cook_the_rude | (no subject)

"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.

"There is a bottle of coke behind my seat," Hannibal supplies, semi-helpfully. "Again, I plead innocence; it's warm, generic and contains corn sugar. But it's liquid and contains some caffeine, too."

The bare minimum, apparently.

"I think I'll live. Thanks." He runs a hand through his hair in a half aborted stretch. "Any place you have agency over will have coffee."

"Yes," Hannibal says. "Decent coffee. I'm afraid that stopping for it on the way is not an option. I am sure Jack is keeping a lid on things for the time being, but some horrified little barista might recognise us."

"I think the lid is well and truly off." he huffs.

He rolls his head to look at Hannibal, brow cocked. "You just don't want to be seen in public in that jumpsuit."

"And this haircut," Hannibal says. "I look terrible -- like somebody with no agency about his own appearance. That makes people suspicious even before they look at my face."

He smiles fondly at Will.

"You, on the other hand, are wearing your usual invisibility cloak."

"Vanity, thy name is Hannibal." His eyes are closed but he hears the smile.

"Mediocrity is the best defence against interest." And one that's got him through most of his life.

"I think that is your most underestimated gift," Hannibal says. "You are anything but mediocre, in any way, but your command of human mimicry allows you to appear utterly harmless and rather plain."

"Not unlike your person suit?" He opens one eye a crack. "Bedelia's analogy." By way of explanation.

"Not unlike that," Hannibal says. "Yes, she used that analogy to me as well. It's hard to believably wear one, though, when one is put into this kind of unperson suit."

"Is that what you think was done to you?"

"In making me wear this?" Hannibal says. "Yes. This kind of uniform denotes an unperson."

"The contained monster." Will sighed, remembering his own incarceration. "I don't think they know how well tooth and claw can be sharpened on those walls."

After all, Will had send the copy-cat to kill Hannibal while locked up.

"No, the ones who hold the key know least about the place," Hannibal says. "But we do."

"Alana-" he was about the say knows but that isn't right either. "Is aware enough to know there are things she'll never understand. Fredrick Chilton was as aware of his surroundings and a gold fish."

Past tense. A piece removed from the board.

"That aware and conscious?" Hannibal says, amusement in his voice. "You really think that?"

"An insult to goldfish?" Will asks, chuckling too.

"Definitely," Hannibal says. "Goldfish are related to koi, after all, and koi are very personable and interactive fish -- not just decoration, proper pets. We should get some. Dogs don't fish, after all, unlike cats and Will Grahams."