dear_mun | On exitvoid Gamma

More people who know my name, I see.

Dear Will, it does you no good at all to linger on such misgivings. Perhaps a mask would do to spare others observing what remains of your face. I'd offer you mine, but I suspect my dear friend Barney has it.

I wouldn't want anything of yours, Doctor Lecter. You've done enough damage. Do you think you've won something by driving me down?

[ Never a straight answer. ]

Do you believe yourself to have lost something, Will? If you place the responsibility of your failures at my feet, perhaps it will not bring you to your knee, as Atlas, with the weight of them bearing down upon you.

I wonder: are you broken, Will, or caged?

[Colour Will unsurprised on that count.]

You know everything I've lost. Don't pretend it was for any reason other than because I hurt your ego or was rude.

[Rudeness is one of the things Will does best these days, a keen hound that doesn't hunt but will bite.]

I'm neither. I simply am.

Edited (html error) 2013-07-31 23:58 (UTC)

[ It had been so rude not to break. In the end, Hannibal had managed to show everyone but Will himself what he was capable of being, and in a way it had become a bone of contention, a symbol of his frustrations. Will had only danced on his puppet strings, but he had never broken, never become a monster. Perhaps that was what Hannibal struggled with the most: despite everything that suggested otherwise, Graham had never become a victim of his circumstances the way that Lecter had. Will's resilience had made him bitter, disfigured and lonely, but he was still what he had chosen to be, no matter how dysfunctional. He had chosen not to be a monster.

But more importantly, to Hannibal, Will was brusque, not rude. Rude would imply a lack of respect, and he believes he's earned that, however grudgingly. ]

Dear Molly, how she must have loved you, to run back to mommy and daddy after everything that happened. Do the scars still itch, Will? Do you feel them gnawing at you when the eyes of others pass over your face?

We stood ourselves on either side of a great divide, and it was I imprisoned, and you, clutching your sanity and your freedom. Now I have my freedom, and you have your prison, whether you admit it or not. You smell of hopelessness, Will; ethanol and rot.

[This is what happened when all Will wanted to do was lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling. He isn't fully convinced this is Hannibal Lecter with him instead of another of his delusions. Wouldn't be the first time. He does give Lecter a measure of respect, always has, even when he could have made millions off selling the story or telling what he knew that wasn't in the court transcripts.]

You're determined to do this, Doctor Lecter? To go down this road that we've been over before?

[Damn if his face doesn't hurt. He's one month past Dolarhyde's attack, about to be dumped in a ruined city with no functioning doctors. The worst is under bandages still, a small mercy that. That and the pain pills.]

She loved me. I've never doubted that. [And yes, it hurt that Molly went back to her dead husband's parents instead of stayed with him. Not that he'd show that weak point to Lecter anymore than any predator shows a soft underbelly to another.]

Your freedom. What freedom is that, Doctor Lecter? Will you ever be free with the FBI and Interpol searching for you? Can you again have your lavish dinner parties? Can you really ever escape?

[ He doesn't need to roll over when the other predator is a snake. Hannibal has years on his side; time and experience, freedom to pursue the continuing lives of old friends without scrutiny, to observe from all angles without being seen, a serpent in the grass. Will Graham's second retirement had left him a broken man, and Hannibal moved on to better things, to playthings that could withstand his toying. Though Hannibal wears a different face, has one less finger, he's unmistakeable to those with experience with him. Will would know him anywhere, no matter the disguise. ]

They will search, and I will be, as ever, one step ahead. The old guard at the FBI wanes [ He enunciates the acronym firmly, one letter at the time. ] and you and I are a cautionary tale to frighten fresh faced graduates, already disinterested in the hunt.

[ He steps closer. Freedom is this; it's being able to approach Will without glass between them, without chains, without bondage. He comes near, inclining his head, catlike, soft-footed and completely unblinking. He isn't about to address his freedoms. He can walk the markets, host his dinners, attend the theatre, and he doesn't need to defend the definition. Compared to a square cage without a window, the freedom is extensive. Compared to a life in Florida with a mauled face, it's infinite. ]

There's a mad dog in you still, beaten and chained, writhing at the end of your chain. You still have teeth, Will. I imagined you unable even to meet my eye. Perhaps I gave up on you too soon.

Edited 2013-08-01 01:59 (UTC)

[Will would know him even if plastic surgery had rendered Hannibal Lecter a stranger visually. One look into those eyes that flashed with maroon or feeling that creeping sensation in his mind would have told Will Graham all he needed to know.]

[His head lolls to the side, looking up at Lecter like a drunken mongoose who sees the cobra but can only bare its teeth in warning. Is he a trick of his mind? The real thing? Will doesn't know. He's conjured up Lecter twice on the Charon now and dealt with him very briefly once in person. He finds now that he doesn't care which it is. If Lecter has come to kill him, there's little Will can do in his wrecked state. There's a certain brand of sadness that comes with that knowledge. Little wonder Lecter moved on to that Clarice Starling according to rumours.]

It'll stay chained up too. I know what I could be. I see it every time I dream of you. When I dream I am you.

[Meeting other people's eyes is never hard although his own have been described as being a cold and merciless blue. The one above the patched up stab wound to his face is bloodshot and ugly but still working given how he tracks Lecter visually.]

But I won't be you anymore than I would Hobbs or anyone else.

[But that freedom, to walk around whatever city Hannibal fled to (Will firmly believes it is Verona, Rome or Florence given what he dreams) and not be stared at. Children shy from him. Adults stare.]

You gave up on me for better pursuits, someone who didn't know you before the chains and walls. Is that easier? To speak to someone who didn't know what your Baltimore house looked like dressed up for Christmas? I never did find out where you got those beautiful light displays from. The one with the horse drawn sleigh in the snow was beautiful.

[Peaceful, he means.]

Edited 2013-08-01 07:13 (UTC)

[ Something crocodilian flickers in his expression, not quite a smile, as Will reflects on his dreaming--that he dreams of being Lecter. Of course he does. The struggle for Will is holding onto who he is, even despite those lives he's embraced; the lives he's come far too close to. Hobbs, Lecter, Dolarhyde.

It's what he wants to stick on, to dig his claws into and prise it open, a victory in Will's colours of straw golds and icy blues: what do you see when you dream that you are me, Will, but instead his collected thoughts shudder to a halt. He thinks back to the house, to Christmas in the Eastern European style, and his mind whisks away to foreign shores and deep forests, to soft white snow parting underfoot. Deeper snow, small feet and small legs drowned deep in an ocean of it, and the horse and sleigh, hooves throwing up a spray of shimmering virgin crystals with every laborious step. Home. It had been his home, and the horse and sleigh a totem, carried forward. Will remembers it too. Will knows, even if he doesn't know what he knows. He breathes it, as though it were in his own mind, the doors to Hannibal's memory palace residing in Will's own, albeit as a series of locked doors for which he is scavenging for keys.

Will knows him too well. He has power over Clarice, he can decide what she knows; but Will has seen too much, seen him in flagrante delicto. Just being near him risks further exposure. Will had seen his lights, but he reached through to that one image, to Christmases that Hannibal could still love, to peace and innocence and family. In that, Will was an unparalleled threat.

And impossibly fascinating. The direction he takes the conversation is meant to lift them away from their previous destination, cutting as it did far too close to his heart. ]

Is it jealousy you speak from, Will, or disappointment? Not seeking you out was something done out of courtesy, but perhaps you feel spurned. You were more important than that. I changed your life, how could it be that you were but a footnote in mine?

[Will folds his hands over his chest, moving slowly. Weapons? The only ones he has are upstairs in his nightstand drawer and the dull knives on the magnetic strip in the kitchen. Even if he were capable of it, Will doubts a quick movement on his part would be appreciated. He's seen what Lecter can do with his hands and teeth alone.]

[But he does watch Lecter's face, searching for something he thinks he'll see or is hoping to. A thoughtfulness perhaps or a flicker of memory. Whether he sees it or not, Will arrests his hand in it rising to scratch at the bandaging cover his still destroyed cheekbone. He snaps his hand back down quicker than he'd like with the alcohol making him clumsier.]

Neither, Doctor Lecter. I can guess what's going on in your head, but you're not at getting in mine.

[It's a lie, but Will feels entitled to it, the childish need to tell Lecter he's wrong.]

You finished with me. Why come back? You wrecked my life. You won. You like sites of major disasters, not one.

[A snort of laughter and Will's eyes drift from Lecter's eyes to the ceiling repaired with Will's own diploma from GWU then back to the doctor's face.]

Why are you here? What's in it for you, Doctor Lecter? Had to see it for yourself? What brought you from Europe? [It's a slip of location Will catches too late. He's counting on the questions to sidetrack the doctor.]

[ It's fine. Lecter never hears 'it's neither' and immediately imagines that he must in fact be wrong. Usually the answer is both, or one at the very least, but it is never an admission he is looking for, just a sore point into which he can perhaps jab his thumbs--if not on this occasion, then the next opportunity will do. You're not getting into my head, pouts Graham, when Lecter already knows that he is a permanent resident, even with decades between them.

His eyes follow Will's, but they snap back just as fast, almost as though he hadn't watched their wandering; as though that piercing regard hadn't abated even for a moment. Let Will speak for long enough, and it comes sure enough: a wriggling worm attached too loosely to the bait. ]

You find me at home among the ancient arcades and deep, echoing stones, the narrow places of Europe - perhaps Italy, or Austria - deep with the scent of old wood and paper, drunk on its traditions and history. Do you walk beside me, Will, across the cobbles of some road laid down in the time of Caesar and Augustus, though you have never tread there yourself, or is it my reflection standing alone that you see when you chance to look into the glassy facade of some shop or another?

[ What's in it for him? An answer you couldn't have expected him to give. Hannibal guards his reasons for coming and going far more surely than anything else; there's too much power over him in it. ]

Edited 2013-08-04 00:51 (UTC)

[It is a sore point and there will be nights to come where Will dreams of Lecter in a smashed mirror or from somewhere behind him whispering that he was nothing more than a footnote. But Will knows better than to lay a knife so sharp in a hand so very careless. Or skilled. Depends on where one stands on the issue.]

[And yet while Will doesn't hand him the fillet knife, he finds he has laid a paring one that can be just as dangerous in the doctor's metaphorical grip. Oh god as much as he doesn't want Lecter in his head (small and flylike crawling at the back of his brain) Will surely does not want his mind in Lecter's.]

Italy. You went to Italy. Not Austria. But not right away.

[No matter what he's laid in Lecter's hands, even half-lit as he is, Will never was a fool. He's had enough time since Lecter's escape to dream it. To write it down phonetically. And to ask Alan Bloom what it means. Will's Italian, even with Bloom's patient attempts to teach him the right way to say it, is as bad as his Cajun warped French.]

Per me si va tra la perduta gente.

[He says it with the smallest of smiles, the scarring on his face pulling the expression into a half-leer.]

[ Will's effort is a commendable one. Not in any way will it echo the competency to which Starling will speak Italian, but she will have a proficient and methodical teacher. Will cannot be blamed for his pronunciation. He tried. Gold star. Hannibal doesn't even try to correct it--that would be humiliating, and he has no interest in humiliating Will. It offers no reward. Instead, reward is so occupying his thoughts that he has the phrase at the ready. Reward is Will Graham standing there with tight lipped satisfaction that he gets to speak it out loud, opting to keep to the Italian because he can.

I'm not just a broken little bird that's only good for fixing boat motors, he proclaims, chest puffed out, chin raised high. I can fly if I want to.

They are close enough now that Hannibal can touch him. The last time he laid hands on Will Graham, it had been with a fileting knife. This time he is far from armed, though by no means harmless. They both know that. His hand is feather light, as gentle as a falling leaf, settling on the his forearm. Will has earned a reward, it seems. ]

Brazil. Does that surprise you, Will? A new face does take some getting used to.

If you knew I would go to Italy, then tell me--why not inform Jack Crawford? [ Perhaps because, between the two of them, Hannibal had meant him less ill than Crawford had. His had at least been honest malevolence. ]

They never asked, and I never bothered to tell them.

[He'd have to care to do that, and in the aftermath, Will simply didn't. If asked why he quoted Dante, Will couldn't have given a good answer. All the things in his head were cross-wired together, one linked to another. He'd taken it in some college course or high school and dragged it up in his dreams or some stupid thing. 'Through me is the City of the Lost', the words from the gate of Hell. For all Will knew it was Latin versus Italian and Alan didn't correct him.]

[Clawing his way back to his feet isn't the easiest, but there are worse things these days. Such as Hannibal Lecter laying a hand on him. The first impulse is to jerk away, to get to the other side of the room. To brush his hand over where Lecter's had been as if that could clear it away.]

Don't touch me. Just go. I want a drink and to go watch the sun set.

[Sobriety is oncoming, and all in all, Will would rather not experience it. He can chance half a pill for the slowly growing pain in his face and where he was shot with some gin on top.]

You have you new face. You have wherever it is you're living. Rumour around is you have - other things. Just go away.

[There's no good ending for this nightmare that he can see.]

[ The inscription suited him well. Abandon hope all ye who ended here. Will had abandoned hope. He was lost, a city of winding paths that led to nowhere - not any more. He seemed to find it hard to find the strength to shy away, just as he couldn't find the strength to stand his ground. Instead he lingered somewhere between the two, neither coming nor going.

There was no anger, even. A resentment simmered in him, but it would never boil again, and there was nothing Hannibal could take away from him any more that would raise the temperature of his blood and bring him back fighting. Where would he begin with feeling, and who would he be? Not himself, certainly. Being himself would be too hard, thus the stench of alcohol.

There was no doubt about it. Will Graham was a man waiting to die. by the time he was done, his liver would be pickled, pale and inedible. It was a pitiable sight--at least it would be to someone who had the capacity to feel pity. ]

I will leave you to your misery this time, Will. You are doing a finer job at killing yourself than I could ever hope to do myself.

On exitvoid Gamma

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