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]

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. ]