(Inspired by both the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, Ralph Fiennes's portrayal of Francis Dolarhyde in the movie adaptation, and a fanvid I once saw for the movie using the same song, The Red by Chevelle.)

Definitely a deviation from my usual stuff, eh? Yes, this really is a one-shot written for a serial killer. Yes, this is written sympathetically to the serial killer. And yes, this was something I absolutely HAD to get out of my system. So, sorry to everyone who was expecting something piratical and Captain Jack Sparrow-related, but... everyone has a darker side, right? This is mine.

Disclaimer: All characters, storyline, etc. belong to Thomas Harris. The rights to the lyrics belong to Chevelle. I own nothing but my insight into each.

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He was born in Springfield, Missouri, on June 14, 1938 with a unilateral incomplete cleft lip and palate. From the moment his mother fled from the hospital, his life had been a downward spiral. From the cruel, rasping, criticizing voice of his grandmother to the sneering, despising looks and taunts his half-siblings had treated him to, he had always been seen as underfoot, underprivileged, and unimportant – merely a nuisance in everyday life. He had learned at a very early age what he had always been, and he had begun to accept that this was what he would always be.

Something different, something disgusting. A monster. A freak.

But his acceptance of the fact did not lessen his anger – though who he was angry with, he was not always sure. Sometimes it was his mother, for leaving him because of defects which were not his fault. Sometimes it was his grandmother, for all the things she’d said to him, all the times she’d punished him and threatened him and put him down – though he always told himself on these occasions not to be angry and to remember he Loved her. Other times, he was angry with himself – he must have done something to deserve this. Surely he must have been at fault, and it only incensed him further when he could not discern what it was he had done.

Mostly, though, his hatred was a general thing, directed at the world as a whole. It was an empty place for him, full only of more anger, more cutting words and stabbing glares and pointing fingers – all of which, in his fevered eyes, seemed to be pointing at him.

They say freak
When you're singled out…
The red
Well, it filters through…

For years, he had done nothing. For years, he had suffered in silence. Then, one day, when he had begun – as the expression goes – seeing red, he had done something about it. No one ever knew it was he who was responsible for the chickens that turned up dead in his grandmother’s chicken coop now and again. No one thought to blame a child for the broken necks and spattered blood. No one knew how it made him feel empowered, like he finally had something in the world he could control. Only he knew, and he had learned early on to keep his thoughts to himself. He was meant to be seen, not heard. And, because he continued to exist in almost constant silence, no one ever noticed him enough to teach him the difference between right and wrong. He knew only his feelings, and his feelings told him he was in the right. And so, he continued to commit these small, bloody acts of what in his mind was release and nothing more until, finally, one day someone noticed when he hanged his half-sister Victoria’s cat.

So lay down – the threat is real
When his sight goes red again…
Seeing red again
Seeing red again…

At 17, he’d been enlisted in the army after being caught breaking into a house. The army, too, failed to develop a sense of morals in him. Instead, it honed his already highly-developed skills for stealth and taught him all about weaponry and tactics, knowledge which was useful to a soldier – or to a skilled serial killer.

When at last he left the army, there was no one left for him. His grandmother had passed away, his immediate family had disowned and abandoned him. There was no one else. He sought refuge in the house that had begun his downward spiral: his grandmother’s house, where he had learned to be a good boy and to keep quiet, and that he was and would always be a “filthy little beast.” The house was just as he had remembered; his grandmother’s teeth were even in the same old glass on the table beside her bed, though the water had evaporated long ago. Save for a fine layering of dust, it was exactly the way it had been when he was a child.

Similarly, the man was little changed from the boy that had grown up in the house. Though he looked different on the outside – he had grown into a strong, muscular young man – on the inside he felt the same anger he had always felt and had learned to deal with in dark ways, his education having started right here in this very house.

After a time, he got a job working for a film company, eventually obtaining the position of film processing technician, editing old home videos to make them newer, better, easier to view, share, and enjoy. He got plastic surgery to fix his face, though a scar running from his nose to his lips was still visible, and he still had trouble with pronouncing anything with an “s” in it. But these changes were not enough – he still felt as weak and dirty and inept as ever, his grandmother’s voice always haunting him with her faultfinding and nitpicking and her general disappointment in him.

But one day, at long last, he found a light at the end of his tunnel through a painting. It was a piece by the famous poet William Blake, and it was called “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun.” The instant he saw it, he found purpose in life, and knew for the first time what it was he had to do, what it was he could become. He could be free of his grandmother’s disappointment – moreover, he could make her proud of him. No longer would he be a filthy, disgusting little brat. No longer would he be ugly, and never again would he be seen as a freak, inept and without value. If he became this, he would have all the power he had ever dreamed of – more, even.

From that moment on, he knew it was his destiny to be this god-like being. And he knew exactly what means would achieve this end, what actions would both relieve his anger and help him complete his transformation into his true form. He swore to himself, one day he would be The Great Red Dragon.

This change he won't contain,
Slip away to clear your mind…
When asked, who made it show?
The truth: he gives in to most…

In time, he forgot the darkness of his past. The dead farm animals, Victoria’s cat, his abandonment, the army – all of it faded, blurred, and finally disappeared altogether. Even his anger seemed to fade, and though his grandmother’s criticisms echoed in his ears, they served only to fuel his desire to become the Dragon, and he never again forgot his Love for her, and eventually succeeded in convincing himself that she had only ever treated him thus because she had Loved him as well. He trained himself by building up his muscles every day under the watchful eye of the poster of the Dragon he’d hung in his room. He considered just how his transformation would be accomplished, how he would find the ones he needed and just how he would change them, how he would make them help him become what he needed to be. After giving much thought to the problem, he found the solution in the simplest of places – his work.

In the fall of 1979, the Jacobis became the first stepping stone on his path to greatness and Glory.

So lay down – the threat is real
When his sight goes red again…

The Jacobis were the best thing that had ever happened to them, and he thanked them for their help in his Becoming. As he left the mirror-eyed, bloodied bodies behind him in the silent, moonlit house, he knew he was off to a wonderful start. He still had much to learn, he knew, but with the guidance of his inner Dragon he believed he could get better, perfect his ways until at last he had become nothing less than perfect.

Almost exactly one month later, in the silver light of a different full moon, he found the Leedses, and they, too, helped him change. He made a mistake, it was true, when he had initially begun breaking into the house – he had misjudged the entrance he would have to make; apparently they had renovated some of the house since the videos they’d sent him for editing – but the Dragon understood, and he forgave himself. He had not meant to be so clumsy, so unprepared, and Mr. Leedses’s quick, choppy death was not at all what he’d had in mind. But he would learn, he would improve, and it was this he focused on as the blood of Mr. Leedses’s wife and children stained his clothing and splattered across his face and hands.

So lay down – the threat is real
When his sight goes red again…
So lay down – the threat is real
When his sight goes red again…

But even in his own forgiveness he was harsh on himself, for he knew that to continue making mistakes like these could prove fatal to his plans, and he could not afford to be caught before his transformation was complete. If that happened, he would never be free; he would always be the filthy little beast that had disappointed his grandmother, the ugly and incapable un-person who had drawn unfriendly stares from classmates and fellow workers alike. No one had ever seen him as more than that, and no one ever would, unless he completed his Becoming.

He had believed this, blindly and unfalteringly, with all his heart. His faith in his convictions was never shaken… until, that is, he met Reba.

Reba was different. He had never met a blind person before. She could not see his face, and thus could not see his unforgivably human flaws. But this lack of sight led her to see what others with 20/20 vision had never seen: the potential for goodness. And, having no knowledge of his past sins or what he had in mind for the future, she knew only of this perceived goodness – and for the first time, someone looked on Francis Dolarhyde with clear, kind eyes, and spoke to him with a voice which spoke only of friendliness, of warmth… of Love.

Her simple acceptance of him, and her willingness to be with him and to befriend him, shook him to the core. He alternately found himself drawn to her and then frightened by her, and – though he couldn’t believe he dared to do so – he began to question what he was doing. Perhaps he didn’t have to be the Dragon anymore. Perhaps he didn’t want to be the Dragon anymore.

Perhaps he had a choice.

When he was with her, he felt powerful – he knew that, if he wanted to, he could snap her neck easily between his strong hands, break her back, anything. She was a strong enough person, but she was not nearly as physically formidable as he was, and she would be a rag-doll in the hands of a giant should he ever decide to hurt her. His desire for power was sated by her mortal frailty. Luckily for her, he didn’t want to hurt her. In fact, he had a strange urge to protect her, and to make her happy.

Moreover, her cheerfulness and unthinking generosity was like a balm for the burn of his anger. She treated him well, she liked him – maybe, though he feared it as much as he liked the sound of it, maybe she could even Love him one day – and she wanted to be with him. Maybe he had been wrong in his belief that he was worthless. She seemed to think he was worth her time. And when she touched him that one glorious night, her hands were smooth and soft, and she felt so… good.

This was the reason why, when the Dragon demanded Reba as part of the transformation, he argued with it – something he had never dared do before. For the first time, he was not One, but Two.

Seeing red again,
Seeing red again,
Seeing red again,
Seeing red again…

Reba was good, Reba was kind, Reba didn’t have to be part of his Becoming. There were others he could change, others he could prey upon to help him fulfill his destiny. For once, he saw his acts for what they were – murder, the end of a human life – and he knew that he didn’t want that to happen to her. He wanted to keep her around, he wanted her to be with him, he wanted her to–

But the Dragon wouldn’t take no for an answer. He even tried, though he knew it was madness, to take his own life instead, to spare Reba and defeat the Dragon. Yet as he stood with the barrel of the gun in his mouth, he had the sickening feeling that the Dragon would live on, that it would find someone, or something, else to manifest itself in, and that somehow it would come after them anyway. Shaking and covered with cold sweat, he dropped the gun. As he gazed up helplessly at the poster on the wall, his fevered eyes traveled down the length of the Dragon… and lit upon the lettering beneath it. Brooklyn Museum. With the name came recognition, and with that recognition, hope. Maybe he could save both of them after all.

Quickly composing himself, he went out to where he had seen her wandering in his yard, and briskly escorted her to his car, knowing that, whatever happened, she needed to get away from him for now to even have a chance of escaping the Dragon’s clutches. He knew she didn’t quite understand the reason for his sudden change of attitude – he saw it in her eyes as he left her standing on the curb, watching him as he drove away – but he couldn’t help that. He had to get to New York – quickly.

The flight seemed to take years, but he sat quietly and without complaint in his seat, and when at last he stepped out into the NY airport, he appeared to be just another normal passenger, getting off to continue just another regular human life. Of course, the truth was just the opposite, but it suited him to appear thus; he needed to blend in to be able to accomplish what he was planning to do. Though his heart pounded and his soul shook with fear, he entered the Brooklyn Museum without any sign of nervousness, introducing himself as a researcher come to do a paper about William Blake or some such thing, and it was with a cool hand and set expression that he knocked out the attendant once she’d shown him the original watercolor.

But once she was down and out cold, his emotions took over, and for a moment he could only stare at the painting that lay on the table before him. First, he was overwhelmed by awe of the outstanding colors – the poster hadn’t done them justice – and then, he slowly felt something close to disappointment as he realized how small it really was. Somehow, he had always imagined it to be a lot bigger.

Taking a deep breath, he reached down with a clammy hand and tore the paper. His hands trembling, he began ripping it up, faster and faster, and shoving the fiber fragments almost violently into his mouth. He chewed and chewed, working to devour the pieces as quickly as possible, though it almost hurt him to do so. If there was any way to save Reba – and himself – from the Dragon, this was it.

Seeing red again,
Seeing red again,
Seeing red again,
Seeing red...

Almost as soon as he finished the deed, a second attendant came to check on them. Panicking, he dragged her into the room and knocked her out as well, before she could raise an alarm. He could have killed them, he knew, as easily as he had slaughtered the Jacobis and the Leedses. But he had been given a choice, and now he was trying to keep to the side he wanted to choose. If he was truly to be free of the Dragon, he could never go back to those ways again. It would be hard, he knew, but it was worth it if he could keep the power to choose – and to keep Reba by his side.

When he walked out of the Brooklyn Museum and began his long journey back to the airport, he began, at last, to breath. He felt lighter, he felt stronger, he felt… liberated. He had done it! He had defeated the Dragon! He was free to make his own decisions, free to do as he willed, when he willed, and he had no one to answer to but himself. His plan had succeeded! He and Reba were safe. The thought very nearly made him smile – an impulse which had usually been repressed because of his disfigurement.

What he didn’t know – at least, not yet – was that he was very, very wrong. The Dragon was not gone; if anything, it was stronger than ever. He was not free; he would never be free. It was his destiny, and it was too late now to change it.

The Dragon had become more powerful than he, and it would return. And when it did, Francis Dolarhyde, no more and no less than a man, would be powerless to stop it. He would Become, because he was too far gone to turn away. In a way, he already was The Great Red Dragon.

They say freak,
When you're singled out...

The red,
It filters through...