[It's like chess, he thinks, with some far-off part of his mind. He can see the attacks before they happen, the potentials and the aims, ply and ply, but he can only move so many ways in response, only so fast. He twists away from the shiv, already wincing the second before the butterknife sinks into the meat of his arm, and part of him seizes the pain like a hungry dog on a bone, locks its jaws on the proof of his vulnerability. It's not just a veil, not just a shell. He's human, human enough for this, human for three heartbeats at a time as blood pours and seeps and stops, skin of his shoulder and neck and cheek parting and reknitting under the frenzied onslaught like a crowd swallowing a landmark, like the surface of the ocean broken only briefly by debris, ripples and red foam.
But not human enough to fall. He kicks out, just the right spot, where Hannibal will be when the swift swing finishes, shatters his kneecap, does the same to his ulna as Dillon shoves him back, a much less plausible strike, not one any fighter could make, but the possibility is there, a tiny waiting fault line, so he finds it.]
Get away from me.
[He's angry, he's so - angry, about the way he had to run when Helena's raw wounds started to pink over with concave scars, the way Abigail's fractures have wedges in them, the way he fixes the nightmare around them as well as everything else. And Hannibal is right here, giving him a reason. He knows, he knows as he says it that Hannibal is far too far gone to take it, to even consider. But he is just cognizant enough of himself to make the offer.]
no subject
But not human enough to fall. He kicks out, just the right spot, where Hannibal will be when the swift swing finishes, shatters his kneecap, does the same to his ulna as Dillon shoves him back, a much less plausible strike, not one any fighter could make, but the possibility is there, a tiny waiting fault line, so he finds it.]
Get away from me.
[He's angry, he's so - angry, about the way he had to run when Helena's raw wounds started to pink over with concave scars, the way Abigail's fractures have wedges in them, the way he fixes the nightmare around them as well as everything else. And Hannibal is right here, giving him a reason. He knows, he knows as he says it that Hannibal is far too far gone to take it, to even consider. But he is just cognizant enough of himself to make the offer.]
Get away or I will ruin you.