cook_the_rude | (no subject)

(no subject)

"Going my way?"

Hannibal had turned the car around, opened the door and dropped the body of their police escort as he'd never drop that much litter. He still wore his grey uniform from the State Hospital, but his smile was utterly free.

The car smelled of gunshots and blood, but it would do.

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"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."

"I've never fished for koi." Which is to say he's never had a reason to study their habits and behaviours.

Will turns to study Hannibal's profile. "Already planning our future." Not phrased as a question.

"Looking for new antlers to shape plans after," Hannibal amends, "after the eye of the needle that we must go through."

Pause.

"We may as well end up measured and found too thick."

"Always planning." It's not an insult. Will's own agency had grown since he started to think that way more than just reacting to stimuli. But he still feels like he can't think past the Dragon. Can't see the person he'll be on the other side of that fire.

"No firm plans, just a messy tangle of what-ifs," Hannibal says. "You do speak Spanish, don't you? Good."

"Functionally." it's almost a question. Almost wanting to hear about Hannibal's what-its. "Can't discuss the finer points of art but I can ask directions and make conversation." If he has to. He'd rather not but that's less to do with language and more to do with social transactions.

"That might be something to build on," Hannibal nods. "You are adaptable. After all, you sailed the Atlantic all by yourself and then found your way around Europe until you came to me in Palermo, then Florence."

"There were parts where I was thrown from a train." He points out.

"As far as I know," Hannibal chuckles, "that wasn't owed to your inability to make your own way around Europe, but rather to Chiyoh's slightly overprotective nature."