mirrortouch | 01 | 🕐

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01 | 🕐 | audio

[ 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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I didn't know a home-cooked meal was the ticket for ease when it came to - [ no, this is still funny to him, he has a half a chuckle to himself ] a discussion regarding potential tears in the space-time continuum.

You'd be surprised.

And it isn't a meal. It's just...pie.

And ice cream. If you prefer. A la mode.

It sort of...takes the sting out of all of it. Reminds you that some things are normal, even when everything else is up in the air and shifting.

It isn't home-cooked either. [ If they want to get technical.

Like with all else here, Will hesitates. It's a nice invitation that's been laid out before him, it's just a matter of allowing himself to relax long enough for it to be successful.

But over all, what he could use right now is normalcy, no matter how strange the breed. ]

Without- ice cream, though.

It is. I make them from scratch and...this is my home, for now. So. Home-cooked.

Special of the day is lemon meringue, with sides of strawberry cheesecake and rhubarb.

I'd ask if you were any good, but I suppose there's an easy test of that.

Taste test. Generally speaking.

Do you prefer your room, my room, or neutral territory in public?

Neutrality does breed comfort. [ Public. At least if it's poisoned, they'll find the body.

That was mostly a joke.

Seeing as his room's an occupational hazard: ]

Did you have somewhere in mind?

The mess hall, I try to keep my cooking out of. Don't want to upstage a cook in his own restaurant. So to speak.

And I really don't like the idea of blueberry cobbler over library books.

What about the deck? Heavily trafficked yet atmospheric.

- I haven't been.

[ The deck sounds more than apt. Maybe even lending a better perspective on the situation of just where the hell this barge even is.

He doubts that pretty innately. ]

I suppose I'll look for the guy with the pie.

Look for the guy with the pie.

[And the Piemaker will answer that call, sitting up on deck with piebox and dog Digby, on a lawn chair under the stars. It's peaceful out here: he's learned to like the deck. Less claustrophobic than down below.]

[ Will's own entrance onto the deck is much slower, a sort of traipse out of the stairwell - his neck immediately cranes, and he knows immediately that this will make him a tourist in this territory, "the new guy". He really can't care. It's literally goddamn space.

Eventually, well, he can't stop looking, but he does manage to look for the guy with the pie. (And the dog, apparently.) His hand rubs at his chest as though trying to assuage some kind of greater heartburn set off by mere culture shock. ]

I've lost my mind before. [ Yes, that's his conversation starter. It's almost more to himself than it is to Ned. ] It did not feel - a thing like this.

[ He feels lucid, he feels stable. And so he feels this actually happening and he knows, just as immediately, that he must start to conceive of it happening. ]

I'm still waiting for the ragtag film crew. [ Ready to put him on one of those idiotic hidden camera shows. ]

[It's deceptively simple to pick Will out from all the rest: the Barge is small, and the Piemaker's been around long enough to recognize most of the new crew at sight. But he lets Will meander his way over to him first, letting him take the time to explore his surroundings. He remembers what it was like for him the first time, stepping out under the stars. He'd fought vertigo and acid reflux the entire way.

Digby sits calmly on a deck chair of his own, woefully ignoring the no-dogs-on-furniture rule the Piemaker only haphazardly enforces.]

You haven't lost your mind. There isn't a film crew.

There's only me, and Digby, and pie. I promise.

It's. Nice to meet you.

[ There certainly isn't a film crew. The stars surge by overhead and he feels almost like he might be ill at the new sensation, not a particular kind of seasick per se but instead the same, overwhelming feeling that Ned probably thinks of. At first, he was willing for the whole charade - now and still, he's waiting for the dream to abruptly end itself.

"It's nice to meet you," Ned tells him, and Will can feel a bit of skepticism start to leech in - the look he turns Ned's way fits the thought process. Is it really, though?

Will's gaze scatters, landing on Digby instead of the sky. ] No - [ He agrees slowly at first, and then: ] No, I am most certainly awake right now.

[ It's unfortunate. A short pause, and his hands go into his jacket pockets; overprotective of himself, probably. ] Hey, Digby.

[The Piemaker liked to bring Digby up when he met new people. Scared or sick inmates who wouldn't talk to strangers sometimes talked to dogs. He'd lent out the golden retriever a number of times as a comfort animal, sharing him with the displaced and lonely of the Barge. Most of the time he didn't worry over the dog: occasionally, he did.

This didn't seem like one of the times he should worry.

At his name, Digby's called over to Will's side, trotting over and sniffing him with the polite air of an old - really, really old - dog.

The Piemaker remains seated, biting his lip and letting his dog make the acquaintances first. Digby had much better people skills than him; he'd be embarrassed about it if he didn't find it so convenient.]

[ Digby seems friendly enough anyway, well-trained. He kind of dutifully sniffs at him - probably, actually, can still smell Will's dogs on his pants; they're certainly underfoot enough - and Will lets him smell his hand before he pets him.

Slow, at first, but then he grasps the sides of his head and ruffles a little playfully. ]

I've got a retriever at home. His name is Winston. He is - just about as charming. [ Once he opens up, anyway.

Will glances up to Ned again, giving Digby's head one last pet. ] I think - [ away from Ned, back up to the sky ] I may be having a crisis of perspective.

[Digby allows the petting with comforting ease: he spends most of his days in a restaurant watching people come and go, and thus is extremely used to strangers coming up to pet him. His mouth opens up in a happy pant, as he sits close to Will to take full benefit of the ear-ruffling]

The Piemaker glances up at the name, surprised and a little amused by the coincidence]

I knew - know - a retriever named Winston too.

[But he doesn't yet suspect it's the same dog, glancing at his own and then towards Will again]

You'd be surprised how common that can be.

What can I do to offer perspective?

[ He's got his own bit of surprise, though it settles into puzzlement rather than amusement. ] That's - quite the coincidence.

[ But he hasn't seen Alana yet, and doesn't know any better.

It's not disheartening, but it does bring up a certain territorial feeling, like, "It was my name first." ]

Everyone here [ he speaks carefully, evenly, as though choosing his words with a precision ] has spoken of horrors and steeling oneself for the inevitable, the bizarre and potentially deadly. And yet nobody has told me, singularly, what they've been through. What to expect.

I suppose hashing over traumatic details to a stranger might seem a bit much.

Is Winston a common name for dogs?

[He honestly doesn't know. Winston, in some universes, could be a very popular dog's name. He resolves to introduce the two sometime, if Alana doesn't beat him to it]

...No, I mean. I don't mind. Vagueness can be its own trauma to new people.

I can tell you what I've been through. But it would require a temporary suspension of disbelief in regards to my specific brand of ability.

More or less.

Do you know very many dogs named 'Winston'?

[ Because he doesn't either. ]

We're standing outside in space right now. [ He speaks carefully, sounding out his words as if even he needs to make proper grasp of them. ] We're standing atop a spaceship and we're in space, surging through the stars. I'm a prisoner on a prison space boat, a macabre and forced sort of rehab, just -

[ He gives a minute shake of his head, looking over at Ned. ]

Try me.

No. Not many. But this wouldn't be the first odd coincidence I've seen here.

[Will does make a good point. Even though everyone on the ship knows what he can do by now, it's still an effort for the Piemaker to state baldly what he can do.

State baldly, he does.]

I can touch dead things and bring them back to life.

I...touch dead things. People. Animals. Fruit. They come back to life. I touch them again, they go back to being dead.

There are other rules, but that's the..gist of it.

And once...someone on the Barge here, he...found out about it. And he kidnapped me, and Digby, and kept us in my room so that he could...kill people on the ship. And bring me...pieces of them.

To...eat.

There were other things. Ports and floods.

But that. That's the worst I faced down. Being an unwilling tool to someone who wanted the freshest...food he could find.

[ It doesn't take a difficult leap to figure out just who exactly it was who might have done this to Ned - who's been nothing but kind to him thus far, mind, Will has no qualms with him as of yet. But maybe that's just because he's always lurking there, Hannibal, at the corners of his mind like shadowed fingers leeching into the rest of what he has left.

Will doesn't answer for a few long moments, if not just to process the new information he's been - for lack of a better word - fed. He knows about the ports and floods. He doesn't know what exactly they entail, but nobody else seems to either.

What Ned's been through, that could certainly take the cake (the pie?) insofar as horrific things one could have happen to them. ]

He does like to play. [ Will speaks darkly, more to himself than anything, as if he's temporarily forgotten Ned is sitting just beside him. With a slow regard, he turns his head to peer at the other man.

He imagines the horror upon that expression, the grotesque feeling of touching the flesh of those he's known, living flesh, sinewy and chewy on the way down. All Will's done is throw up an ear. ]

A piemaker is an awfully innocuous profession for someone who can do what you do, Ned. [ Humility. Most people would think themselves unto Christ Himself, and here he sits beside Will. ] Reliving traumatic experiences, in my experience, does come with - some degree of catharsis.

[It's a difficult thing to say aloud. The Piemaker's fist digs gently but tightly into Digby's fur for support, his face taking on a neutral expression so as not to go opening little trauma boxes once again. He'd thought he'd packed away that episode of his life relatively tightly. Opening it up for a stranger, even to help, was painful.

But Will's response surprises him. His expression breaks into mild confusion, as he turns to stare back. Will doesn't appear repulsed, only grim and quiet. He's thrown for a bit of a loop.]

It also comes with some degree of trauma.

I don't usually want people to know what I can do. Piemaking's as good an undercover job as any. You get to reuse fruit.

And there's that.

[ He doesn't mean to come across blase about the whole experience. It's frightfully traumatic, sure, what Ned has been through, and Will can feel that visceral sort of itch that comes with all things related to Hannibal. A distinctive feeling that twists itself nastily in his gut and settles there to fester and lie in wait until the opportune moment.

Reciprocating with more stories of the man would be easy right about now. But Ned's already been exposed to the full brunt of what Hannibal's capable of, and reliving his own past traumas would be, in his opinion, redundant. ]

It's not something I'd particularly want to advertise either. Nary a person who might approach with some sort of request or another. [ He glances over to Ned again, brushing a knuckle against his nose. ] Pie comes much easier in its handling than, say, humans do.

Generally speaking.

[The Piemaker does not for an instant suspect that Will and Hannibal are acquainted. It would be a terrific leap of logic and while he's done some detective work in the past, it's mainly been of the touching-murder-victims-back-to-life sort.

And likely it wouldn't help his psyche to hear more horror stories. He only mentions his own now in order to prepare Will for something which Will needs no preparation. The Piemaker tries to warn the new arrivals as best he's able]

Pie does handle better than people.

It's more than that. It's.

I'm the only...person in the world who can do these things. That I'm aware.

I'm the only person here on the Barge, too. Even where there's magic run amok, people still want you bringing back dead things. All the time.

[ A feat that's well-appreciated, even if, as aforementioned, with a degree of repetition for Will. Unfortunately, he's not really the show and tell sort of type. Maybe, with enough conversational pull, he would let up some of his more memorable experiences with Hannibal, certainly - there's few subjects he talks about more - but as for right now, he's keeping it on a surface level.

Ned, on the other hand, is a partially open book, with pages free to read - there may be some mark-outs and pages torn free to save his own privacy, but Will hasn't recognized too many of them as of yet. There's something endearing, about the open and honest. It's a nice change from his day job.

He can't even imagine the difficulty of having to deal with something like Ned has. It's not just the experience with Hannibal, it's the entire lot of it. ]

People want what they want. [ He admits, his lips pursing slightly. He can't say that he wouldn't have asked the same questions of Ned, had he been in a position for it to matter. But Abigail was here. The point was incredibly moot. ] And letting go is not something that has yet been innately birthed within the human condition.

[ For a moment, he has to say, he thinks of Beverly and his stomach does that twist again, bitter and angry and all the same thoughtful. It wouldn't matter. She wouldn't come back the same. Nobody's the same person after so much trauma, as he's sure Ned isn't the same person. ]

Entertain for a moment [ as he's sure Ned has done multiple times in his life, being given the power that he has ] being a completely average, baseline human. Would you trade it in? Would you change anything?

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