#which is a shame because the light fury that flew up before free falling is the only light fury i can even begin to consider approving of. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kissjane · 4 years

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Reposted from Ao3!

“I let you mooch off of my Wi-Fi and this is how you repay me?”

Lucas blinked.

In front of his apartment door stood a tall, lean guy with storm in his eyes.

“Sorry? Who are you?”

“I live next door, asshole, you don’t even know whose Wi-Fi you’ve been using?”, the stranger bit, as he pushed past Lucas and stepped inside Lucas’ flat.

Lucas stared at the man’s back. Broad shoulders. Sunkissed brown hair that spiked in all directions. And – Lucas whipped his eyes back up. He absolutely did not just appraise his very angry neighbour’s very nice ass.

“Uhm, sorry, but I don’t really know what –”

Mr. Nice Ass turned around, fuming.

“You don’t know about downloading all that shitty porn using my Wi-Fi? I got a fucking bill that’s about my monthly wages, you wanker!”

For a heart-stopping second, Lucas was afraid this guy somehow knew exactly what porn he’d been watching recently. The blood drained from his face.

“Yeah, that’s right, you asshole. You know, I knew somebody was on my Wi-Fi for months, but I didn’t really mind all that much, it was only a couple of gigabytes and it didn’t bother me. But this?”

He waved a bill in Lucas’ face.

“This is fucking insane! So I looked into it and you’ve downloaded half the fucking internet’s worth of porn! Maybe get a fucking girlfriend so you don’t have to jerk off to a hundred versions of ‘Barely legal with big tits’ and ‘Horny MILF’! You are going to pay this fucking bill, I swear!”

Huh? Lucas definitely had not downloaded anything in those categories.

“Look, uhm, you have the wrong guy. That was not me.”

His neighbour scoffed.

“Yeah, right. As if I’d believe a word out of your mouth.”

Lucas stepped closer, but the fury in the guy’s eyes made him retreat hastily, his hands up in a plea.

“Seriously, though, I mean it, I didn’t download those things you’re talking about...”

“Just admit it, fuck. You better have some hundred euro bills to spare.” He threw the invoice at Lucas, who swallowed at the amount.

Okay. He’d have to come clean.

“I swear. If it was me downloading porn on your Wi-Fi, it definitely wouldn’t have been anything involving tits or MILFs.”

The other halted, confused.

“Listen. My porn is situated more in the ‘Big dick’ category. I can show you, if you don’t believe me.”

Read on Ao3

Lucas figured his neighbour, like most straight men, would do anything rather than come anywhere near gay porn, so it was a complete surprise when after a moment of stunned silence his neighbour said in a somewhat calmer voice, “Okay. Show me.”

Shit. Lucas looked at the guy with open mouth.

“You want me to show you my porn history?”

The man shrugged.

“Either it is tits and MILF’s, in which case I already know exactly, or it’s not, in the unlikely case you didn’t just make up that to get out of paying for your jerking sessions. My money’s on the first option.”

Wow. Lucas knew his cheeks were burning red.

“I don’t… I can’t just show that to you! That’s private!”

“See? You are just making it up. I’ll be expecting my payment by next weekend.”

He stormed past Lucas. Lucas’ eyes fell on the invoice again. Fuck, whoever had managed to rack up this much on Mr. Neighbour’s bill must have seen every fucking big tit out there. Lucas really didn’t have that kind of money handy. Fuck. He had no choice.

“Stop!”

He sighed.

“Okay. I’ll show you.” He went to open his laptop, trying one more time. “Are you sure you want to look at this?”

“I won’t make you play the actual videos, don’t worry.”

Certain the blush on his cheeks was now rivalling a tomato, Lucas opened up his internet history, turning away resignedly.

Mr. Neighbour hummed.

“I see. Seems you are indeed not the kind of guy who watches 'Spring break bimbo'.”

Lucas whimpered, his hands in front of his face.

“Sorry. I really thought… you know.”

Lucas still didn’t face his neighbour, utterly mortified now.

“It’s fine… just… go away… Pretend you never were here, please!”

He heard the man pick up his invoice, and move towards the door. Just as he thought it was safe to show his face, close his laptop, curse himself for his lack of willpower and his lack of a boyfriend to take care of this stuff, and bemoan the fact that he could never ever look his neighbour in the eyes again – which was a shame in and of itself, really, because those eyes had been rather beautiful – he felt a hand on his shoulder. He shrieked.

“Oh my god! What did you do that for? You don’t have to creep up on me like that!”

“Fuck, sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

They both stood frozen for a second, until Lucas became achingly aware of the hand on his shoulder.

“What do you want now?”, he asked, almost whispering.

“I just wanted to apologize again. I shouldn’t have made you show that.”

“It’s fine, really,” Lucas babbled. God, he just really wished this ordeal could be over already before he just died of embarrassment. “If you could just forget all about the past ten minutes, though, that would be great…”

“Hey. Would it help if I told you I have actually seen some of those videos?”

Wait.

“What?”

Mr. Neighbour grinned.

“I just thought… you seem so embarrassed; I’d thought maybe I could just let you know you do have good taste in porn apparently.”

Lucas groaned.

“God, please… This is just too awkward, you know.”

“I mean it, though. Don’t be uncomfortable. I’m not straight, so you don’t have to be ashamed about what you’re watching on my account.”

Lucas looked up.

“Uhm. Okay. Well, I’m still rather mortified, though. I mean, I never thought I’d be sharing my private internet history with some guy whose name I don’t even know… God. Fuck. This is just all way too much of a mess. How do I keep ending up in this kind of situation?”

“Oh, I’m Eliott. Please, just don’t be embarrassed! I should be the one who feels bad, I made you show me instead of just believing you. Hey, you know what? You can come over to my place and I’ll show you mine!”

Lucas managed a small smile.

“No need, thank you…”

“Seriously though! Stop feeling so bad. God, I feel terrible! How can I make it up to you?”

Lucas turned away and hugged himself.

“You don’t have to! Just… go away, I guess.”

“But I want to, please! At least tell me your name.” Eliott gently turned him around and looked at him with an expression that was completely different from the one he wore when he came in. Lucas now felt a whole other sort of awkwardness. Fuck, Eliott was hot.

“Lucas,” he begrudgingly murmured.

A smile appeared on Eliott’s face.

“Lucas. Nice to meet you. I did see you once or twice before, in the hallway.”

“You did?” Lucas certainly never saw Eliott.

“I did. And I thought you were cute, by the way. Which is why I didn’t mind so much when I thought you were using my Wi-Fi…”

“Whoa.” Lucas held up his hands. There was way too much information in that sentence for his befuddled brain to unpack right now.

Eliott seemed to understand.

“Okay. We can get back to that later. I wanna make up for making you feel bad, Lucas. Just let me get you dinner or something.” He looked at Lucas with such a pleading look in his sparkly eyes, that Lucas barely remembered why he’d refused in the first place.

And just like that, Lucas knew that Eliott was a whirlwind, a chaotic force of nature, against whom he’d never stand a chance. It was better to give in now.

I had taken the better part of an hour and a giant order of take-out Thai food before Lucas managed to behave somewhat normally after the whole debacle, but once his shame had died down sufficiently, he and Eliott had hit it off like fireworks. They’d talked non-stop, and at some point had opened some wine and started watching a movie Eliott had been adamant about, some foreign indie flick he swore was the best movie ever made and he now knew why fate had led him to Lucas, seriously, Lucas, it was my job in this life to introduce you to it, I swear. Lucas had lost track of the convoluted plot after twenty minutes – I can’t watch the movie and read the subtitles at the same time, Eliott, my brain is not equipped for this kind of multitasking – but he enjoyed Eliott’s ongoing commentary.

After a while though, he got tired, and he leaned back against the couch pillows, and closed his eyes, content to listen to Eliott talking about the photography, the scenography, and other things Lucas knew nothing about. He had a pleasant voice, Eliott, Lucas thought. He felt himself drifting off to sleep, and vaguely he thought he wouldn’t mind falling asleep to Eliott’s soft whispers every night.

Suddenly, a hand touched his face, and his eyes flew open. Eliott looked at him, his eyes soft and bright, smiling widely.

“Am I too boring for you?”

Lucas felt another blush creeping.

“Uh, no! It’s just… you know… the movie was complicated and… uhm. Yeah, sorry,” he finished lamely.

“The movie not interesting enough for you, huh? Not enough big dicks?”, Eliott teased.

“Oh my god!” Lucas slapped Eliott on the head with a pillow. “You are supposed to forget that ever happened!”

“Oh, no!” Eliott laughed out loud, and Lucas noticed with fascination how his eyes sparkled and his grin could light up the entirety of Paris. “I plan on telling our grandkids about that with great frequency.”

“Our… grandkids?”

Great, Lucas, way to lose all capability of speech.

Eliott nudged his arm.

“Yeah.” He kept staring at Lucas, but said nothing more. The silence stretched on. It wasn’t uncomfortable, Lucas thought, but the tension between them became more palpable the longer it went on.

“Lucas?”

“Yeah?”

“If you don’t want to talk about those videos you have downloaded…”

Lucas smacked him with the pillow again.

“How about we make one ourselves?”

Fuck.

Lucas almost wanted to ask Eliott to repeat himself, certain he misunderstood, but the smoldering look in his grey eyes was consistent with what Lucas thought he heard.

He gasped.

Eliott’s pupils went dark as they focused on Lucas’ mouth.

Then, Lucas laughed, loud and free. Okay, maybe they could tell this story to their grandchildren in fifty years, he thought.

“Are you sure you’re up for it, though? Remember we are talking big dick here…”

One second, Eliott gaped. Then he leaned over, caging Lucas between his strong arms and the couch, blanketing Lucas with his body, and with his lips a hair’s breadth away from Lucas’, he mumbled: “Don’t take my word for it. Discover for yourself.”

#reposted from AO3 #elu fic #skam france fanfic #elu #I write things #skam france #does anybody want to read the first draft of the start of a jealous!eliott fic?

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elfnerdherder · 6 years

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Where the Wicked Walk: Ch. 24

[Read on Ao3] [Support My Work]

Chapter 24: The Oval Portrait

Saul found Beverly out by the pond a little while later, devoid of a nosy journalist. His arms wrapped around her waist, snug and secure, and his head rested on her shoulder with the sort of familiarity that came with time and a soulmate connection. The agitation in the set of her jaw lessened somewhat at it, made her relax against him in acceptance of his affection.

“I was looking for you,” he said. “Dr. Lecter is off to meet Clark Ingram.”

“Did he need me to go with him?”

“No, he just said that you should keep an eye on Will since Francis and Howard can’t.” Saul smiled against her neck and kissed it. “I thought to say something about Will not wanting to touch you with a ten foot pole, but…well, I didn’t.”

“Not everyone gets your jokes,” Beverly said affectionately.

Loving Saul was easy when he was closeby. When his skin was against her, it was enough to quiet the voice in the back of her head that demanded that she snap his neck and dump the body. Chemicals and all, and she’d learned to hide that aspect of herself from him.

That part wasn’t easy. It was never easy to hide from a soulmate.

“He’s got a black eye,” Saul said. “I think Will hit him.”

“Well…we knew it wouldn’t be easy,” she said. “I’ve lived with him long enough that I knew it wouldn’t be easy. He’s stubborn.”

“The others…have you heard the others, Beverly?”

Beverly turned around, causing him to let go of her. His arm swung, wavered, and she responded in kind, reaching out to clasp it so that he felt grounded. She’d never considered herself the grounding rod for someone, but Saul needed it.

How in the hell he’d gotten roped into following Lecter’s every word, she’d never truly understand.

“What are they saying?”

“They’re happy because he connected –Lecter said that he could create an environment in which staggered connections could occur, but…a lot of them don’t like Will Graham.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter what they like,” Beverly said evenly. “What matters is what Dr. Lecter wanted.”

“Do you think they’ll do what Matthew did?”

“Saul, Matthew was supposed to attack Will,” she said impatiently. She felt the sting of her words along his emotions, and she tried to soften her tone. “The half-connection…that just made it more realistic. But he was going to attack Will no matter what. That’s the job Lecter had planned for him.”

“So he…wanted Matthew to die?”

“He wanted Will to embrace the darker aspects of himself that he’s kept so firmly locked away. To do that, he had to...make regrettable choices.”

Saul had nothing to say to that. Once upon a time, he’d been a person of interest, someone to truly watch and follow as he carried out Lecter’s orders. The letters one of her guys had intercepted had been almost poetic, Saul’s words fluently conveying his admiration for the artwork that Lecter displayed. He asked how it’d felt, consuming one’s art, how it’d felt to see one’s desires and actually follow through.

Beverly supposed that his faith in Hannibal Lecter stemmed from the fact that his own confidence and assurance were both sorely lacking. He’d looked to someone that needed no validation from anyone, and that was his messiah of sorts.

“Saul, you trust Dr. Lecter, don’t you?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied without hesitation. “I just wonder…what if we…traded someone for Matthew, and that someone never thinks of this place as his home?”

“He got Will’s eyes to change in a month,” Beverly said with a kind laugh. She kissed him on the mouth, marveled at the fact that his kisses never failed to make her heart pound. Having a soulmate…just felt so right. “He’ll get Will to come around. He’ll be able to see this as his home. Give him time.”

“I love you,” Saul said softly, kissing her again.

“I love you too,” Beverly replied, and her smile was utterly sincere.

It’s a shame that I’m going to have to kill you.

Loving Will Graham was like loving a house of mirrors; with each and every angle, you’d see another facet of yourself reflected back at you with careful distortion.

Molly did anyway, though. From his rumpled hair to his well-loved leather coat that smelled of fresh earth and kindness, she loved him with a fury that burned deep in her belly and made the aches and pains of her lost love ease. He wasn’t anything like her late-husband, but that was alright. There was something steady in the way that he looked at her, like he’d already found a way to strip her down and actually liked what he saw beneath.

She didn’t have time to introduce him to Wally before Hannibal Lecter got ahold of them, though. Hell, he didn’t even know that there was a Wally.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, juggling a few grocery bags and her cell phone. It was pressed tight to her ear as she fiddled with her house key, and when she found the door already unlocked it was an irritating surprise. Wally always forgot to lock the door.

“Barring working late, yes.”

“You know, you work so much that it’s becoming concerning,” she teased, and she nudged the door shut with her foot, elbow catching the light switch to the side. “Workaholics are a thing, you know.”

“I know.”

“Besides,” she continued, “if you don’t come, I may be forced to bring someone else with me, and we all know how much I hate having to invite Tiffany.”

“Tiffany’s nice,” Will offered lamely.

“You hate Tiffany.”

“She’s not my friend, so I’m given leave to dislike her.”

It was always like that, with Will. The way he looked at people was so acutely good. He had a way of knowing their turn of mind, of knowing their thoughts and personality without really having to engage too much with them. The first time he’d met Tiffany, he’d nursed a whiskey all night, maybe sharing four or five words at a time before sitting in a dour-like silence.

On the way back to his house, he’d admitted that her jealousy of Molly felt like, to him, a thick scab that’d been picked far too soon. Alcohol gave him mildly loose lips where sobriety normally kept his thoughts behind a steel wall.

“Right, right, you’re allowed to dislike her,” Molly agreed, and she turned on the kitchen light as well, setting the groceries down. Wally’s lack of presence was an irritant; likely upstairs on that X-Box that one of his friend’s mother’s said that he ‘just had to have’. “I’m just saying, I’d like you there with me instead.”

“I’ll do my best,” Will said with a warm laugh, “barring tackling my boss on my way out of the door.”

“That’s all I ask,” she teased, and she sighed. “I’ve got to go.”

“Have a good night, Molly,” Will said warmly. “Have sweet dreams.”

“You too.”

It wasn’t until she hung up that she turned to holler for Wally, and as she sucked in a deep breath to do so, it was cut short, something that left her reeling as she stumbled back against the counter and scrambled for the mace that she kept on her keys.

The man sitting at her dining room table with a gun leveled at her barely blinked.

“If you reach for that mace, your son will die,” he said dispassionately. His mouth fumbled with the ‘s’. “The son that Will Graham is unaware that you have.”

Silence. That was what sat between them as Molly’s hands pressed down flat against her keys and contemplated his threat. There were many people that froze as a deer in the headlights when they were afraid –Molly always hated that comparison. Deer didn’t just freeze in the headlights; when they saw them, they had a brief moment of shock before they almost always, always attempted to run because animals were flight or fight and as prey animals it would always be flight, only they flew right out of the pan and directly into the fire. Deer didn’t die because they froze in the headlights. For the most part, they died because they tried to run from the headlights.

Rather than run, Molly held very, very still.

“Where is my son?” she asked slowly. Her voice shook, but she couldn’t fix that. Fear was natural as she eyed the gun that he held, not with a casual demeanor, but with taut and careful deliberation.

The man tilted his head slightly to consider her, then gestured with his free hand. “Come closer. Away from your things.”

Molly took a couple of steps closer. She felt dread as the sweat that prickled along her hairline, mussing the foundation she’d laid over her skin with careful strokes of her brush. She paused a few paces before the chairs, but he crooked his hand and gestured closer. She gulped an unsteady breath, then took another deliberate step.

“Where is my son?” she repeated, a little stronger.

“Not far. Sit.”

She thought of Wally, afraid and in a place he didn’t know, and her fear ebbed in the wake of a gust of fury that rippled along her spine as she sat, locking her in place next to a stain on the varnish from the one time Wally had gotten into her acetone. That day was a smudgy memory, but Wally had learned that acetone did more than just eat away nail polish; her hand protectively covered the spot, as though she could hide his mistake.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My identity isn’t important right now. You are Molly Foster, widow with a young son that had to watch his father die of cancer. Tragic.”

Molly glared at him, palm pressed flat to the sore spot on the table.

“Cancer is an ugly way to die,” the man continued, unflinching. “The body rejects liquids. It secretes. The smell is unbearable. The hair falls out, and there is no end to the vomit. They are weak, frail. They Become, but it is a wasted becoming. The family is left worse off, not with the death but with the time wasted trying to prolong a pitiful life.”

“Stop.”

The man stopped, potentially due to the level of fury that rippled with her voice. He tilted his head the other way, and in the dim kitchen lighting Molly could faintly see the healed scarring of what once was a cleft palate. It explained the faint lisp that made his brows twitch to a frown as he spoke.

“You are dating Will Graham,” the man began again, after a moment. “My boss is rather interested in that.”

“And just who is your boss?”

“Hannibal Lecter.”

Hannibal Lecter? Molly recalled the newscast on him –serial killers weren’t really always what the news went to, anymore. It was bad publicity about ‘who the public should really fear’ in truth, so they were mostly quiet. Their focus was more on terrorism from the Middle East, gun control debates, and the polarized elections that kept everyone up in arms. When it was revealed that he was cannibalizing them, though, they’d been all over that.

And Will Graham had survived him.

“He’s in prison,” she said faintly –her voice was tinny, far away.

“His reach extends past his bars,” the man assured him, as though she needed that assurance as he pointed a gun at her. “And you are dating the one person that he currently has any form of interest in.”

Molly saw quite a few options, in that moment, sitting across from a man and what looked to be a rather capable 9 mm XD. She wouldn’t say that she was necessarily a professional in dealing with stress, but losing her husband slowly –painfully –had taught her a lot about separating her mind from her emotions. She’d overcome that grief; this was no different. In the quiet that was too quiet because Wally wasn’t upstairs playing his X-Box that’d been a gift after her husband’s passing, she took a breath and made a choice, something that felt too heavy for a setting like a low-income household with poor laminate on the floors and a scuffed table she’d found at a Habitat for Humanity for five bucks and some change.

“If you were going to kill me, you wouldn’t have abducted my son,” she said slowly. “A wasted expense.”

“A waste,” the man agreed.

“What do you want, then?” Her voice trembled. “Will Graham?”

“We want you to keep dating him,” the man said. “And we want you get close to him.”

That took her aback. “…Why?” Better yet, “No, where’s my son? You’re holding my son hostage so that I keep dating Will Graham?”

“In due time,” he assured her. “If you comply, your son will be safe. Get close to Will Graham. Keep him under your thumb emotionally; Dr. Lecter said that he takes on the emotions projected around him. Love him. Give him a sense of peace that he has never known.”

Her mind twisted, wrenched. She thought of Will on the first night they’d met; drunk, swaying, and so sad it somehow made her want to tuck him in close and hold him until the pain trickled away from skin that smelled like pine needles and regret. She thought of the way he’d followed her from the bar, his words awkward and fumbling but so sweetly tender that it made her laugh. They danced in his front room to music playing from tinny laptop speakers cranked far too high, and in the darkest part of the night she let him strip her clothing from her body, inch by inch as he kissed her skin and left marks that she admired the next morning rather than felt shame for.

He asked if he could call her when they were sober, and she’d said yes.

“If I do this,” she said quietly, “are you going to hurt my son?”

“No.”

“Are you going to hurt Will Graham?” she pressed, insistent.

“No.”

“He doesn’t talk about what happened to him,” said Molly, scathing. “But I see how it marked him. How it follows him. You think that if or when he finds out what you’re asking me to do, it won’t hurt him?”

“There are many kind of pain, Molly Foster,” the man said. The cursed gun hadn’t moved even a centimeter. “Some pain buds new growth. When roses die in winter, you cut back their stems to the dirt, that they grow anew. The flowers that come after are somehow more vibrant from the harsh but necessary attention.”

“You’d compare him to a fucking flower,” she sneered, “he is a human being.”

“You struggle with nature versus nurture,” he noted. “Is this your final answer?”

It wasn’t, and he damn well knew it. Molly could see it in the set of his shoulders, the way he didn’t move to put his finger on the trigger because he knew he didn’t have to shoot.

“I want proof of my son’s life,” she said, curt. “I want to know how you’re containing him, and I want to speak to Dr. Lecter myself.”

Wordlessly, he reached into his coat pocket and retrieved what looked to be a cheap version of a smart phone. He tapped a few icons on it, then set it on the table.

A video of Wally played with the small speakers on as loud as they could go.

“So…you knew my dad?” Wally asked. His voice was small, so small. It’d been a couple of years, but God did it feel so fresh sometimes that it took her breath away and made her tongue feel fat and heavy in her mouth.

“He was my cousin,” a man with sandy hair and green eyes said. “I was sad when we drifted apart…then when I heard he passed, I had to give my condolences.”

“When’s my mom going to meet with us?” Wally asked, all innocence and wide eyes of a child.

“Oh, soon,” the man assured him with a laugh. “If I’m lucky, I can maybe be part of your family. Would you like that, Wally?”

“If mom likes it,” Wally decided. He held the same tone that every small child did –what mom liked, they liked. What mom disliked, he abhorred. “We’ll see.”

“You’re a smart kid, Wally,” the man decided.

“Yeah,” Wally agreed.

Molly lunged for the phone, but it was snatched from her grip. The sob that tore from her was barely stifled by her furiously shaking hands, and she glared at the man in front of her as he exited from the app and tucked the phone away.

“That is a live video,” he explained. “I have access to your son at all times, Molly Foster.”

“You’re a sick fuck,” she hissed.

“Do we have an agreement?” he asked. His lip curled.

“How often do I get to see him?” she demanded. “How long until this is over?”

“In due time,” the man said calmly. It belied the hawkish stare he’d settled on her, as though she could lunge at any moment. Fuck, but she felt like it, that need to take her son and run and run and run. Her foot twitched, and her muscles clenched and unclenched, waiting.

“I’ll do it,” she said, and it hit harder than it should have, that feeling of giving in. It sounded so innocent, ‘watch Will Graham’ but she knew it wasn’t, couldn’t possibly be so fucking simple. “I’ll do it, but only if you let Wally think it’s really like that. That we’re one big family, and he doesn’t have to know the truth of the monstrous things you’re planning on doing.”

“We’re doing,” he corrected, softly.

“What do you want? Information, access; I don’t believe that it’s really just to make Will-fucking-Graham feel like the most important person in the world.”

“Information, naturally. A way to keep him from straying too far. You are to be his anchor, and his place to go when the darkness bites too hard. It should be easy for you, I’m certain. There is already a foundation of affection between the two of you, as it’s been noted.”

“Fine, done,” said Molly curtly. “Are we finished?”

The man smiled, something small and cruel. “Yes, for tonight. Dr. Lecter thanks you, Ms. Foster, for your cooperation. I’ll inform him of your desire to communicate.”

Molly had nothing to say to that, and he didn’t seem to care to wait for a reply. He kept the gun leveled calmly at her, and when he saw himself out of the back door, he locked the bottom knob behind himself as the door closed. A jab, in truth. She had no doubt he had every way and means of getting back in, should he want to.

It was only once he was gone and the smell of his aftershave faded that she allowed herself to tuck her face into her hands and honestly, truly let the horror of what’d just happened sink in. Molly wasn’t much of a crier –childhood, she supposed. There was always a threat from her parents that if she didn’t stop fucking crying there’d be something to really cry about, so instead she gulped. Molly Foster, widow at the tender age of twenty-three was very much a gulper, so she gulped. She gulped down the sob that was hammering nails into her throat, the sob that she could already feel echoing in her ears, a sob she felt would one day rip from her despite the breaths she struggled with now. She thought of Will Graham and how he always looked a breath away from a bad decision, how he seemed both dangerous and safe at the same time, and she wondered if that sob would come when she least expected it, when he was holding her close and whispering his sweet poetry into her ear; she’d let out a scream so horrendous that even he’d run from her, then where would she be?

Where would Wally be?

She sat there with her face in her hands for a long time, gulping. The house felt too open, too invasive, and after a couple of hours she found her way back to the counter where the milk was getting to room temperature and the lettuce was looking a bit soft.

Will answered on the first ring.

“Miss me that much?” he joked. Will had a deep, mellow sort of voice that softened around words that ended in harsh consonants. Her throat tightened, burned enough to make her gasp out a breath.

“Yeah,” she said, and she pressed her hand to her eyes. “I…yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

Did he always pick up on everything so fucking quickly? “…If I came over and stayed the night, would you be mad at me?”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah…you know, you don’t talk much about Dr. Lecter. And by much I mean…ever.”

He stayed silent at that, ever an impenetrable wall after what’d happened.

“And you know that I…you know, sometimes grief just sets in,” she said with a strangled laugh. “You know how that is, don’t you? How you’re looking at an orange, and maybe you think ‘oh, wow, Dr. Lecter used to eat oranges before each session’ and suddenly you’re feeling everything you thought you’d put behind you?”

“He didn’t eat oranges, but I know what you mean,” Will replied gently. “Come on over, Molly. I’ll tell Beverly not to lock the door.”

Molly’s steps echoed with sharp, staccato taps after she’d put the groceries away and saw herself out of the bleak, dark house. It was a house, not a home without Wally in it, and throughout the entire drive to Will’s, throughout the evening where he held her and didn’t try to pry words from her lips, throughout the night as she gulped against his chest and tried to sleep, Molly wondered just how safe Wally could really be if she dared to open her mouth and tell Will what really was leaving her puffy eyed and stoic during an episode of their favorite show.

She ultimately gulped the words down, though. It wasn’t safe otherwise.

Molly gulped down a shuddering breath at the sight of the man that climbed out of the passenger side of a rather austere and spacious car. There are some things that a person knows because they’re told; there are some things they know because they are quick enough to stay quiet and observe. Some things, though, are complete and utter instinct, and despite the fact that Francis Dolarhyde of all people was a complete and utter monster to Molly Foster, she found herself taking a minute step closer to him at the sight of Clark Ingram, hands planted on her hips to steel herself.

The man looked like a rapist. Cold, empty eyes, even red-rimmed from hangover, conveyed a deep-seeded and utter dispassionate care of women as he glanced over her, then along the rest of their small group thoughtfully. The woman beside him, Emma, gave him a careless glance before she tucked her keys into her coat pocket and lingered by the headlights.

“Dr. Hannibal Lecter, in the flesh,” Clark Ingram said with an amiable smile. He extended his hand to shake Hannibal’s, which was returned with a professional, thin-lipped smile.

“Clark Ingram. Welcome,” Hannibal greeted. “With me are my associates: Agent Francis Dolarhyde, Ms. Molly Foster, Mr. Howard Chapman, and of course you know Miss Emma.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Clark said with a grin. “This is…wow. You really had me jumping through hoops, you know.”

“Did I?” Hannibal asked. His brow lifted briefly, a flicker so fast that Molly almost hadn’t caught it. Seeing it, though, filled her with a sort of dread that nothing but instinct could give.

“Yeah, the back roads, the FBI, the whole thing was really exciting, but that last leg was just a doozy.”

“A doozy,” Hannibal echoed, and he smiled just enough to flash incisors that seemed entirely too sharp on a human. “But here you are, now.”

“Here I am, and I’m ready for whatever else you’ve got for me, Dr. Lecter. You can ask Emma; I did my job.”

“Oh, yes, the job,” Hannibal agreed amiably. “Only, Mr. Ingram, you didn’t do the job.”

The cold wind whistling was the only noise that accompanied his words. Clark Ingram frowned, something confused and mildly childlike. Petulant.

“I don’t understand,” he said at last.

Hannibal nodded, as he’d expected this. “Your job was to kill Agent Zeller. You didn’t.”

“I did,” Ingram returned irritably, “and he bled like a stuck pig.”

“Agent Zeller is currently in my basement awaiting questioning, actually,” Hannibal returned pleasantly. It was the sort of sweet that made one’s stomach ache. “My informant in the FBI informed me of his location, and he was retrieved from a hospital where he’d just been taken out of surgery.”

Shock was something Molly was more than used to seeing. She’d had her own twists and turns with Dr. Lecter in regards to shock and how one both registers and reacts to it. Seeing it on Clark Ingram was mildly cathartic, as she was more than aware of his track record and the things he’d done to women whose only mistake was being fooled by a pretty face and a 100-watt smile. First, he paled; his cheeks turned a ruddy sort of red, then the air squeezed from him with a slow and painful look to his ribs, like they’d soon break.

“Bull shit,” he said shakily. “This is ridiculous. I did my job, and now I want my payment for it.”

“Payment,” Emma echoed, and there was a smirk to her voice that didn’t register on her granite face. “Are you so stupid that you didn’t notice the circles I drove you around while I waited for the word from Dr. Lecter?”

“You really were invaluable, thank you,” Hannibal agreed, glancing to Emma.

“I stuck him good, and I strolled right by that god damn FBI agent, and he didn’t even notice! What the hell did I risk everything for? I made that fucker bleed for you, and this is the thanks that I’m going to get?”

“In reality, it turns out that he is one of the few to know the location of a person in question that I wish to meet with, so I am relieved to find that he is very much alive; that being said, however, I’m in no position to allow you into this house and its sanctuary.”

“You promised me women, you god damn-”

“Oh, yes, the women.” Hannibal nodded thoughtfully, and it was that sort of aloofness that made the hairs on the back of Molly’s neck stand on end. “Emma?”

The silencer on the end of her gun muffled the shot, although it was nothing like Hollywood. Suppressed shots sounded more like something far, far away, with the impression of an echo from a canyon that reverberated back to the ears and left one feeling somehow wanting. It was not the first time Molly watched someone die, nor was it the first time she’d watched someone shoot them to do it. Over the years, enough experience had given her the sort of schooling to keep her features calm, even as Emma’s eyes grazed over her with an acute level of scrutiny, assessing.

Years had given Molly something that she wasn’t sure Emma had –a perfectly controlled, shuttered face. Not even Will could see past it, it seemed. She stood alone with her thoughts, the craggy rocks against an unrelenting ocean.

“Lovely, as always, Emma. Where you were the one to engage with him personally, I thought the honor should be yours,” Hannibal said warmly. The false tone of affection was grating. “If you’ll have Mr. Hobbs take care of this, we’ll be back inside where it’s warm in no time.”

“He lost his wallet,” Emma said curtly. “I didn’t notice a tail, but there could be problems.”

Hannibal glanced to Francis, who nodded grimly.

“Without Matthew at the sheriff’s department, I haven’t heard much chatter,” he said after a moment. “Someone could come sniffing if he doesn’t show up to work soon.”

“Someone that could have a missing wallet and a hunch?” Molly asked.

Francis nodded. “I’ve lost word from the other house. No report yet,” he said.

“Emma can deal with Matthew’s disappearance,” Hannibal decided. “And we’ll double security at the perimeter. Will is particularly…displeased with the notion of what’s occurred. We need to be prepared for him to attempt something rash.”

Rash, like attempting to carve out your eye wasn’t rash. Rash, like the faint bruising around Hannibal’s eye wasn’t rash. Rash, like how it felt for Molly to see him with mismatched eyes, the one person in the world that she felt couldn’t have possibly ever been moved by Hannibal Lecter.

God, and she’d led him right to him. Hook, line, and fucking sinker.

They headed back, and she lingered towards the back of the small procession, alongside Francis. She thought of the way he’d looked, following after Will who’d swayed and shook after his stunt with the phone. Pained. Afraid. Disgusted.

“You must be happy,” she said, quiet.

Francis hummed non-committedly.

“No, really. All of your planning…your watching, your meticulous notes and careful actions…it all finally came true. Hannibal Lecter has his soulmate because of you.”

She wasn’t quite sure what it was, her poking at him. She’d witnessed the Red Dragon surface before, and it’d left nightmares that clung to her eyelashes and stuck whenever she tried to blink. Perhaps she, too, was feeling rash now that everything was spiraling.

“When you took him to the bathroom,” she said, softer, “to clean him up after killing Matthew, what’d you say to him?”

At that, he did speak. Francis didn’t speak unless necessary, unless there was something ultimately important that he felt the need to convey. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He wet his lips, almost a nervous gesture, then tried again. He stared straight ahead, gaze fixated to the house. She knew that he had no love for Matthew Brown, the same way that she had no love for Matthew Brown.

“I said that he had to survive us.”

“Survive,” she murmured, and she nodded. “And now you have to survive watching him be a soulmate to Dr. Lecter.”

Francis stopped walking and fixed his intense, probing stare to her. She thought of that fateful night, when she’d first turned and found him at her table with a gun trained on her. He’d somehow seemed so untouchable, then, so formidable. Now, facing her with that same look, it didn’t seem so black and white. If anything, lurking beneath that dangerous edge, there was a glimmer of fear, of utmost uncertainty.

“Say what is on your mind, Molly Foster.”

Molly stopped and met his gaze head on. “I’m just wondering how you’re going to live kow-towing to Hannibal Lecter while he tries to twist and manipulate his soulmate bond to get Will Graham into his bed. First I fucked him, and soon enough Hannibal will try, too…it must be difficult for you.”

If it stung him, it didn’t show. Francis blinked lazily, then reached calmly into his jacket pocket and produced a cheap-looking, poor man’s smart phone. A fancy burner phone, all things considered. He tapped on the screen a few times, then lifted the camera to show an angle of one of the parlors.

Wally sat beside Abigail, coloring.

“I still have complete and total access to your son at all times,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Your position as Hannibal Lecter’s romantic proxy to Will Graham means ultimately nothing now that he has what he wants. You and your son are disposable.”

He left her with that haunting reminder as he smiled kindly and put his phone away. Left alone on the gravel path back to the house, Molly shivered in her coat and glanced to the doorway, unsettled to find Hannibal looking back at her, the light of the house silhouetting him and leaving his expression in the shadows. She could hazard a guess to what it was, though. Cold. Calm. Calculating. Cruel.

Clark Ingram was disposable, too. She gulped down the same sob she’d been holding back for four miserable, haunting years, and she hurried into the house to find Wally.

A special thanks to my patrons: @sylarana, @frostyleegraham, @jenacar, @starlit-catastrophe, @matildaparacosm, Laura G, Superlurk, Duhaunt6, Mendacious Bean, @frostylicker, Cecily, and @evertonem <3

#Hannibal #LiaS scribbles #Where the wicked walk #hannigram #hannibal au #hannibal soulmate au #someone help will graham #molly graham #ladies of hannibal #beverly katz

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