mirrortouch | 01 | 🕐

[ It's not something that really ever becomes routine, it doesn't matter how often he wakes up someplace strange and uncharted. The voice on the line sounds about as scattered as he feels. ]

My name is Will Graham, it's- [ He's pulling back his sleeve to look for a watch that's not there. ] I don't have the time. I don't- I don't have the time.

[ Hang on, don't get too lost. ]

It's not clear to me exactly where I am, but- [ a dry laugh ] you probably already knew that. This isn't even my phone. But you probably knew that too.

[ He's missing details. He's missing plenty. His voice trails off for a short while before he can get his bearings enough to speak again, and even then it's almost unconsciously. ] I don't know. I don't know.

[ It's as if the fact that he has no idea sparks him back into the present. His voice grows more composed, if somewhat cracked. ] So if you're hearing this, if anyone is hearing this - [ is anyone hearing this? ] - any singular indication will be key.

[ Another beat. ]

I feel as though I've strayed a long, long way from home.

[ The air goes dead, and then so does the line. ]

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You misunderstand me.

[He listens, waits, weighs the words, but the fact of the matter is that not only does the argument for father - or something close to it - mean next to nothing to a soldier created in a lab, but it's there: you won't take her from me. Possession. On either part.]

I will support what Abigail wants from you. I will support her right to that decision. If she wishes to interact with you, I will not stand in the way of that.

If she wants nothing to do with you, I will enforce that. It is her decision, as it always should have been.

[Ben doesn't want to be her father, her brother, her blood; he is something else entirely, both literally and figuratively. But he doesn't intend to explain that to this man, and that's fortunate because he's not entirely sure that he can.]

As it should be.

[ It should. Frightens him a bit, that she could cut this off at the legs no matter how long she wanted to wait to do so. Whatever it would be of his to push her over that edge and into something too afraid to meet with him, perhaps too angry, too upset - He doesn't know what this hypothetical future self would have done, but he knows he's scared her before. He knows it's not the first time she would have wanted away from him. ]

I'm not trying to argue. [ Evidence to the contrary. ] I just needed to speak my peace. You need to know it's not something that can come - lightly.

[Ben considers this. Most conversations involving him come with long pauses, consideration and weights and balances, making a thoughtful decision and careful word choice. This one is a little longer than normal, considering his natural tendency to want to put others at ease - the why doesn't matter much as time goes on - his duty to be clearcut and consistent, and the deeply buried, ugly whim to deal back to this man some of what everyone who ever failed Abigail dealt to her. To scare him as he scared her.

But despite his scalpel sharp temper, he is not given to cruelty. He never was, even at his most monstrous. Ben clears his throat.]

We do not know each other well. You will need to take it on faith that anything I do, I do not do lightly. It is commonly a source of confusion for others.

Ask, if you have questions. I will answer as honestly as I am capable.

[ Oh, he has plenty of questions. Most of them pertaining to Abigail, very few of them he assumes that Ben can or will feasibly answer.

There's a side of him that's coiled and ready and he knows it, the half that puts Hannibal first and foremost on his list of interests whether he likes it or not. This is the side that scares Abigail, and yet he's seen her celebrate in it just the same.

So he only has one question, and it's not necessarily scared when he asks it, just genuinely curious. ]

What do you suppose it would take for me to successfully - push her away from me, to cause this hypothetical situation? You have the probability of knowing her better than anybody on this boat.

Attempting to possess her.

[Ben barely has to think about it: he knows instantly what the greatest danger is, in many different ways. He also knows, the moment he says it, that this is also the situation most likely to draw Abigail to Will.

He doesn't see a reason to point that out, though. It's not what he was asked.]

Others have been attempting to shape her for their own purposes all of her life. She has long since realized it, but only very recently been given the opportunity to defy that. A real opportunity, enforced and protected, not merely in word.

I expect she would quite possibly react very strongly to anyone attempting to do so against her wishes, now.

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