ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ sᴘɪᴅᴇʀ (anotherwidow) wrote in crownplazaic, @ 2021-09-01 23:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, will graham, yelena belova |
WHO: Yelena Belova & Will Graham
WHEN: [backdated] during the plot
WHAT: [WHAT IF] Yelena is a serial killer and there’s a new murder family (Parts I & II)
STATUS: Completed
WARNINGS: The usual ones about blood, violence, with allusions to trafficking and sexual abuse. (Also, gifs under the cut.)
The news coverage about the heroic intervention of Special Agent Will Graham, criminal profiler and instructor at the FBI Academy, in the case of the investigation into Garret Jacob Hobbs a.k.a. 'The Minnesota Shrike' was glowing. It was said his unique insights allowed him to identify and understand the killers he tracks, making him the only person who could catch this killer, in a race against time. Set opposite the darkness of a cannibalistic serial killer who abducted and killed eight young women from different college campuses across Minnesota, all of whom resembled his own daughter, was the kind of fodder the media gobbled right up. It was said he discharged his weapon nine times to bring down the monster that had already slaughtered his own wife and was about to slash his own daughter's throat. Naturally, Graham was propped up as some kind of white knight.
The only damning coverage was courtesy of Freddie Lounds' TattleCrime.com.
Yelena hasn't started her own killing streak yet. She's experimented here and there, lashing out at the male population that she held so little regard for, but she was by no means a full-blown serial killer yet. Nothing that would put her on the radar of law enforcement let alone the BAU's star profiler.
But she was curious. And a direct approach wouldn't work. She had to be a bit smarter than that.
She found a bar near the FBI Academy. Paddy's Steakhouse. She knew some of the Academy students hung out there. It was easy to get a job bartending. From there, chat up some poor unsuspecting graduate student from the Academy. His name was something basic - like Chad or Brad or Tyler - and it wasn't difficult to get his attention. Before long, she had the guy wrapped around her little finger.
Today, she had sweet-talked the guard at the gate of the Academy to let her in. The dye job brunette claimed to want to surprise her boyfriend with red velvet cupcakes. All so she could wait outside the steps of the building where she knew he (Chad or Brad or Tyler, whatever his name was) would soon be getting out of class. The instructor of the class? Will Graham.
When the man in question finally shuffled his way out of the building, Yelena was perched on a jutting part of the ugly building with its Brutalist architecture, legs crossed at the ankles. "You're that profiler, aren't you?"
"Are you even supposed to be here?" He asked, giving her a sideways glance. She was not dressed in the uniform the students all wore for training and classes.
Jacket in hands, he hurriedly moved as if ready to burst into a run the first chance he got. His gaze focused to the ground rather than at any one person or group. He had finally come back to teaching, been requested to join Jack's team, and he really needed time away from everything.
She could practically feel the man cringe. Everything about his body language showed that he didn’t want to be the center of attention. He didn’t want any attention. He seemed to wish to avoid socializing.
Meanwhile, her own smile grew wider. “Yes, you are.” She held out the box she was carrying, Chad or Brad or Tyler, whatever his name was, totally forgotten. “Cupcake?” she offered, though she didn’t expect him to actually want any. “May I?” She reached over without waiting for approval, adjusting Will’s glasses on his face, since it was crooked and looked close to sliding off. “I’m Yelena Verger, and you-” She shook her head in wonder. “The way you helped solve that Shrike case and found your way to Hobbs. You are quite the protector.”
Stopping his hurried movement, he had turned to face her with a sigh as she offered up a cupcake. He gave her a look of ‘are you kidding me?’ He had been taken out of his cozy oblivion and blasted inappropriately about on the news as if he were some kind of hero, and she thought he would take a cupcake from a stranger who was most likely illegally on the premises.
Clenching his jaw as she adjusted his glasses, his face tilted away from her. His body language wasn’t touch avoidance or fear of the invasion of his bubble as much as it was annoyance at action of it. It was obvious others commonly did so against his wishes and yet he let them.
“Miss Verger. If you’re working for the likes of Freddie Lounds you can tell her that I have no comment and ridiculous and inappropriate compliments don’t work on me. Thank you.” He side stepped her and continued walking.
She’d spotted the eye roll; he seemed to disapprove of the casual familiarity of the students. He didn’t enjoy having her presumptuousness at invading his personal space to touch him uninvited yet made no move to stop her; not the first time he’s allowed the social gestures of others wash over him. He wasn’t in any hurry to soak up the fawning attentions of an attractive young woman; this was so different than other men she’s known or was taught to expect. He also didn’t seem to take compliments well.
The mention of Freddie Lounds genuinely surprised her. Yelena let out a little laugh. She let him sidestep around her, but she didn’t give up that easily.
Turning around and falling into step beside him, she said, “Oh no, I assure you, I am not in league with that woman in any way.”
“So tell me what you actually want because I’m in no mood to dance around subjects with nonsense small talk.”
“I was curious about you,” she said. “I take TattleCrime.com with a very big grain of salt, but Lounds’ articles about you are very intriguing. They say you were never an FBI agent, couldn’t get past the strict screening procedures, but you teach here.” Yelena gestured to the campus around them. “You were in Homicide, but you left to pursue… a graduate degree in Forensics, was it?” She cocked her head. She has done her homework on him.
With a soft sigh, a hint of true vulnerability, she added, “Look, you might recognize the name Verger. I could use someone with your talents to look into a… sensitive family matter that I can’t bring to regular law enforcement. I don’t trust that process, and there’s some very powerful men involved who wouldn’t like me poking the hornet’s nest. I would like your help in proving the bad things these men did.”
“I’m not speaking about my credentials, Ms. Verger. For someone taking that site with a grain of salt you seem to be focusing on it.”
Crossing his arms, he sighed. Vulnerability of strangers did not move him the way it might have for others, not in the context in which they stood. “I know very well who the Vergers are. I’m not a private investigator and I’m not for sale. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“You have no idea who the Vergers are, Mr. Graham,” she said quietly, turning and walking away, the way Graham wanted her to. “That’s the problem. No one does.”
As Yelena walked off, her dyed-dark hair shifted off her shoulders. The movement would show the remnants of old scar tissue. A latticework across her back, peeking out from edges of the sleeveless top she wore.
Since her ‘special investigator’ didn’t pan out, she was left to her own devices. Will Graham, after he was accused of being the Copycat Killer, was known in the media to be a fisherman. Yelena didn’t fish, but she’s learned to be an even better lure. Gentlemen preferred blondes, as the saying goes. She ended her punky emo goth chick period and stopped dying her hair. The dark color had stood out in contrast against her light eyes and the pallor of her skin, making her look half-dead. Returning to her natural hair color was coming into her own, as she came into her own in other ways, exacting the revenge she saw fit, even if she couldn’t exact it on those she truly wanted.
The bodies she left in her wake told a story. Will Graham hadn’t stopped to listen before. Now the entire city was listening. But he was still the only person who could understand…
Stopping at the steps, he looked up to find a familiar face. The blonde hair a noticeable change but hair colour was never too important to the things Will remembered of others. So much had changed since they had first run into each other. The details playing out in the back of his mind, he tilted his head for a moment before speaking. “Are you a patient of Hannibal’s or here for a visit?” He asked, half sarcastically.
She actually hadn’t expected to run into him outside of Dr. Lecter’s office, however. As far as men went, it remained that only Will Graham seemed ever able to surprise her. She smiled to herself in the dark, hearing the familiar voice. She turned around to face him.
“Admitting anything would be breaking the first tier of confidentiality.” She smiled. “But since everyone knows you are, I suppose I’m willing to get on the same level.” She leaned back against the wall she was standing next to, her fur coat bundled more tightly around her. “How does it feel to now be known as the guy who didn’t kill all those people?”
"Freeing." His gaze moved over here but not in a sexual manner but a contemplative one, as if he were peering into her.
"Did you ever get your private investigator?" There was something tapping at his mind, details playing in his mind. The latest serial killer's tastes and desires put on display inside of him.
“No,” she admitted regretfully. “Unfortunately, an elegant solution to my biggest problem continues to elude me.”
That was also true enough. The task she sought him out for originally, a year ago, remained unresolved. An ever present thorn in her side. She felt more powerful in so many ways now, but she still felt victimized by her circumstances with her adoptive brother. For one, she would be finally destitute without him, no thanks to cleverly set legally binding stipulations.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be more help. Have a good evening, Ms. Verger." With that he disappeared inside.
And boundaries were murky at best where she was concerned. Dr. Lecter’s were, too, with his highly unorthodox style of therapy. Most mental health professionals did not casually advise murder as a solution to their patients’ problems. Of course, if asked by law enforcement, the good doctor could always lean into the therapeutic thought exercise excuse. How was he to know what a disturbed mind might take literally and put into action? Nor would he necessarily be considered responsible for it. He was a slippery one, her psychiatrist.
Those murky boundaries led her to Will Graham’s doorstep in Wolf Trap, Virginia a few nights later. She stepped out of her car, bottle of expensive whiskey in hand. The least she could offer for her intrusion.
“You said you hoped Dr. Lecter could help me with options,” she said when Will stepped out onto his porch, dogs at his heels. Her own dog, Fanny, stuck her head out the driver’s side window. “He offered some… interesting… suggestions. I was wondering, patient to patient, what you thought of Dr. Lecter’s therapies.”
Brows furrowed at the young woman, his gaze flicked over to the dog in the car. "Bring them in too," he gestured to the dog, giving his own dogs a whistle command to go back inside.
To say that Will was used to people randomly showing up unannounced would be an understatement. For a man who did not casually invite people over often- unless they were there to help with the dogs- or be welcoming to guests, Will did not react aggressively to the sudden appearance of a stranger. He felt relatively at ease comparatively.
Once inside, he grabbed two glasses and brought them to the two sofa chairs set up in his living room.
Fanny was a good dog, very obedient, and she didn’t need much more than her owner beckoning her to bound up the steps at her side. Once let inside, Fanny wiggled her way into the midst of Will’s many dogs and began the canine greeting of sniffing one another. Yelena watched them for a bit, while Will went to grab glasses, to make sure they weren’t about to start fighting. So far so good. She also took the opportunity to freely take in the sight of Will Graham’s living room. Soft muted colors of blues and greens, a large stone fireplace, with bookshelves to the ceiling on either side. Dog beds galore. Cozy.
Then she noticed the jagged glass and wooden panes of the broken window. “What happened there?” she asked, nodding towards the wall in question, turning towards Will as she heard him returning to the living room.
“And to answer your question, I’m in therapy for all kinds of reasons,” said Yelena. Not untrue. She’s been through a great many fucked up shit. She just wasn’t sure how much therapeutic relief she was truly getting from her sessions with Dr. Hannibal Lecter. She unscrewed the bottle of whiskey, readying it to pour into the glasses provided. “I think about killing my ‘brother’.”
"And what had Dr. Lecter suggested for these impeding thoughts?" He asked, sipping his drink and offering her a seat once the drinks were poured.
A thought was different than an action. His mind had always been full of thoughts of killings, being in the shoes of every serial killer of every case he had been on. Thoughts rarely became actions- unless Hannibal pushed.
She gently wrapped a hand around his, around the glass, to steady it for the pouring of the whiskey. First one, and then the other. The whiskey was sufficiently chilled from the ride over and, besides, she preferred to drink her whiskey neat. At least the expensive ones, so it wasn’t watered down by the ice. She wanted the warmth of the burn tonight.
“He said it would be therapeutic if I did kill Mason,” said Yelena truthfully, her voice light and her tone breezy, as if they were discussing something as banal as the weather. “And he said, if at first I don’t succeed, try, try again.” She hasn’t met that goal head-on just yet, but she’s been warming up. Practice makes perfect.
She took a sip of her whiskey, greenish hazel eyes studying Will over the rim of her glass. “Did you get any scars getting your deer back out?”
The year of events had given Will brought his darkness to the forefront. It has always been there, that was why he was so good at his job, but now it lived quite openly. Yet, everyone but Hannibal looked at him as someone to be saved. They somehow still saw the soft man they once knew. From the way Yelena looked at him, he was sure she knew better.
"Some," he spoke into his glass, drinking more. He remained standing as long as she did.
She couldn’t answer Will’s question directly. He did have ties to the FBI, after all. Yet she knew she would never gain his trust either if she were to lie to him. She would have to straddle that line carefully.
“He’s my brother,” said Yelena. “Bond by blood or otherwise. I can’t kill him.” That was true enough. She hadn’t figured out a way to do it via her own hands. Can’t didn’t mean did not want to.
A small smirk of a smile curved the corner of her lips when Will admitted to having scars. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Her appearance at his house after one of her sessions with Hannibal and knowing his own recent history, he could only assume she wanted more from him. In what manner, well, his mind was moving through the latest case shoved his way after the suspicious death of a serial killer he had been hunting. The images of the types of men being found in the backwoods, being led there for a rendezvous, played in snippets as he studied her.
Leaning to the side on a chest of drawers, glass casually held in his hand, he smirked. “What is it you are looking for Yelena?”
She stopped directly in front of Will and began to undo the snaps of her long flowy red blouse.”Freddie Lounds’ articles may be full of shit, but I think she was right about one thing. I think you have the rare gift of being capable of understanding someone like me. Someone who has been to dark places and back.” She peeled back the red blouse, revealing the lacy black bralette underneath, but that was not the focus. Slowly, she turned around, showing the extent of the scarring on her back. “You asked me what it is I’m looking for? I’m looking to be understood, Will Graham. And not by Dr. Lecter.” Something about the psychiatrist made her uneasy.
“Who did this to you?” He whispered as his fingers continued to explore her skin.
“Haven’t you guessed yet?” she asked softly, turning her head slightly to speak to him over her shoulder. “My brother.” And every slimeball he welcomed to take a turn with sister dearest. “He likes to play rough.” Her voice turned bitter in its sarcasm. “Always has, ever since we were children.” She paused thoughtfully before adding. “I suspect even long before I was adopted into the family.”
The Vergers had a daughter of their own, once upon a time. Margot. Mason’s twin. Young Margot suffered a terrible accident when the twins were very young and passed away. It made headlines at the time, though the gory details were left out of the society pages.
“And you haven’t retaliated?” The question came again, because there was something he could not get passed, something pushing at his mind; the bodies of the men of the latest serial killer, a black widow of sorts.
Outside of the pheromonal lock, he also held financial power over her. The specifications of the Verger will dictated that power and wealth went to the male heir. Mason was, unfortunately, the one and only male Verger male. Even if her own ability to have heirs hadn’t been taken from her, the legal language of the will would give away the family wealth in lieu of an acceptable male heir to take over the Verger Meatpacking dynasty.
She has since taken her aggressions out on others, including some of those sons of other wealthy families. Old boarding school chums of Mason’s. Pruned them from their respective family trees for what they did to her. The world didn’t need these junior sociopaths ladened down with wealth and in positions of power around the globe. Without anything to tie their own crimes to her, since none of them would ever rat on themselves even if they did put it together that their actions against her could be considered deplorable, at most law enforcement suspected that it was someone targeting the rich and powerful. A disgruntled employee, perhaps, envious of their socioeconomic superiority. No one would suspect the darling daughter of one of those families.
No connection made either to the sleazy men she picked up in hole-in-the-wall bars and truck stops whose intentions were far less than chivalrous towards her. ‘Dates’ made for hiking and camping trips to desolate wooded trails far away from the prying eyes of the public. The Black Widow Killer strikes again. They should be scared.
“Your turn,” she said, turning around to face Will, though she didn’t bother to slip her blouse back on.
“I tried to murder Dr. Lecter,” he stated quietly. “Sometimes retaliation is the key to therapy.” He agreed with Hannibal’s own statement to her. Of course, he was locked up at the time so could not be convicted of the attempt as it was not by his own hands and Hannibal would never press charges.
Her gaze flickered upward when he mentioned trying to kill their psychiatrist. The surprise that showed on her face was perhaps not as pronounced as it might have been in another person. The raise of her eyebrow was more questioning than shock or outrage. “I assume he deserved it?” A simple settling of some cosmic balance sheet. It was how her system of morality worked these days.
She rested her palm against his chest. She could feel his heartbeat prominently beneath her hand. “Who shot you?” She had a feeling it wasn’t Lecter, but it was worth asking.
His eyes lowered to her hand and then back up at her. The was a danger in her. He knew that much. And her attention, her gestures and the continued lack of her shirt were the smallest invitation to something he was not sure he wanted to get involved in. But then, he had just killed someone with his bare hands and he was not entirely sure where he stood with himself at the moment.
“A friend,” he answered, though the tone had changed subtly from how he spoke when discussing Hannibal.
Another little smile graced her face. “Not the good doctor, I think.”
She could make a pass at him, prod and test further, but she didn’t think he would appreciate that. And she didn’t think that would get her anywhere. Instead, her brows furrowed with genuine concern. He’s just admitted to trying to have Dr. Lecter killed once. She had to wonder what, if anything, Will might do in reaction to what she knew.
“I need to show you something. I need you to get the car with me and not ask me any questions until we get to where we’re going.” The hand resting against his chest curled, the lightest scratch of her nails over the skin. “I know that’s a lot to ask. Because by now, I think you know about me, but I think you’ll want to see what I have to show you. And you won’t believe me until you see for yourself.”
“Yelena, it is the middle of the night. I appreciate your honesty with me, but I know better than to leave with you.” He answered honestly. The scratch on his chest made him look away. Picking up his whiskey, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, but not tonight.”
Shifting to the side, he slid his flannel back up his arms to cover his scars once more. It was lucky that there was no noticeable thing left behind at the splatter of blood on one’s skin or he would have had more marks than knives or bullets could do.
She wanted to tell Will the truth, but she meant what she said. She wasn’t sure he would believe her unless he laid eyes on Abigail Hobbs for himself. Walking over to where she’d draped her discarded blouse, Yelena slipped it back on, but did not button it back up just yet. She reached into one of her coat pockets and pulled out a scribbled number on a slip of paper. The number to one of her burner phones. Discardable, untraceable, but a way to contact her.
“Not tonight, but soon. Please consider it.” She slipped the fur coat back on over her unbuttoned blouse. “And for both of our sakes, don’t mention it to Lecter?” Yelena gestured to her dog, who picked her snout up off where it laid comfortably over one of Will’s dog’s backs and quickly scrambled to her feet. Yelena pulled her long blonde hair out of the confines of the coat and tossed it back. “Or he might move her,” she muttered, barely audibly, more to herself than Will, as she turned towards the front door.
It would not be that night that Will would ask about what her last comment meant. Abigail was very much dead that much he knew, it was the reason he had done what he did and why his trajectory was heading the way it was. That fact was what drove him more than being set up for the Ripper’s other murders.
She made a split second decision and walked back over to Will. Taking out a Montblac from its case inside the inner pocket of her coat, she reached for the scrap of paper in Will’s hand. She turned it over to the blank back and rested it against the pen case as she scribbled out a few lines more, followed by a string of numbers that a smart man would realize were coordinates:
“My gift to you,” Yelena said, taking the scrap of paper and putting it in Will’s palm, curling his fingers over it. She looked him in the eye, despite recalling how much he disliked that before, but she wanted him to read the genuineness in her eyes. “Call me when you realize you need my help, too.”
Tightening the folds of her coat around her, she slipped out the front door and into the cold night.