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 hope he's not the only one.

[ There's a little humored self-deprecation there, and his tone isn't unkind, but if she's not going to say it, he will. So far as he knows, it's already there between them, a stain on the carpet that has been as of yet uncalled for. He's far from a confession, but: ] The world seems as though it's trying to communicate something to me. About cages.

[ And how badly it wants him in one. He hasn't decided how righteous that is yet. He wasn't done yet.

Not to mention that it might be a very long time before he could even think about finishing it. ] I'll- I'll be right up, Alana, but I don't know how much answer I'll be.

[ But he certainly owes her something here; it means, true to his word, his passage over is going to be a quick one. ]

[Winston barely allows for Alana to open the door before he sticks his nose, head, followed by his whole body through the door to see Will. Alana herself hangs back, holding the door open wide enough for Will to come inside and for Winston to come back. One hand holds the handle, the other resting on the edge of the door, crossing her body in an unconscious move to protect herself.]

You look well, [she comments lightly.]

[He still looks worn out like a favorite pair of jeans. Worn and used through so much that the edges and seams are beginning to fray, patches sewn in to make up for the gaps and holes in the knees and thighs and one pocket completely useless for holding anything. But that's better than what she last saw him, fevered and still being treated for his encephalitis. Certainly more lucid.]

[She supposes she is now, too.]

[Alana steps away from the door.]

Can I get you anything?

[Her cabin has all the comforts of her home. A kitchen and bathroom, a clear living room with a small office area - things she doesn't keep in her office at the infirmary - and a bedroom towards the back. There's a dogbed beside the couch, but the fur on the couch shows that Winston's allowed up more often than not. When Abigail doesn't let herself in or Mason isn't crashing on her couch, Alana spends plenty of evenings with Winston curled up close.]

So do you.

[ Alana wields that door almost like a tower shield. He has to wonder just how well it is he looks.

It's easy to divert his attention to the dog, at least momentarily. While he's down on a knee, he grasps for either ear, mussing at fur and greeting lowly. Winston wriggles around worse than when Will came back from Baltimore, a barely contained excitement that makes Will lament the disconnect there. It's impossibly good to see his dog here, absolutely, but if he's honest with himself beyond the shades being violently drawn open around him, the light all bleeding in - well, he just saw his dog not long ago.

There is a fond smile there; it goes crooked when he peers back up at Alana. Things will be mismatched here too, furniture swapped around in an otherwise familiar house. It doesn't quite stop feeling like home, but it's that whole extra step to figuring out where he's supposed to sit. ]

A favor?

[ Without any more hesitation, he takes that invitation inside, swiping idly at his pants - Winston predictably follows. The thing is that there's a cacophony of things he could ask her about, but there's really only one thing he wants in the moment. ]

Perhaps a - furlough of sorts, [ he turns slowly about the center, taking in the room in equal parts before his gaze finally turns to rest on Alana again, ] from the idea that we, ah, both don't know why I don't know why I'm here.

[ He's an inmate again, he gets that much. That cat's pretty thoroughly out of the bag. ]

Barring that, I'd say something caffeinated.

[ Well, he certainly thinks he's witty. ]

[Not that witty, Will. Alana's smiles is wry and brief. She nods, moving into the kitchen to fix some coffee. There are a number of directions this conversation should and could go in right now, but Alana uses the excuse of making coffee as one to keep silent for the time being. It's a poor one and one she's sure Will sees through. Making coffee is rote memory, something she can do when she's barely awake. But in a way, this feels similar.]

[There doesn't seem to be much of a point in discussing that he's an inmate right now. Alana knows what Will is innocent of, but she doesn't know what he's guilty of. It terrifies her and she doesn't feel as though the ground is under her feet enough to fall into that thread of conversation. She had, at one point, accepted the idea that perhaps he did kill Abigail Hobbs. She even accepted that perhaps he was the copycat killer. But it had to have been while he was sick. She couldn't think of the idea that Will, the quiet and gentle man who took in stray dogs, was a psychopath. Eccentric though he may be, she couldn't picture him finding some base need satiated through a theatrical display, a taking of a life.]

[Alana opens a cabinet, taking out two mugs, turning to set them on the counter. She pauses there as she listens to the coffee brewing, but doesn't bring her gaze up from the mugs.]

[She didn't want to think he was capable of any of enjoying murder. She didn't want to think that her whole purpose of being here was for nothing. Her gaze drifts briefly to her desk. Hannibal had brought her a peace offering. A reminder of why she was here. A portrait of Will that was neither grotesque or disturbing like the spectacle he had put on earlier.]

[She knows there is one obvious place to start.]

I know, [she says, willing her voice to stay steady as she brings her gaze back up to Will.] About Hannibal.

I know he's the Chesapeake Ripper, I know he was the copycat killer, and I know he killed Abigail Hobbs.

[ It's a slow crawl, the lift of his gaze from where he lingers in the doorway. He'd been letting her have her contemplative silence for a while, not tacky per se but certainly transparent as she knows it is. Arms crossed, eyes on the floor. (Or her shoes or the mugs or, really, legitimately, anything.) Now, when his eyes light upon her, it's her specifically this time, he really looks at her, and it's all he can do to take in a careful inhale.

There was a time he might have danced a damn jig over hearing those very words in that very tone, unironic, free of sarcasm and jest. Lately, it was something he could chalk up to a much more dire category, a box he kept locked away and likely labeled "famous last words".

Here, everything carries a different significance. Even the name, Hannibal Lecter, sounds different in people's mouths; it lingers with a certain new revulsion on so many tongues, living tongues, wagging tongues, tongues that aren't his own. He's spent enough time now with that idea locked so tightly in his chest that it felt almost like it belonged to him and him alone, and with it he's not entirely sure how to approach this brave new world.

Will's throat gets significantly tighter, voice betraying him when he starts to ask: ] How did -

[ It's not even the question he wants first and foremost. He pauses, one of his hands raising from his arm in a manner that's somewhere between placating and beseeching. ] Abigail said. His warden spoke with me, he has - [ He has a warden. ] I've gotten -

[ There, he breaks off in a disbelieving laugh - it's short, to the point, and heavily laced with the irony. Death threats, he's gotten death threats regarding Hannibal already, and it all has his hand decidedly mopping itself over his face. The eye contact, at the least, had been something while it lasted. ]

Christ, Alana, how many people know here?

Most of them. Maybe all of them. I don't know exactly.

[Alana looks back down to the counter.]

[She found out later that Hannibal had made a very public confession before her arrival, a confession that he later destroyed or hid from her at the very least. He pulled the wool right over her eyes immediately, pretending to be a warden here to help someone else, to help Will. Once again, she trusted him without question. She believed him.]

[She let him blind her with what she wanted to see.]

[Alana draws a slow breath, smooth and careful. The exhale is less so, shaky and leaving her feeling as though she didn't get enough oxygen on her inhale. She's angry. She's angry that Hannibal was able to so easily deceive her. She's angry that she didn't figure things out on her own sooner. She's angry that Will is here, that he's an inmate. She's angry about so many things in so many different directions without any sign of relief. Mostly, she's angry at herself.]

[She folds her arms.]

I found out by accident. He didn't want me to know.

[At least not in that specific moment. Maybe never, but she could only be sure of that specific point in time.]

[ Welcome to the trip, Alana.

He knows the specific way it settles itself into your bones, that semi-psychotic feeling that comes with knowing the truth about Hannibal. Suddenly, all the evidence rearranges itself into the right places, little details glossed over before suddenly coming to a whole new light. It's at once disorienting, a privilege largely intended for those who knew Hannibal "well" rather than those who only did on a shallower level.

For Will, it was a riotously different journey, a story with its own twist ending that he hadn't seen until too late. It was devastating, and he hadn't even particularly known Hannibal that long - 'know' is the wrong word, as he was mostly and merely aware of his presence. He met a part of him, and the rest came later.

But Alana knew Hannibal for months, years longer than that. He's not even entirely sure how long. But if he feels so viscerally betrayed by Hannibal - he can start to imagine how Alana feels. Has felt, has been feeling.

His eyes linger on her folded arms, tensed hands clasping along with a shaken exhale, and he feels some vague urge to take her hands in his own. Shared tragedy, a comfort, or something along those lines. It's not his place anymore. He's not even sure it was his in the first place. ]

Tell me what happened.

I found out from one of the other wardens, Dillon. He just arrived and he had this...mask with him.

[It's a largely irrelevant detail, but it still stands out in Alana's mind. Something meant to keep someone from biting. It seemed animalistic and savage. Things that clashed with everything that Hannibal used to stand for in Alana's mind.]

As it turns out, Hannibal is from a book series where Dillon is from.

[Alana supposes that should technically be a little more unsettling than the reality of who Hannibal Lecter really is beneath his carefully practiced and placed veneer of friend and mentor. Then again, it doesn't seem all that surprising. If there are a number of universes out there in the world, who isn't to say that there might be some overlap between them?]

I asked around and it turned out that Hannibal had pretended to be Abigail's father when he first arrived. He murdered a number of people before I came here and revealed himself to everyone.

[She leaves out the part of Hannibal using Ned's power to bring the organs and flesh he harvested for meals back to life, how he lured people to Ned's cabin before eating them or serving them up to an unsuspecting innocent. It's not such an unnecessary detail, but it's not one that Alana wants to dwell on though she still grimaces all the same.]

[Alana wipes at a stray tear absentmindedly.]

When I arrived, he hid his announcement, but when I found out he didn't bother to hide any of it.

Difficult to hide in plain sight.

[ Might as well play hide and seek in minimalist furniture.

He can feel it on the tip of his tongue, a savage little, 'I suppose you believe me now,' that's perched like a gargoyle, and he almost wants to be vicious and cynic but it's been wrung out of him. He was overwrought when he showed up here. Here and right now in this conversation, he just feels - tired. ]

He would have prolonged the inevitable as long as possible.

[ He reasons clinically instead, because it's easier to do than to let his strange, skewed sense of triumph run wild. It's not difficult to explain, after everything he's been through, but - well, it's Alana. And lecturing (glorifying him but mostly chiding) her on what she already knows won't do a thing. ]

And he would have hidden it from you because - [ this is either good news or terribly bad news, and he doesn't know which category it'd end up in for most of anyone: ] - he likes you.

[ Perhaps not as much as Abigail. Perhaps not as much as Will himself. But enough to be involved with her - he never knew the details, never wanted to. It left him with a particular kind of sick in his stomach, acid and bile.

Which is maybe not the most important detail in the room right now; Will's face carefully folds. A mask, one that he would remember well had she detailed further, though he can almost draw the lines - almost. ]

Book series? A - a memoir, an uncouth sort of biography?

[Alana doesn't know what Will means by Hannibal liking or. Or rather, she'd rather not and can force that kind of ignorance on herself only so far. It's not as though she can pretend that she hadn't ever entertained the thought, that they never moved closer to something more than what they had before one or the other made up a seemingly solid excuse not to.]

[Alana's skin crawls and for a moment, it feels difficult to get a breath as though instead of air she's suddenly found herself in suffocating miasma that hardens her lungs. The thoughts are enough to make Alana feel as though she needs to be alone, that she needs a thousand scalding showers to try and erase whatever it is Hannibal was or might have been to her. But she doesn't and instead focuses on pour Will's coffee.]

No. Hannibal is the product of someone's imagination in some of the other worlds.

[Alana didn't dig deeper than that. She didn't want to know. She still doesn't if only because she doesn't see what difference it would make, what exactly it would change to know the possibility of all of Hannibal's crimes, just how deeply the darkness goes. She's brushed close enough to it now that she still feels infected, still swallowed whole by it no matter how much she pushes and fights back towards the light again.]

[Hannibal is inexplicably intertwined in all of their lives now. There's no going back. There is no unringing the bell.]

That's - funny.

[ Maybe not the reaction she was expecting.

But that is funny. That's funny to him in a way that's certainly laced with morbidity but it's still, in its own way, funny. Hannibal is the product of someone's imagination just as he has permeated Will's own, an oil slick polluting the waters of his mind - they ripple, and it spreads daily, it seems. Clean-up is possible, but it is time consuming, and it is improbable that every last bit will be purged of him.

It's funny in a way that his life, his trials and errors, are set on display, some sort of entertainment in a media frenzy, and not in the sort that involved reporters swarming the court house with Will's arrival and departure, the dozens requesting interviews to get the latest scoop on the Copycat Killer. It's fictional instead, someone's dark ideas transcribed.

In some world, someone wrote about Hannibal. Someone created Hannibal.

His arms are still crossed, but he finds himself wandering over closer to her as she pours the coffee out, intent on getting something warm and potentially comforting inside of him. Plus, caffeine. She seems reasonably upset, and he's found that proximity with another person (or perhaps a pet) can often induce a calming sort of feeling, a balm for the situation. It doesn't hurt that this is the closest they've actually been in weeks.

He has memories of hands, her own on his own and grasping firmly, beseechingly. He's not sure if they still mean anything. ]

I suppose that means, in some world, I'm a product of someone's imagination too. [ He sets a hand on the surface, intent on retrieving the cup. ] Imagine being reduced to a fiction, your tribulations aired with the same passiveness as one might regard a clown at the circus.

[ His smile is tight, and not entirely hinged. ]

People have bled for that entertainment.

[Will moves closer to Alana and it's a move all too familiar to her, at least the intentions behind it are. It's not one of Will's romantic overtures, but it comes from a similar place. He wants to protect Alana, to shelter her from something intangible, something he can never protect her from whether because by now it's too late or because Alana won't let him knowing how very poorly he can even protect himself. Even if he had found his way back to steady footing, she doesn't know if she could allow herself to be protected by Will. Hannibal had sheltered Alana and look at where she ended up. While it's true that Will is innocent of the crimes Hannibal orchestrated, Hannibal is a strong and lean predator and Alana feels that everything she's known about Will Graham could come unraveled faster than everything she believed of Hannibal if Hannibal willed it to be so.]

[All she wants to do is save Will Graham. And she has no idea how to do it. Alana has even less of an idea now that Will is here and Hannibal has, more or less, unlimited access to continue whatever sick manipulations he wants with Will and Abigail both. And then there is simply the matter of Abigail even without Hannibal in the picture. Will and Abigail are not good for each other. Their relationship isn't healthy as they constantly push and pull one another under Garret Jacob Hobbs' shadow and Hannibal's careful eye. Alana can keep her head above the waters, but can Will with all of that tethering him down?]

[Alana pushes the cup towards Will, fingers lingering on it for only a second before she pulls her hand away again.]

Most people are okay with monsters as long as they aren't real. Hannibal's just...a grown-up's version of a monster in the closet to them. As long as he stays that way, they stay entertained and guilt-free.

Yeah, well -

[ He nods in silent thanks for the coffee, watching her fingers as they move away. His eyes stay on the mug, lingering too long and too absently. ]

Ignorant to the fact that there are some beds under which he finds himself creeping. Waiting for the limbs to dangle over the edge, to let him know they're willing.

[ On that note, where's the sugar? He slides his mug nearer to him. ]

Then again, I suppose that makes me a particular kind of rude to some universe that's plagued by teems of chupacabras.

[ His version of lightening the mood really isn't on par with one's general idea of a social structure, but he does try, when he can. It's Alana he tries a particular amount for. She's not wrong. There is something within him that's bred to try to protect her - his loved ones, in general, but also her - from what he can; in this case, that means Hannibal. Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal. A name no longer recognizable as separate from his own. ]

[His effort earns him a wry smile, but a smile nonetheless. This conversation, on the whole, isn't one for smiles. Nor is the topic that Alana is pointedly, at this juncture, trying to both avoid and figure out how to broach.]

[After a moment - or two, it's hard to tell how long a moment actually lasts for before it's punctuated into a second or third - she decides there really is no other way beyond simply asking. Although she can be gentle, and Alana almost always is when it comes to Will, she needs to be blunt about this for both her sake and his. It's something that needs to be discussed no matter how much he might not want to and she's afraid to.]

I guess what I'm having a difficult time understanding now is why you're here, Will.

Hannibal lied and he framed you for things you didn't do, but that wouldn't bring you here as an inmate.

[ It certainly is one of the somethings they've been dancing around the entirety of this conversation, and it lingers heavy in the air like a particularly thick blanket, with none of the comfort of it. Like everything else they've discussed, things neither of them particularly want to broach but need to be thoroughly broached.

He was the one who brought it up initially. he still isn't sure he has an answer, so he's not sure why he was the one who did in the first place. He'd figured it best to get out of the way; Alana apparently agreed. Not exactly unreasonable.

One of his hands scrubs tiredly at his face, fingers pressing deeply into his eyes - the kind that makes the white spots across your vision, the kind that feels like a trip and an escape all in one. He very carefully doesn't meet her eyes - or anything at all, they stay closed as he sets his hands on the counter in front of him, fingers spread. ]

Have you ever been so deeply entrenched into something - [ He hesitates, looking down at his coffee again and screwing up his face as he parses over his words. ] That you couldn't find the door, you couldn't - you couldn't find your way back out again?

[Alana shakes her head a little even though Will isn't looking at her now. Finding her voice is difficult and breathing is following shortly behind. The answer isn't something she wants to hear, she can tell now just from the simple fact he won't look at her, he won't meet her eyes anymore.]

[Oh, she knew she wouldn't like the answer from the start. The moment it became clear he was an inmate, not a warden, her stomach dropped and the dread settled in right in the middle of her chest. But she had tried to believe that there was a good explanation for all of this. Maybe a misunderstanding. Hopeless hopes, but ones she held onto right up until he looked away.]

[Alana finds her voice, slowly.]

Will... What did you do?

[What did Hannibal do to him?]

[ i liberated myself to do something greater i'm serving my own breed of righteousness to the man who most deserves it i'm doing what's right and just and i'm doing it with meaning alana i'm

He can word it delicately as he wants. He could lie completely, he could weave her whatever kind of victim story he wanted and she wouldn't know, nobody would know. His eventual warden would know, but who was to say how far down the road that would be?

Rhetorical questions aren't going to cut it. And he doesn't want to have to go for blunt, but, well - ]

"You hook him." [ He quotes, and taps a finger against the counter. ] "I'll catch him." Jack told me that. [ It all seems unreal now. Far away, like it's not his own anymore. ] I sent someone to kill him. [ And he smiles flatly, wryly. ] So he sent someone to kill me.

[ But, oh, he does look at Alana then. He wants to gauge her reaction, he doesn't want to meet her eyes but he does want to see every bit of her face that moves, whatever expression she's about to fall into, if she hasn't already. ]

I killed him. [ Had to, needed to, he tells himself with the utmost of confidence. ] With my bare hands.

[Alana can't smile. But she also can't frown or scream and cry. She can barely even register Will's words as intelligible and true much less feel anything at this news. She instead just feels the ground shift out from under her, feels herself fall apart and melt away from the inside out into a void, leaving nothing but a shell or a fragment of herself behind.]

[For months, she has held onto the belief that Will was innocent. She was given validation for those beliefs. She only saw the good in Will because she had to believe that it existed somewhere to make all of this worth it. And it wasn't Hannibal that took that away from her.]

[Alana looks away from Will, eyes wet and a hand coming up to cover her mouth. Is it to keep the bile she feels rising down or to keep any sign that could be construed as a sob tucked away? She doesn't know, feeling all of it at once alongside the nothingness. She's slower in her movement away from him, stopping short of leaving the kitchen and heading back into the living room. She turns to face Will again, gaze pointedly looking down for a moment. Alana opens her mouth to say something, anything, but the moment she looks at Will again she stops.]

[She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't think there's anything she can say.]

[ Oh, Alana.

She's lucky she doesn't know the whole truth. She's lucky she doesn't know about Randall Tier and his face molded jarringly, messily, newly over a skeleton, his jaw in his freezer, Freddie Lounds' hair tangled ruthlessly in his hands -

All he can see is Randall now, that - display, that sort of artwork that makes you feel something viscerally, though you may not be able to identify the emotion. He's somewhere between a strict sense of disgust, the taste of bile in his own mouth, and yet that strange and skewed, cracked sense of pride that wriggles its way into his mind, settles in deep and doesn't let go. ]

If I was his friend - [ he elaborates, carefully, the one person on this entire Barge he'd trust with this information ] Say, if I were to gain his trust, soundly, believably - If even a modicum of evidence made itself known, it -

[ He swallows thick and bites back the joyous smile he finds himself wanting to break out into. Vindictive. It would be worth it. ]

No. [Alana shakes her head and repeats herself, hardly realizing she even said it once already. There is hardly anything thinking required for this because it's not even an option.] No.

Will, Hannibal is dangerous.

The encephalitis is gone. [ As if that changes everything. ] They found it, they treated it, and I'm clearer than ever. I have truly - seen the devil for what he is, and I will not - cannot - let that keep -

[ He sucks his bottom lip between clenched teeth, giving a minute shake of his head. Nope. ] Nah. No. [ It's something stalwart, a clear message that he's not going to be talked out of this. ]

I have been - fastidious. [ In detail, in careful careful words, in theatrical performance that ought to earn him some sort of award, he finds himself thinking. ] I have been successful, I was so close.

[ And then he ended up here. ]

Will, you have to let this go. [Alana steps back over to stand across the kitchen's island from him.] You have to let Hannibal go.

[For now. At least like this. Will can't walk down this path to try and put Hannibal where he belongs. How far down the line can he possibly go before he becomes something he'll never be able to escape?]

[ As if it could be so easy. Snap his fingers and he was gone.

The Chesapeake Ripper. The Copycat Killer, he blamed him for, implicated, he killed Abigail, he -

Will's eyes have skittered again, and he drinks his coffee black just as a distraction of sorts, an extra barrier between himself and Alana both just for a moment. It's bitter all the way down and he doesn't have a single complaint; it suits the situation. ]

I saw Beverly Katz's body divided into individual, human-sized slides. [ His voice shakes and shudders as much as the hand that vehemently sets the mug back on the counter, almost enough to spill. ] Abigail, Alana, he -

[ His tone gets stranger, almost beseeching her to leave it be. ]

What he did to me alone, and your professional opinion - is to take the high road?

I'm not asking you... [Alana pauses, looking down at the counter for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts into something coherent, but it's along the same lines as trying to herd feral cats.]

[She speaks low. Although they're the only two people in the room, her voice is soft and quiet. It's her quiet plea. Her last stand in trying to save Will Graham not just from Hannibal Lecter, but from himself.]

I'm asking you to not take that road, Will. Because I'm afraid, [she admits, looking up as the first tears fall. Alana's lips move in motions to speak, but it takes a moment before she can.] I'm afraid that if you go down that road, you won't come back. And there will be nothing I can do to save you.

[She swallows hard. Alana is already so afraid that maybe it's already too late.]

That's not-- That's not my professional opinion, Will. That's my opinion as your friend.

[ Friend, it's been a long time since he's heard that word out of a voice that wasn't laden with snake venom. She cries and Will can feel every one of the muscles in his shoulders tightening, a harsh and sharp consideration of the facts laid out before him.

He knows where this could lead him, he knows exactly where this could wind up because he's already played the role of social experiment. He knows now, he knows better (he thinks, he hopes, he knows). Keeping himself grounded is no easy feat when walking on tiptoes, across eggshells, taking the tightrope, whatever metaphor one wants to apply.

He doesn't nod, he doesn't agree or disagree, though his brows furrow curiously as both of his hands come to rest on the counter, careful weight being pressed against them. ]

Save me? [ Something broken, fragile, in need of fixing. ] Or stop me?

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