🍴 ( 014 ) spam

[youwill]

[Spam for Will]

[He wakes very early. Something is changed, he can tell that almost before he opens the door. He can certainly tell when the small - robotic? - dog tries to take his leg off at the ankle. A solid kick allows him to retreat, to arm himself.

How much easier this would be, if his scalpel was where it ought to be. Instead, he palms a butter knife, good, polished silver, and holds its blade against his forearm. When he ventures out again, he's ready.

He was supposed to be ready.

It's some time before he returns, his head swimming with buried thoughts, buried plans. The mushrooms he finds in their cool, dark hiding place, the cappuccino machine and his tea pot forced to work in tandem. He plans ahead in such fragmented pieces that he's not entirely sure of the path from a to b to c, only that he accomplishes and moves forward, succeeds and proceeds.

He reaches Will's room, pauses just beyond the cell, adrift on a sea of scents and sensations. When he enters, it's on silent feet, tea pot held carefully in hand, one towel folded beneath it. It's noiseless when he sets it down, but when it comes to waking his friend, he pauses, hovering over the other man's bed instead. This is not appropriate. He must say something or leave.]

Will.

[It's nearly a whisper, soft but strong, nearly urgent. Trust. Honesty. He's come with a trade.]

[Open Spam]

[There is blood under his fingernails. He's not sure where it came from, only that he can feel it gush and dry and flake. His fingertips brush his palms around the knife and the duller ends of metal. Metal sharpened against metal. His mind cycles through all the words for it before settling on the only one that matters. Cutlery.

He smiles at his joke, and strides - no, stalks - down the hall. Which hall? He's lost count. He's searching, or hunting, or chasing or being chased; clarity shifts in and out of focus as he moves, an animal used to its stomping grounds, an animal that has finally been given the room to hunt. He is hunting now, hair out of it's usual careful slick back and falling across his eyes. He took off his tie at some point, realizing how much more useful it could be wrapped around someone else's throat than his own. His collar is half unfurled, the top two buttons torn: he is less put together even than his return from Ville de Rachat.

Both occasions were freeing, in their way. Underground, there were no eyes to track him, no judgement but his own.

Now, there is no judgement.

He walks like he is following something, someone. A flutter of a dress, the flash of soft curls, a carefree smile. He shifts, not quite man and not quite animal, but something more and less and hungry.]

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spam

[mirrortouch]

[ It's enough to wake him - easy to, when he's been breathing in this gas nearly his entire slumber.

He comes to with a jerk of his limbs, braced and ready at once - breathing labored, sweat coloring the front of his shirt, his pupils even constrict when he looks up towards the source of the sound. The thing is, he's stopped expecting things around here. It doesn't leave him so unprepared in the wake of strange things coming his way. It doesn't leave him so unprepared for the sight of Hannibal Lecter looming over him in his sleep, easy as breathing. ]

I smell -

[ Something. Tea? With a heel of his hand pushed into one of his eyes, he starts to really come to, sitting up and peering Hannibal over with a new kind of defensiveness to both his gaze and his tone. It's unfamiliar. He doesn't like it. ]

How long have you been standing there?

spam

[youwill]

[Yes, Hannibal thinks, when he first speaks. The scent of sweat is heavy in his nose, sweat and snow and the strange way hair clings to shampoo. He blinks, and leans back as he sees Will wake.

The butter knife is still in his hand, but he doesn't think of driving it down through Will's eye. He holds it against his forearm and steps back to hover a hand over the tea pot.]

A moment.

[Minutes, maybe. Several, maybe. No - only a moment. He will not lose his sense of time and direction.]

I'm afraid I've come to ask a favor.

spam

[mirrortouch]

[ He could have killed him, easily, as could have most of everyone here - he's vulnerable in his sleep, this room, which is probably lucky that more often than not he finds himself unable to actually actively sleep. "Lucky," depending on the definition.

Will's eyes flicker to the butter knife and then to the tea pot. He scrubs at his face again, watching carefully as he can those hands moving over to the tea pot at his side. He really did. He brought him tea. Hospitality in return for -

Whatever he wants. ]

Entailing?

[ He doesn't mind favors. Favors tend to come with consequential favors in return. Hannibal asking for one is an entirely different beast. ]

spam

[youwill]

An exchange.

[He knows the pattern, still understands the dialogue.]

I find myself ill equipped for what has come to face us today.

[he hears them almost distantly, like someone else is speaking. Other words rise up in his thoughts, filling the silent parts of his mind as his internal palace crumbles.

Presume not that I am the thing I was.]

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[mirrortouch]

[ "You're unequipped?" he wants to ask, because there are very few scenarios that Will can imagine - bound to his own crucifixion, wrists slit open, a prophetic crown of thorns atop his head - in which Hannibal would be unprepared.

It makes him stand, the gas permeating his system and surging through his veins already - he may have just woken up, but now he is truly awake, sharper in the eyes and standing to gain himself some of that height advantage, even keel with Hannibal. ]

What's out there?

[ He asks first, and his eyes do shift to the door, open, no screams, no sounds of horrors outside. He wonders. ]

spam

[youwill]

I'm not certain yet.

[It's a lie. He's wandered through a good deal of the Barge in the early morning, in the mostly empty spaces, breathing poison and seeing clips of things past repeating over and over.]

It seems a carnival has come to town.

[A dangerous one goes unsaid. It is the Barge, after all.

With a smooth gesture, he turns the knife in his hand, holding it up between them. Not an offer, but a gesture, a revealing.]

My scalpels have been removed from my office. I would feel...safer with something closer to that sharpness.

spam

[mirrortouch]

A dark carnival.

[ He knows the implication and feels the need to crack the joke regardless, ruffling at his hair thoughtfully and peering down at the butter knife. ] I don't - I don't have anything, no weapons. [ He's not even sure how Hannibal kept the butter knife, to be honest; innocuous in anyone else's hands but Will just has a fine idea of what it might feel like plunged into his lower viscera.

He's moving past Hannibal and more towards the rack of shabby clothing towards the corner of his room. If he's going to be dealing with Hannibal and sharp objects this early, it's going to be dressed. ]

And what do you want from me? [ Curiously, subtly not keeping his back to him but with the veil of helpfulness regardless. ]

[anewlanguage]

[Cain hears him, and sets out after him, those soft and measured steps. If he stopped and thought he wouldn't be able to recall the last time he went hunting; but in the moment it's all a blur, as if he's always been prowling, as if there have been no pauses between one blow and the next.

He's a stealthy man by nature, but for this one...]

You look like a man with a mission.

[youwill]

[Mission. The word echoes across his thoughts, and Hannibal slows. His hands are tight on his cutlery, but they are extensions of his arms, sharper hands. When he turns, that too is slow, his head tilted to regard Cain from a different perspective.]

We all have our missions.

[anewlanguage]

Where's yours taking you?

[Wherever it is, Cain looks on the fence about letting him continue. He generally doesn't care what mayhem people cause on board, but Hannibal is a breed unto himself.]

[youwill]

The chapel.

[Cain swims in his vision, rippling. Hannibal smiles.]

Would you like to join me?

[anewlanguage]

Long as you aren't expecting any Hail Mary's and sacramental wine.

[He smirks, gestures.]

After you, Doc.

[youwill]

Perhaps I'll find a collapse to add to my collection.

[He doesn't move, though his smile remains. He's not sure, for a moment, if his vision sways or if his body does, but he is standing perfectly still.]

Wouldn't you prefer to walk as equals?

[with_my_teacup]

[A staircase between level six and seven; Riddick is braced easily, boots on one side of the doorframe, back to the other, watching the bumper cars. Round pegs in a square corridor; there are spots that it's harder for them to get to, especially when they all converge. He's mapping the quieter spots when he hears Hannibal above the whirr of angry machines.

He looks back into the stairwell, frowning, doesn't look at the rucksack of supplies sitting on the landing beside him because that would be telegraphing and he has no idea what Lecter's after.]

[youwill]

[He has always been a silent walker. His shoes were long since abandoned, they made too much squelching once he was wet. He comes down the stairs on bare feet, and his eyes find the broader man. Muscular and strong; best to cook that cut after an oil bath, provide the extra fat.

But Hannibal isn't cooking tonight.

He keeps the high ground as he comes down from level six, leaning almost relaxed against the rail.]

You do not seem pleased to see me.

[He's not entirely sure who he is seeing. Images have been rippling since this began, and he has not cared to correct any of it.]

[with_my_teacup]

I can take you or leave you. [Look, accidental wordplay.]

Move the fuck on, Lecter. I'm busy.

[youwill]

[He doesn't growl. He thinks about it, though. He's not an animal, he's - not altogether a man, either. His hands flex around the knives, and he sees himself launching over the railing, down onto Riddick. Driving one knife through the fleshy part of his collar, using the other to cut out his tongue.]

You are in my way.

[Take or leave. He tastes blood on his tongue, and his adrenaline pumps.]

[with_my_teacup]

[It would be easier to kill him than negotiate. Riddick's brain is fairly sure of it, but he knows that he's not thinking completely clearly. Better to err on the side of... warden. That word will never not come with an internal sneer at himself.

He drops out of the doorframe and back into the stairwell, waving a polite hand into the bumper-car infested hall.]

All. Yours.

[Warden.

Warden.

Kill him.

Warden.]

[youwill]

[There is no internal sneer in Hannibal, no furious howl. He still has the pattern of dialogue, even without his human veil. His person suit.]

Thank you.

[He stops thinking, grabbing the rail and launching himself down, aiming for Riddick. Kick, stab, kill, kill, he wants to tear with his teeth until there is nothing left to tear.]

laaaate

[orderfromchaos]

[Dillon looks - off. His clothes are neat as always, unrumpled, untorn, stained here and there with perfect ovoids of blood where he was wounded and healed, his shirt automatically mending, leaving only select signs of an earlier wound. The waterline on his pants from wading is as even as a level. His hair is in crisp array, like any airbrushed hollywood hero's, out of place with the tired, ragged way he holds his shoulders, the tight bitterness around his mouth. There's blood dried on his hands, too, and that isn't his. He should be looking where he's going, especially in the maze, but he isn't. He's stumbling, angry and reckless, and his healing clears the gas as quickly as he breathes it, leaving no illogical fear to replace the logical sort he lost long ago, when danger became something that only happened to people around him.]

<3

[youwill]

[He cararies a human veil with him wherever he goes. Usually, Hannibal would appreciate it, respect it in some way.

Now there is an animal circling his gut, clawing its way up through his chest, into his throat like fire yearning for freedom. He isn't real, whatever he is, and Hannibal sees that first. The lines he operates within are not human, not animal, not natural.

In his right mind, he would know better. In his right mind, he would control himself.

Hannibal is not in control, and it is with one quiet grunt that he approaches from behind, down wind, stalking. Dillon is prey, Dillon is not worth his life - Dillon will lose his nose as Hannibal rips it off between his teeth. ]

[orderfromchaos]

[If Hannibal were someone else, Helena or Zane, someone unstable, someone fractured, stepping into the tight streetlight radius of Dillon's aura would have a countering effect, stabilizing, healing. Hannibal is not damaged. His nature, his pattern, is being correctly, purely expressed; the part of Dillon that is not human or animal but fire and power he cannot reign in likes that, encourages it, whets it.

The part of Dillon that is a raw, tired, exasperated child catches a glimpse of fractal reflection when Hannibal is close, a step or a half-step away, startles out of stride that the star would prefer to keep more rhythmic. Not the startlement of fear; the kind of someone tripping on debris they hadn't noticed. He turns, scowling, slower than he should, a rapid metamorphosis from aggravation to concern as he sees what this atmosphere has inevitably done to him, purified, unleashed.

He gets a hand up as Hannibal surges and looms in his vision, slow, sloppy, and his eyes are wide and freaked but still more in the sense of the bizarre than the frightening, not adjusting fast enough to give him the benefit of adrenaline until pain, until teeth, until he's screeching what the hell even though he damn well knows and jabbing just there at the hinge of Hannibal's jaw, stumbling back after he forces it to release him. The blood drips in symmetrical, parallel tracks on either side of his mouth as his nose repairs itself.]

[youwill]

[Pain surges through his jaw, and Hannibal retreats like a wounded animal - wounded, but not badly enough. Certainly angry enough. His eyes flash - not the dullness of a base beast, but with light and intelligence. That doesn't make them any less bloody.

He swings with the shiv, stabs with the butter knife, all while circling around so that when he lunges again, he can trap Dillon against the wall. Trap him, break him, like the stupid child he is. There is a reason men will butcher lambs, calves, young: youth is tender. He knows this, and it triggers such rage in him that he surges forward again, teeth stained red and bare as he swings the shiv down at Dillon's shoulder. He will rip the cheeks from his face and eat and eat and eat.]

[orderfromchaos]

[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.]

Get away or I will ruin you.

[youwill]

[The butter knife sinks in and Hannibal smells fresh blood. It sharpens him, a sword on a whetstone, a beast in a man's shape. He should hate these metaphors. He should abhor him. But the part of his mind that cherishes all the best society has to offer - the class, the wonder, the delicate etiquette that dictates how people must treat one another - that part has been silent for days, and he doesn't remember the sound it should make. The quiet restraint. The calm suggestion. The man reigning in the beast.

Will asked him days ago if he would hunt. But he isn't a hunter. He isn't entirely a man. He holds that shape, plays that part, but sometime the skin must be pulled back to reveal the truth.

His kneecap shatters and Hannibal makes a guttural sound, a low, near bellow, near moan. His arm, too, and there is a prickly in his thoughts, a question, how, how, how.

There is no answer, and instead he sways, the butter knife gone from his hand, left to hang or fall from Dillon's arm. He can only see the boy's face, now, not human either. It's time to peel back the skin.

Hannibal hurls the shiv with his good arm, launches himself with his good knee to reach stiff, digging fingers for Dillon's throat. They are all monsters beneath the surface.]