Who: Peter & Max What: A true crime writer visits the office of the FBI's head of Behavioral Sciences to discuss... human behavior. Where: Max's office at the FBI in Quantico, Virginia When: Late Tuesday morning, September 7th, 2021 Warnings: Tame probably except for the casual talk about murder
It was early morning when Peter left the floating box he called home (their 'boat on the sea' now an actual boat, how was that for irony), so he'd bundled up in a coat and scarf to keep the chill away as he went in search of coffee before starting his trip. Considering the hours he usually kept, which only seemed to become later and later these days, this was exceptionally early for him. It was a situation of his own making, no one to blame but himself, and a pattern in his life Peter chose to ignore. He didn't have a wife to remind him of his failings anymore and he'd stopped seeing his therapist, so what was the point?
Obviously there were speedier, not to mention more cost efficient ways to reach his destination, especially now as a reincarnate. But Peter wasn't interested in saving money or time in his travels, not today.
He took the train. He liked trains. The ride gave him plenty of time to write that he wouldn't have if he took the MTN, and frankly, he hated flying almost as much as he hated driving. Plus, if you took them at the right time of day (i.e. not rush hour), they were never crowded. It was still early, but the nine-to-five crowd had already come and gone, so Peter was able to choose a seat towards the very back of the train car and exist virtually unbothered for the duration of the trip. Plenty of time to write, and get down as many thoughts as he could before anything that was said in their meeting shifted his perception of things. More specifically, this gave him plenty of time to overthink.
As it happened, this wouldn't be the first time he met with a member of law enforcement in the cases he wrote about, but actually, this would be his first visit to Quantico. It wouldn't be Will's.
You would think after the years they'd spent together that they would have found a way to coexist peacefully by now, but there was no peaceful coexistence where Will Graham was concerned. His memories and not to mention thought patterns were... overwhelming, to say the least, when mixed with his own. Peter's already eerily active imagination when combined with Will Graham's was a beast that Peter couldn't hope to control, the only thing that saved him was the simple fact that his life, while in some ways uncomfortably adjacent, was also incredibly different from his reincarnate's.
He wrote about the same sorts of horrible things that Will had spent his life teaching and investigating, but that was where it started and ended for Peter. The crime scenes he visited while in pursuit of his research had long since been cleaned up, and likely left alone for years. He'd never seen so much as a dead body except for in photographs, and the closest he got to the killers he wrote about in his books were mostly in conversations with the victims and their families unlucky enough to be living with the horrors. A cold view, maybe, but the longer Peter spent learning about the worst things people could do to one another, the more he didn't know who he really envied.
The living, or the dead.
For the most part, Peter was far enough removed from the aspects of the work that consumed Will so easily that he was able to maintain some unbiased perspective, but it was only temporary. And being back in a place so central to so many of Will's memories? There was no way to be indifferent to his surroundings as he stepped out of the taxi and onto the street just across from the building's entrance. It wouldn't officially be Fall for a few more weeks but the leaves were already starting to change, lending Peter a false sense of comfort that was almost immediately squashed as he collected his visitor's badge. Moving through the familiar halls was practically an assault on his person that made the writer, for the first time, question whether he was awake or still dreaming.
He hadn't slept well the night before. When he did sleep, there were almost always nightmares. About the things he wrote, the things Will Graham had seen. Peter hadn't known a good night's sleep in years, but he was used to that. The sudden questioning of his reality he was not. The only thing that could make this worse would be if Jack Crawford himself was on the other side of that building. (That wasn't the only thing, but Peter wouldn't even allow himself to consider the alternative.)
By the time he reached his final destination, Peter's chest was tight from anxiety with the introduction of new and old surroundings, a recipe for inducing stress in any environment. It may have also been the massive amounts of caffeine he already had pumping through his system, or the fact that he'd never been around so many people with a license to carry guns at one time. Even police stations were usually less crowded than this, and reminded Peter once again how uncomfortable he was with the way guns made him feel. Not afraid. Powerful. He could understand why people in law enforcement developed god complexes, and why the profession itself seemed to breed a certain brand of sociopath.
Avoiding direct eye contact with the girl at the desk, Peter told her who he was and then he waited, checking his phone once before turning it off. Since he was going to be gone for most of the day he'd left his dog with a friend (he didn't have many of those, but he did have them) who had a big backyard. It'd be good for Charlie to have all that space for hours on end. The only thing about his current living situation that he felt guilty about was how cramped it must be for a dog, though Charlie didn't seem to mind. One of these days he'd actually look into getting an apartment.
"Mr. Graves? Agent Ward will see you now."
With a start, Peter refocused first on the cup of coffee in his hand, and then at the voice speaking to him. Not disembodied as his brain first interpreted it, but the voice of the girl behind the desk. Muttering his thanks, Peter had the fleeting thought that he should have been more awake before so liberally applying his aftershave that morning as he walked through the door being opened to him, steeling his nerves for the part of the job he still found himself dreading. Being social.