cook_the_rude | (no subject)

Littering would have been rude. Will couldn't imagine Hannibal doing that. Dumping a body through...

At least there wasn't blood on the seat. Will wasn't sure he could have gotten in otherwise. The seat was still warm from the man's body. It should have unnerved him but it didn't.

He does up the seatbelt and sighs, letting his head fall back. "Why do I only seem get in a car with you when I've been injured in some way?" Not always physically but he seems to always be aching when he's Hannibal's passenger.

"Because only then," Hannibal asserted as he deftly turned the car, "will you give up the sovereignty over the maps of your life, and finally trust that you need me to get where you have to be."

Edited 2018-12-27 10:25 (UTC)

"Sovereignty over the maps." He echoes, tasting the words. "Jack Crawford tried to take that off me a long time ago."

Hannibal chuckles.

"He never quite succeeded," he muses. "Not from the man who lived in Wolf Trap and would drive hours every day to faithfully return to his pack."

Edited 2018-12-27 10:34 (UTC)

His pack. The pack he's given over to his- to Molly and Walter. Safer that way. They have a future. He...

Didn't know.

"At least they're safe." Almost abstinently.

"Safe from the Dragon, and the smoke over our map," Hannibal agrees. "Who knows what pack awaits us beyond that."

"They're not worth anything to him. Not now he has me." And he's not referring to the dogs. Or just the dogs.

He turns his head, looking at Hannibal's profile in the afternoon light. "You still think there is a beyond for us?"

"There is always a beyond," Hannibal says. "We might just not be here any more, and leave the sovereignty of interpretation to other."

"You have a fucked up view on nihilism." Will mutters, shifting in his seat to adjust his weight. The tumble hadn't broken anything but he had some new bruises. One on his hip he didn't like.

"What did you expect," Hannibal says, glancing over at Will with a smile. "I'm me. Hannibal the Cannibal, legendary bogeyman to the credulous."

Pause.

"I'll see to that when we're at the house."

"You can't actually like that name." Will huffs in disgust.

"House?" He lifts an eyebrow. "It's just bruise." Probably.

"Where did you think we were going?" Hannibal says. "Of course we're going to a house. And we need you as fit as you can be when we face the Dragon, so you'll have to indulge me when I see to your bruises."

Pause.

"Nobody gets to pick their own nicknames," he then adds. "If that is what they know me as, then that is what I am to them."

Edited 2018-12-27 12:11 (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure I'm out of other options at this point." Other than to indulge Hannibal.

He closes his eyes and mumbles, almost to himself, "Murder husbands."

"They called us that as well," Hannibal nods. "Or rather, Freddie Lounds did. I never disliked the implication, you know, even if that was her intention."

Pause.

"Yes, even without an Abigail for us to be fathers to."

Will is silent for a long moment.

"I asked Bedelia if she thought you were in love with me."

"What did she say?"

"Yes. In many more words." He manages a tired quirk of a smile. "She's jealous."

"Of course she is," Hannibal says. "She already was when we were in Florence. She'd cut off a pound of her own flesh and serve it to me, if she thought that would bring me back to where I've never really been."

Pause.

"Poor Bedelia. Unlike Alana, she did not find a grand, victorious consolation prize."

"Alana didn't know what she was getting into. Bedelia wanted to be Bluebeard's Wife." There's a chuckle in his voice. "She's pissed you chose me."

"She was always fascinated be my feelings for you," Hannibal says. "It hurts her self-image that I'd chose those, over all the sophistication and devotion that she could deliver."

"You wouldn't give her the self distribution she wanted." His eyes are closed, the ache starting to really set in.

"She came out an honourable victim," Hannibal says. "That is all she managed. All I could let her have. There was more at stake, back then in Florence."

He reaches over to briefly touch Will's cheek.

"Tell me when you need me to shut up."

Will catches himself leaning into the touch. Just a little. "No, keep talking." He doesn't remember hitting his head but the knot of a headache forming is slightly foreboding.

"This isn't my car, so I can't vouchsafe for the content of the glove compartment," Hannibal says. "All good glove compartments ought to contain painkillers, cough drops, and caffeine candy, but this might be a bad one, full of ammunition and donut coupons."

"Keep talking anyway." Will looks, trying to ignore the smudge of blood that transfers onto his hand as he opens it. There are painkillers, if cheap generic ones. He shakes three loose and dry swallows them with a grimace.