she had good hearing and turned to answer, stopping dead in her tracks upon seeing the scar.

He flushed, although he was too tired to be terribly ashamed at the moment, “Is the Benadryl you sell locked behind one of those.. glass things?”

Glass things? He really did need sleep. 

“Yeah- I can get you a bottle- if you want it.”

He didn’t like being treated like a cripple,“I can do it- if you tell me where.”

“It’s easier if you just wait here- I’ll be right back.”

So it wasn’t pity, she was worried he’d just take a shitload and run. He couldn’t look that bad, could he? 

Will stared at the ceiling, wondering if he should just down the entire bottle. Usually, the medicine would stop his thoughts from getting too close to that territory, but his mind wasn’t as blank as it should’ve been. It was so easy, just pop the cap off and down it like a shot. 

It was in his hands before he could decide against it. He wondered, briefly, who would watch after his dog when he was gone, but he’d heard somewhere about dogs being able to survive for days after their owner dies by eating the body- or was it cats? What did it matter- he’d be dead, without a care in the world.