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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"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."

"And now I'm here. Going... where, exactly?"

"To the place where we meet the Dragon," Hannibal says. "My cliff house. Taking the advantage of picking the field of battle. I'll show you the salient points when we get there."

Edited 2018-12-30 10:07 (UTC)

Will nods and closes his eyes again. The motion of the car starts to lull him to sleep. One hand falls open on the console between them, palm up.

Hannibal turns on the radio, an utterly mundane gesture; but because he is Hannibal, the slightest twist of the dials brings on a Brandenburg Concerto, calm and quiet.

The common preferences of the cops who used to inhabit this car mean that the sound favours the bass; with Bach, it means that the basso continuo will come to the foreground, increasing the soporific effect of the car's gentle motions.

Will sleeps easily for the rest of the journey, only waking as the cat turns into a gravel driveway. "I smell the ocean." he comments without opening his eyes.