01 | 🕐 | audio

[mirrortouch]

[ 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. ]

Comments

[lastincident]

Yes.

You're from her world?

[ Because this is important to know - Alana is from Hannibal's world, and Bruce's loathing for Hannibal runs deep. Especially after the last time they spoke. ]

[ He didn't appreciate getting forked. ]

[mirrortouch]

[ He pauses a beat before he answers that, first to adjust to the colloquialism and then to consider just what 'world' within Alana's he's found himself nestled into. ]

She's a friend.

[lastincident]

It's good to have friends here.

[ He pauses, and then asks the million dollar question: ]

Do you know Hannibal, then?

[mirrortouch]

[ With the intimacy of a knife to his throat.

The name could very nearly make him bristle, hackles raised and teeth on edge, but he manages to keep the lid on - carefully sealed, with all the violent inaction he can muster.

His molars grit and he doesn't answer for a solid two or three seconds, but when he speaks, it's light (if strained): ]

Would you believe he's my therapist?

[lastincident]

It might explain a few things.

[ Like why you're more fucked up that Bruce is, for one thing. Why you're an inmate. ]

[ Tony buts his head against Bruce's hand, to try and distract and soothe. The dog helps. ]

Alana has an office here, but she's not in at the moment.

[ Who doesn't want to talk about Hannibal? This person, who is trying to keep his stress levels at baseline 'angry'. ]

[mirrortouch]

[ i know who wants to talk about hannibal

There's a connotation that comes with the information that Bruce has unwillingly (coyly, perhaps) presented, mutually and separately innocuous but altogether a blade that he's not quite being made to wield.

He has every warning sign: Maybe most telling is Tony, but also the abrupt subject change, the transparent observation (Bruce, as it is, does not know very much about him and Will can begin to gather what sourer things Hannibal might be able to explain away). He can feel himself settling very quickly into a seamless paranoia, to be avoided, and yet he finds himself clicking back subjects as though aimlessly. ]

And Dr. Lecter doesn't?

[ It's an easy observation. ]

[lastincident]

Please don't insult those of us who have dedicated our lives and work to the betterment of man by calling Hannibal Lecter a doctor. He is a butcher, and not allowed in my infirmary under any circumstances.

[ Bruce's eyes are flat and dark, hostility bleeding at the tightness at the corners. ]

He fed people to my patients. I treat him in Zero if he warrants treating at all.

[mirrortouch]

- Hannibal Lecter is an inmate?

[ It's a stark confirmation of a brand new world, one in which - though he might be actively working towards it, a place where the name might be so synonymous with a heinousness with which he's particularly familiar - he doesn't necessarily know how to conduct himself.

The duel between a mongoose and a snake ends viciously even when the snake tires; the mongoose shows no mercy for the creature in part because of who or what else might be hunting its prey, but moreover because it doesn't want to become breakfast first. Will doesn't have any plans for defeat - Hannibal's already given him a foul taste of that, and the expressive need to keep the flavor off his tongue has made him very patient - but it does all raise a certain need to discover just what other predators might be awaiting their own turn at the cobra.

Shock, by default, isn't exactly the first expression crossing Will's face. ]

Indulgence isn't a suit he fastens on all too often, and if he wears it, it's proudly. He would have considered that a gift unappreciated. [ It's a strange sort of acknowledgement, a loose interpretation of what Bruce is telling him.

And then, just as plainly, as if to explain himself: ] I didn't say the process wasn't a complicated one, therapeutically speaking.

[lastincident]

He's a murderer. Of course he's an inmate.

[ This is not the time to tell Will that there was another Hannibal, one who has come and gone, from another world. Another Hannibal, who did equally terrible things but became a graduate. He doesn't know if it'd give Will hope, or dash it completely. ]

[ He's afraid of seeing one on Will's face instead of the other. ]

I'm not much for therapists. Hannibal's brand of them, even less so.

[mirrortouch]

Oh, he's a lot more than that.

[ Tightly, a bit heated, but he's not about to start elaborating. Once upon a time, he'd talk about Hannibal until he was blue in the face - now, he's much more coy with how he handles things, as though he has those eyes on him wherever he goes. It's impossible, naturally, he knows that, but there was a certain 'better safe than sorry' air to the situation.

That clearly applies here no longer. But if Hannibal's here, he needs a plan before he can start openly revealing how much he knows. ]

He does know his sciences, soft or no. [ More of an admittance than a compliment. ] It's less therapy and more - as if you've been strung up against a wheel. You turn until you're dizzy, and hope none of the knife blades puncture something important with each throw.

[lastincident]

No, he isn't.

[ Bruce's ire, like some sleeping dragon, opens one red eye and fixes will in his mind. ]

Hannibal is not special. Hannibal is not talented or regal or any of the things that he--or the people he has duped--seem to believe. He requires only one thing to operate: a certain level of ignorance, and he helps foster it by knowing how to work a crowd like any conman. He simply has a fancier set up to get his marks and work his con.

[ He's just like Brian Banner in that manner; he knew how to work the town, keeping his wife and son living in terror while everyone else averted their eyes to the horror, refusing to see what was there the whole time: A monster among the sheep. ]

He's as common a criminal as any other. Elevating him beyond his station both feeds his ego and his urges. I suggest you disabuse yourself of the notion that he is anything other than a base killer with a perverse appetite.

[mirrortouch]

[ He's not wrong.

But he's also fighting a losing fight. Hannibal has transcended the status of mere 'person' in his mind. Though he is still human and very capable of injury, fallibility, error, it doesn't mean he participates in it all that much. There's a certain luck that comes with Hannibal's breed of killer, and a supremely careful sense of self that cannot - and will not - allow him to be caught. Animal instinct.

Will looks at Hannibal and he no longer sees the man who was once his friend, rather as though he's looking at a great and powerful stag traipsing through the forest, about to set his foot in a trap. The moment of truth, whether he sees it or not. The moment of truth, whether it actually snares him or not.

With a drum of his fingers on the arm of his chair, Will can't help but regard Bruce a bit darkly, almost a territorial kind of sense to him. ]

With all due respect to your profile, Dr. Banner - [ Will pauses for effect, slides his glasses down his nose and tucks them into a pocket. He smiles downward, flatly, before he regards Bruce square in the eyes for one of the first times since he's entered this office. ] You don't know me. At all.

And you really don't know what it is that Hannibal Lecter is capable of.

[lastincident]

He stabbed me in the neck.

I know exactly what he's capable of.

[ He leaned back, language entirely barriers now. Hannibal was a monster, and Will was clearly his patsy in some form. Unwilling, but he'd drunk the blood-colored koolaid, gotten in too deep. ]

[ Bruce was a warden, but he had his biases. This wasn't something he could help with. Not right now, anyway. ]

Is there anything else I can help you with?

[mirrortouch]

Yes, well - he stabbed me in the back.

[ Repeatedly, with something blunt.

Will stands regardless, picking up the brochure with him - because who knows? it may be some form of help - and touching his fingers to Bruce's desk. He leans on it momentarily, almost as if trying to assert a position of power, but it's immediately abandoned with a step backward. He gives a small shake of his head. ]

I think we're done here.

[lastincident]

Good luck with your time here.

[ Bruce sits back in his chair, hand on Tony's blocky head. He doesn't need to say: You're going to need it. They both already know it. ]