Will Graham (purelyempathic) wrote in thecompendium, @ 2014-10-27 21:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | abigail, kirsty, will |
Knives were cold. Steel tended to retain heat, but it got rid of it just as quickly. And Hannibal Lecter was careful with his knives, specifically the ones he used for carving. It was against her throat, which got nicked every time she breathed too hard, which was often. He held her firmly, one hand around her waist. Intimate. Like she’d thought they’d been. But he started having the dreams too, the really bloody ones, and he’d changed. Her blue eyes caught Will’s, and she hoped he knew that she was sorry he had to see this again.
Will was bleeding, and it hurt. He’d seen Hannibal - seen it in his eyes, and yet he hadn’t managed to turn away. It hadn’t been a linoleum knife this time; it had been a good old-fashioned kitchen cleaver (like breaking down a chicken) that had bitten into his flesh. He would have wanted to go in a different way - there were times when he’d breathed do it yourself into his own mind - but he was weak, dizzy, and terrified; he was watching a panicked young woman try her hardest not to move, and it only made him want to follow suit. If this was a movie, he figured, he’d expire with Abigail on his lips, or maybe Kirsty - death wasn’t the time to lie to oneself - but he knew that he would probably stop functioning in the middle of -
- and then something happened.
It was impossible and improbable, but there was wind. It surrounded herself and Hannibal before lifting Will aloft. She shuddered as she felt Hannibal’s knife bury itself in her neck, felt the cold flash of pain that was too, too gentle for how life-threatening it was.
Then darkness. She coughed, feeling her throat miraculously healed, rolling onto her side. Closing her eyes, she realized she had to be dead. To be that close, then to feel no pain, to have nothing but scars? Dead.
Will felt his own breath before anything else. Impossible. But then came soft sounds. Traffic. He’d never been so grateful to hear engine noises in his life - if it still was his life.
He closed his eyes tighter, then opened them.
He was lying on his back in an unfamiliar apartment - with, he noted, far less dog hair than he was used to. The furniture wasn’t his own, and it felt surprisingly comfortable, if odd. If this was heaven, he rationalized, it would likely not feel so mundane.
She stood up, examining her surroundings. Cocking her head to the side, she noticed she was in a girl’s bedroom. The girl had fairly fancy tastes, and she didn’t like them at all. Pink wasn’t really her thing. Wrinkling her nose, she moved out of the bedroom, calling out. “Hello?” Maybe an angel would hear her, or something.
He knew that voice. But it had to be some kind of hallucination. Will wasn’t religious, but he was fairly sure after everything that he and Abigail would not have wound up in the same place.
Still, it was impossible to ignore. “Abigail.”
It wasn’t a question. He said her name, as if it could exorcise her.
“Will?” She guessed they’d died together. She grinned as she ran toward him, boots clomping loudly on the hardwood floor of the house. “Will!”
There it was, though, getting louder. “Abigail?” He was no longer bloody, not in pain. He struggled to his feet, clawing himself upright and heading for the door. “Abigail Hobbs?”
She ran up until the moment that she saw him. He was whole, unbloodied, clothes intact. Smiling, her eyes welled up with tears. “Will. We’re - we’re - “ She laughed and wiped her cheeks, swiping at them almost angrily. Abigail cried too much.
Will reacted on instinct, crossing the room in two strides and grasping her shoulders. It sounded absurd, but he had to ask, if only because he'd been fooled so often by his own mind. "You're ... real?"