#(the me not being very emotional thing is unrelated to my dislike of vulnerability people in my family are all very muted esp me apparently

[luneinary]

1, 2, 5 and 23 with Kaito!!

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

This is a loaded question because I have Many Reasons for liking Kaito as much as I do but I'll try to keep it short hehe . Surprisingly enough he was one of those characters that I needed time with after completing v3 to actually fully appreciate , and it was kind of funny how little regard I used to give him because he's like an amalgamation of All of my previous favorite characters lol .

That being said: He is unapologetically strange . I love his academic prowess and avid interest in science (and his need to infodump about it) but his less-than-conventional ways he navigates social interactions. He spins tales of traveling the ocean and Defeating Whales and adventures as a pirate when it was probably a roleplay he used to do in a playground sandbox when he was five . Shuichi goes from thinking that he is some kind of escaped lab homunculus to being his #1 fan in less than one chapter . He feels big emotions and Cares A Lot all the time - like he runs on nothing but stubbornness and love on a constant basis . He likes little houseplants .

The timing in which this character kind of stumbled into my life was weirdly poetic -- I have months of mini essays in my notes app about this guy just dissecting him and growing to appreciate him more and more as a character; It just gradually became more obvious why he resonates with me . He is an alien . Literally . Unapologetically strange .

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

That we have not one but two walking contradictions in this game .

I've talked just a little bit before about Kaito's fear of vulnerability and failure and the extent to which he goes to avoid confronting his internal problems . He's very earnest and hands-on with helping his friends and quick to confront everyone else on when he believes they aren't at their full potential -- but he can't extend that virtue to himself and instead lies by omission that he is suffering at all-- save for the one time in which he extensively apologizes to Shuichi and Maki for having a phobia and reacting accordingly (which, if that's how he is when he DOES confide in someone, you can imagine he's not being very kind to himself about having a weird space virus .

He also ends up being wrong . In front of everyone . He goes through an entire trial in which his worldview is completely dismantled and mocked . Worse , people know that he is sick now and in some desperate attempt at damage control he ends up pushing away his best friend . In that he spends almost the entirety of chapter five unable to look at Shuichi in the eye not because he's angry at him but at himself -- for slowly dying and being unable to do anything about it , for dealing with the shame that maybe Shuichi doesn't actually need him anymore . Which he would've probably stopped believing if he had just . Talked to him .

What he classifies as weak is obviously very paradoxical and I will never not point out the narrative choice of Kaito being a living self-fufilling prophecy

hm . That's Really Interesting . I hope that doesn't come back to bite you buddy

Unrelated: I also like that he has fangs .

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

It's surprisingly difficult to assign songs to him (mostly because I think he would listen to Imagine Dragons. Very unfortunate) . But one that comes to mind is Sin Triangle by Sidney Gish . Give it a listen ^_^

23. Favorite picture of this character?

duality

[rose-from-ashes]

By the way, I don't have the energy to go into my rules and add it now, but I'm adding two new, soft rules, not so much rules as "if I softblock and disappear after a while it might be due to this":

- If your blog is multifandom and contains a lot of content for fandoms I am not familiar with. I know this is hypocritical as I have a multifandom myself, but it's hard specifically with stuff like other final fantasy games on ffxiv blogs, where it's often treated as if I'm expected to know. This doesn't apply to any mutuals I currently have, I have some mutuals that are ENTIRELY fandoms I don't know, but for new mutuals, I may be reluctant to follow. This is NOT a dni, this is a "don't get your hopes up if you follow me because I really don't want to disappoint but by god my brain space is very little". Not super relevant, but it's happened once or twice.

- Much more relevant, I might softblock if I see a lot of takes that bring my mood down. This is NOT "if I disagree with you, you're out". You're allowed to disagree with me and most takes that conflict with mine are not ones that will upset me. But there are a couple that will due to me having severe rejection sensitive dysphoria. This rule is specifically about things that will almost invariably trigger that rsd.

Specifically, referring to Zenos as annoying frequently or saying you hate him will bother me as I read him as neurodivergent and desperately trying to find someone, anyone else who thought the same way he did- it hurts to see people dismiss him. They're allowed to, anyone is allowed to dislike any character, but my dash is my space, and it's okay for me to cultivate that space. A softblock from me is not a fuck you, it's a "it might be best for me to step away and that's not your fault.

The same follows for excessive criticism of Emet-Selch (you can criticize his actions. I promise you can. He's a dipshit and he sucks, criticizing that isn't what upsets me, it's when people call him overly emotional or incompetent or ugly, insults that are either subjective, patently false, or rooted in homophobia as I've discussed before), and claims that Hydaelyn was right to sunder the world or that the unsundered should just get over the trauma of losing everything and everyone they've ever known.

I know that it is irrational for me to get upset in the defense of fictional characters. Especially villains. But I am, unfortunately for everyone, actually literally diagnosed mentally ill, this is my space, and I want to feel safe and good here despite having symptoms of that mental illness, so I'm going to cater to those vulnerabilities until some of my emotional delicateness has passed (since I'm much worse than normal this year due to being physically ill as well). Before anyone gets nervous, none of my mutuals have upset me. It's just on my mind for unrelated reasons. Love you <3

[liinos]

so 🥴 how I was literally crying bc my dad poked a mildly more than surface level subject and he asked me if I wanted to talk to someone and I said no

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Episode 7: “Spring Comes”

Therapist: “Hatori’s backstory episode isn’t real, it can’t hurt you”

Hatori’s backstory episode: *happens*

Me, crying: *shocked-pikachu.png*

Anyway, this was another really great episode. This is the part of the story where it really becomes clear how dark the story is going to get in the long run, and I think they nailed it.

Thoughts under the cut. [Spoilers for the whole manga]

As I was hoping, this episode combined chapters 10 and 12 together, leaving chapter 11 to be adapted in the next episode. I think they’ll spend the entire episode on that chapter, since the next part to adapt after that would be Haru’s intro, which is completely unrelated to the new years part aside from him having a short scene with Shigure in it. So I think they’ll just leave his whole intro bit for episode 9.

Funnily enough this is another case of the reboot’s pacing and structure being very similar to the 2001 anime. I think the Hatori backstory episode in the 2001 anime was my favourite episode of the whole thing, and I’ve always felt that the way they paced it out flowed a lot more naturally than it did in the manga. So I’m happy that the reboot had the same sorta idea and just combined the two Hatori chapters together. It’s not really a huge deal, but especially after seeing two alternate takes on this part that make the same decisions in how they alter the pacing, it really feels awkward that the Hatori part in the manga gets pretty much interrupted halfway through by the new years chapter.

But this episode definitely wasn’t a 1:1 copy of the 2001 anime version of it, that’s for sure. For one thing, some stuff near the end was changed so that they could incorporate the sequence from chapter 12 where Hatori sees Kana walking by with her friends, which the 2001 anime cut out. Which leads into one of the more subtle but cool things this episode added, which was that we got some cameos from characters who don’t even appear in the 2001 anime at all. On the note of that scene with Kana, we see Mayu walking with her and their other friend, which wasn’t even the case in the manga. I really liked that addition, though, since it helps give a little bit more build-up for the fact that she��s friends with Kana.

Similarly, we also get an even more subtle cameo appearance from Kureno, who doesn’t even show up in the manga until like chapter 50. It was so subtle I didn’t even notice him until I saw people point it out. I think it was a really good choice to add that little tease of him this early on, though. I’d always kinda wished that the manga could have had a scene like this where we see Kureno with Akito before we know anything about who he is.

I can see why some people are sad that they changed that whole scene with Akito, though. The scene of her in the window looking at Tohru was pretty iconic, and I’ve always loved it. But I also really love this new version of the scene, as a sort of alternate take on it. It gives us a look at Akito that, by this point in the anime, we haven’t seen yet. There’s the whole deal with us also seeing Kureno in the car with her, but it’s also the first time in the reboot that we see Akito wearing a masculine, western-style outfit. I think it’s also interesting how the way the context and framing of the scene was changed made Akito seem more petty and childlike, if that makes sense. In the manga version of the scene, she comes across as being super composed and ominous and in control, but here we just see her sitting in the backseat of a car someone else is driving, wearing an outfit that she looks like she doesn’t want to wear, and she looks smaller than she usually does, especially since the camera is angled down toward her from Tohru’s POV. It still feels ominous and uncomfortable in it’s own way, and you still get the impression that Akito is someone who Tohru should try and avoid ever meeting properly, but I think it’s really fascinating how the relatively small changes in framing help to expose the more nuanced and vulnerable side of Akito as a character, showing that in her own way she’s just another person bound by the curse, keeping up an outward image she doesn’t want, and keeping a specific person around her at all times out of possessiveness and loneliness.

Come to think of it, on top of the fact that we don’t see Kureno until around chapter 50, I don’t think we ever saw Akito wear that specific outfit until around chapter 100 when the big gender twist reveal happens. Up until that point I think she only ever wore either her kimono, or her black turtleneck.

On the topic of changes, I think the only other notable one is the flashback to Akito hurting Hatori, which isn’t all that different from either the manga or the 2001 anime, but still a bit different. In the manga we never actually see how exactly Hatori’s injury happened, and in the 2001 anime we see Akito directly smash Hatori’s face with a vase, but in this version we see her pushing Hatori into a mirror when he tries to restrain her after she attacks Kana. The 2001 anime version of the scene was really good in it’s own way, but I’m fine with the reboot doing it differently. I actually like that in the reboot it feels more accidental than intentional, with Akito pushing Hatori into a mirror instead of hitting him with a vase. We at least still got the bit with her attacking Kana to make it clear that she’s willing to get directly violent with people. The fact that there were like five mirrors in the room was a bit odd, but it did give us that cool shot of Hatori restraining Akito and us seeing it reflected in all the different mirrors.

Other than that the episode was a pretty faithful adaptation of the manga. It didn’t even have to rearrange too many things, aside from having the end of chapter 10 happen after the end of chapter 12. They did have to change the context of the stuff taken from chapter 12 a bit, since in the manga that happens after new years, but it all flows together really naturally anyway.

Before I forget, I also wanna say that this series still has some fantastic background art, and this episode really showed it off by giving us some different types of environments to what we’d seen before. The winter-y atmosphere of most of the episode was really wonderfully done, and they were contrasted nicely with the vibrant and warm flashbacks to Hatori and Kana’s relationship. A lot of the series in general takes place in the same overall set of locations, and the manga never really put much emphasis on how the backgrounds looked, so it’s nice to get stuff like this in the reboot.

Even though Hatori and Kana’s whole deal is the big centerpiece of this episode, I’m not entirely sure what to say about it. It’s just one of those times where it’s not like I’m able to give my first impressions on it, since this is like the third take on this bit of the story I’ve seen, lol. So I just naturally end up thinking about it more in terms of how it compares to the manga and the 2001 anime, than how it is in and of itself, if that makes sense. It still fucked me up even the third time around, but still.

I do still think this is one of my favourite bits of the whole story, though. It’s pretty iconic, in a way, since it’s the first time we get this sort of big backstory sequence for a supporting character that delves into the darkness of the Soma family. It’s one of the parts that I think sticks with people most, and for good reason. It’s pretty much impossible not to feel bad for Hatori by the end of it all.

I tend to dislike the ‘side ships’ in this series, for a variety of reasons, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Hatori and Kana. I guess it helps that they’d already broken up by the time the series starts, and so it feels natural that their relationship is only really focused on in two chapters early on.

Anyway, I’m curious to see exactly how the next episode will be adapted, since as I said before, it looks like it’ll just adapt chapter 11, which means it’ll almost certainly have a fair bit of original material to flesh it out. The 2001 anime also took that route with it, and I ended up not really liking the result, but I have faith that the reboot will handle it well, since I really liked how they fleshed chapters 5 and 6 out into their own episodes.

Personally, I really want them to find a way to actually show off the Soma family’s new years festival, since we never really get to see it properly in the manga. It always felt like a missed opportunity that we basically only ever saw the zodiac members in their dance outfits in colour pages. So I’d really like to actually get a scene showing Momiji’s dance.

I think it’d also help things out a bit if they add some scenes to include a bit more build-up to the scene where Hana randomly shows up to confront Yuki and Kyo about their decision to leave Tohru alone on new years.

And with how the reboot’s handled it’s original content thus far, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a whole flashback to Tohru spending new years with her mother, which would be really sad.

We’ll see how it goes, I guess. Either way, this was a really fantastic episode. It’s fun seeing new fans get more and more aware of the fact that they’re in for some serious drama and emotions in the long run, lol. I said before that I can’t really have a fresh reaction to this part [or really anything in the reboot that’s not original material] since I’ve already read the manga, but I’m glad that new fans seem to really like this episode.

[elfnerdherder]

The Fault in My Code: Ch. 18

You can read Chapter 18 on Ao3 Here

Chapter 18: One Hungry Maroon, One Seeing Blue

           It was the lightning that woke him, followed by the peal of thunder that shook the air around them. Will jolted, stared up at the ceiling, then pulled himself out of bed. With the curtains open, the doors that led to the small balcony overlooking the ocean was ethereal, and he let the cool metal of the handle shock his skin awake.

           Unheeding of the downpour, Will stepped out onto the balcony, allowing himself to become drenched. He stared out at the roiling ocean, black with its fury, then to the clouds so heavy with pitch that the space where they ended and the ocean began was non-existent. Something boiled beneath his skin, tempted him to jump. He swayed forward, found himself swaying back.

           He covered his eyes to better feel the rain, and he sighed, the sound just quiet enough that the downpour didn’t let it carry farther than his mouth. He lowered his hands, grasped the rail just in front of him and stared out, searching for something he knew he wouldn’t find.

           “Are you awake?”

           “I’d say I’ve been dreaming this entire time, if I didn’t know better.”

           A soft hum, drowned out by the sound of the rainfall. “In many cultures, rain offers the promise of rebirth,” Hannibal said from just behind him. Will hadn’t heard him walk up, but he’d felt him wake; his body wasn’t sure what to do with the constant contact after so long of fleeting, desperate doses. It was all too hyperaware of where Hannibal was at any given moment.

           “Life begins again with rain,” he said. He thought of spring, sharp bursts of green a stark relief to the brown earth and dead leaves of winter.

            “Are you baptizing yourself?”

           “Can something as easy as this wash away my sins?” Will wondered. He tilted his head back and basked in the cold, unrelenting torrent raining down on him. He imagined it carrying away the black, ugly marks of his dark deeds. He imagined Molly standing in it too, each raindrop healing just a little bit more of her.

           “If you decide that it can, it can,” Hannibal said. He moved so that he stood shoulder-to-shoulder beside Will, and he tilted his head up, a soft sigh escaping him. Will didn’t hear it so much as feel it.

           “Did you whisper in Gideon Abel’s ear to kill Matthew Brown?” he asked.

           “Do you ask to lessen your guilt?”

           “He focused so much on my being polite and other people not,” Will said. “It made me think of your trial, when they showed images of the man you impaled with every weapon in his shop.”

           “Oh?”

           “Matthew Brown was impaled.”

           “Do you suppose one would have to try very hard to convince a serial killer to kill again?” Hannibal wondered. “Do you think that maybe a mere whisper of the indignity, the invasion of privacy would be enough? Or do you think one would have to be blunt with someone such as Dr. Gideon to get the things they wanted?”

           “I think his psyche is fractured enough that you didn’t have to do much,” Will said. He licked the rainfall off of his lips. “He already disliked him, and you were…”

           “I was?” Hannibal prompted when he didn’t continue.

           “…Trying to make up for what you’d done the only way you knew how,” Will realized. “You wouldn’t kill yourself –you love yourself. But you could kill Matthew Brown for helping.”

           “And you can kill Red Dragon for taking part.”

           “I’m struggling to reconcile the pieces of you,” Will admitted. Lighting danced across the sky above him, made his vision go white. The resulting thunder rattled his teeth.

           “Just as you can smile at the next door neighbor, then return inside and wonder at the texture of blood on your fingertips, so too can I enjoy the simple nature of a home cooked meal and the exhilarating sensation of taking something unkempt and being the crafter that elevates it to art.”

           “Is it that easy?”

           “If you let it.” A pause as they both enjoyed the sound of the rain on the stone beneath their bare feet. “You struggle with such understanding because you struggle with reconciling those aspects of yourself. If it did not bother you to see it inside of yourself, it wouldn’t bother you so very much when you saw it in me.”

           Will looked at him, hair plastered to his forehead, and as lightning arced overhead again, it illuminated his eyes, one Will’s and one his very own. This time, it was Will that moved forward, and he grabbed him by the back of the neck in order to pull him in for a kiss, something that smelled of the salt of the ocean and the crisp texture of bark cut to reveal the green skin beneath.

           Lips moved against one another, searching, seeking. It was not before, when they’d all but attempted to rip one another apart with their bare hands, but something softer, something almost sweet. When the thunder ricocheted through his ribs, Will wrapped his arms tight around him, and as kisses and bites were pressed down the vulnerable part of his throat, he looked up to the rainfall above and decided that whether or not the rain could wash them clean, he’d take them as is, regardless.

           They found their way back to the bed once more, sodden clothes abandoned across the floor, the doors left open to tease their skin with a hungry breeze. Legs intertwined, breath shared, Will lay poised above him, forehead pressed to forehead. His skin, slick with water, was cool to the touch despite the heat burning inside of him.

           “What do you want, Will?” Hannibal asked. He drew his bottom lip into his mouth, nipped.

           “I want you,” Will whispered. A shudder ran down his spine, his hips rolling down with the sensation. I want, I want, I want.

           “Every aspect of me?” A catch of breath, hands settling on Will’s hips to guide them down again to waiting, wanting flesh.

           “All of it. All of it,” he whispered, entranced with the way lightning lit up Hannibal’s face. “A match for a match, an eye for an eye.”

           “An eye for an eye,” Hannibal repeated, tone low and rough with desire. He bit his lip again, and he nodded. “My dear Will, I think I can return in kind.”

           His kiss was scalding, and as they rolled across the sheets and became tangled around one another’s flesh, Will became drunk off of the sound of sweet promises Hannibal whispered into his ear the entire night.

-

           When he dreamed, he saw a thousand mirrors. The light bounced off of one another, and when he reached out to touch one, they shattered around him, leaving him in a graveyard of a thousand reflections. Someone reached out and offered him his eyes, and he took them back, thankful.

-

           He felt Hannibal’s heartbeat when he woke. Will blinked lazily up at the ceiling, and just as much as he was aware of textures –the pillowcase against his neck, the thin membrane of his skin –he was aware of the way a heartbeat echoed his. He inhaled, and Hannibal inhaled. He exhaled, Hannibal exhaled.

           Dazedly, he remembered the studies of intimacy among soulmates, the chemical reaction to arousal, to release. The more emotional, physical, and verbal the contact, the stronger the bond. The first time was always the most intense. Any time after was an echo of the passion, the feeling of complete, total ‘one-ness’ that occurred. A sense of peace, that something in the world was just right.

           He passed fingers over the arm slung possessively across his waist, hummed low in his throat at the sensation of pleasant dreams beside him. For once, his mind was quiet, an undisturbed pool of water that was clear all the way to the bottom. Francis Dolarhyde was at the bottom, but he was waiting. Waiting for what? Will wondered. Something…something to shift. Something to change. Will certainly felt shifted, changed.

           Perhaps Dolarhyde meant to slice him in half in order to take something precious away from Hannibal. Perhaps that was his final becoming, now that they’d consummated their connection.

           The thought should have scared him, but it didn’t. He continued to stare up at the ceiling, content with the quiet, content with Hannibal’s heartbeat.

           Truth be told, he hadn’t been content for a long, long time. Even before Red Dragon. Even before Hobbs.

           Hannibal woke the way Will supposed most practiced killers did –a sudden, smooth transition noted only by the shift in his breathing. His grip tightened on Will’s waist, his thumb brushing over a small, finger-shaped bruise.

           “I saw your dreams,” he said by way of greeting. Will nodded.

           “I thought you would.”

           “Is that normal, Dr. Graham? So far after a connection?” There was a teasing rasp to his tone, his mouth curling around his title as he slid closer to press a kiss into the hollow of his throat where a love bite lay.

           “That is something unique to us, since you’ve seen quite a few of my dreams long after the initial connection.” His breath caught, held. His fingers curled into Hannibal’s skin.

           “Unique,” Hannibal repeated, and his lips worked along Will’s collarbone, pausing at the place where the arm met the shoulder. “Yes, I’d say we are utterly unique.”

           “I wonder how he’s choosing them,” Will said. Red Dragon lay coiled at the bottom of the pool in his mind. Watching. Waiting.

           Hannibal hmm’d quietly, nipped his skin. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

           “Affluent families, lives of perfect appearance –they both have two car garages.”

           “They also have soulmates,” Hannibal drawled. “Did your family have a two car garage, Will?”

           “No.” Will idly bit his thumb, staring at the ceiling. “We’re a lot alike.”

           “Yes,” he agreed, and it was somehow better to hear that rather than a laundry list from Alana about all of the ways they weren’t alike. “We are born with our natures, much like we are born with our pancreas and spleen.”

           “You surgically removed those from people,” Will pointed out.

           A huff of laughter, fingertips gliding across the ribs just under his chest. “Would you remove your nature with surgical precision if you felt that you’d survive the separation?”

           “It’s…useful,” he replied, and it didn’t condemn so much as reveal.

           “As are the claws in the paw of a cat, or the incisors in a bear. We don’t blame them for possession of deadly capabilities.”

           “I feel you in my skin,” he murmured, and he wasn’t just talking about the soulmate bond.

           “And I taste you on my tongue.” A grin against his flesh that felt too-sensitive for such a subtle touch. “Is this where I tell you to run along?”

           “If you like.” He rolled over so that he was straddling Hannibal, knees pressed tight against his sides. “I may not listen.”

           He dipped his head down for a kiss to waiting, wanting lips.

-

           He was standing out by the Cliffside when someone approached him that distinctly wasn’t Hannibal. He glanced to the side warily, a young woman that appeared Japanese in heritage and distinctly unamused in expression.

           “You’re Will Graham,” she said. She stood beside him, just far enough away that he couldn’t reach out to touch.

           “Yes.” A beat. “Chiyoh?” he ventured.

           “Yes.”

           She had matching eyes and a flat, composed expression. Around them, the air smelled clean, the effects of a long rain that washed everything away.

           “You’re Hannibal’s soulmate,” she said, but it didn’t sound like what she really wanted to say.

           “Yes.” The word prickled as much as it warmed.

“You’re not like other soulmates,” she tried again.

           “Aren’t we?”

           “You’re hiding something, and there’s a man in the woods that’s made notice of this house. Hannibal doesn’t seem concerned. He told me not to shoot him.”

           Will studied the waves and nodded. Beneath the clear pool of his mind, Red Dragon was pushing up from the floor to break the surface. Somewhere hours away, Jack Crawford paced the confines of his office and wondered if he’d been played by Will. Hours from that office, Frederick Chilton lay in agonizing pain as doctors attempted skin grafts. Down the road from there, Matthew Brown lay to rest in a coffin. Even farther than that, Molly took her medicine for a shoulder sundered by Red Dragon. A ripple effect, and all roads led back to Will.

           “Do you shoot many people in the woods?” he asked.

           “Trespassers get warning shots. This isn’t a trespasser, it’s a beast.” Will liked her way of thinking. It was short, pointed. No waste for the bouquets of flowered speech.

           “A Great, Red Dragon,” he corrected her.

           “Are you going to make me regret not shooting you?” she asked.

           Are you going to put Hannibal in harm’s way?

           “…I think that remains to be seen,” he said after a prolonged pause. He tasted her disappointment at the back of his throat, like bile.

           “I never thought Hannibal would have a soulmate,” she said, and despite her even, controlled tone, it smacked of something an awful lot like the sharing of a secret.

           “Me neither,” Will agreed.

           They stood like that for some time, watching the waves beat furiously against the craggy rocks below. The ocean was so dark a blue that it resembled a violent bruise as it churned, white froth cresting the resilient stone. Will felt a second away from leaping. He felt a second away from falling back.

           Chiyoh left him there, tasting the sharp relief of the changing wind in the air, and he decided that if she shot him, it’d be fair enough. If she didn’t, it’d also be fair enough. Somewhere hours away, Jack Crawford wondered if he’d been betrayed.

-

           Another elegant dinner, although this time Will helped dice vegetables. Quiet, calm opera played throughout the room, lulled him into a dream-like state where there was almost a domestic bliss to their actions, not the preparations to a final supper. After Chiyoh’s warning, there was the sensation of being suspended in air, waiting for the drop.

           “I met Chiyoh,” he said, offering up diced carrots.

           “Did she warn you as she warned me?” Hannibal asked.

           “Yes.”

           “She must like you, in some form of fashion.”

           Hannibal’s cousin liked him. Coupled with the odd sensation of vertigo, Will couldn’t help but laugh. Just a few of months ago, he sat in a kitchen eating homemade pizza and fretting about the change. He wondered if Mrs. Panter or Mrs. Hess feared change before it happened to them. He wondered if they understood in the aftermath.

           “It wasn’t social media; they weren’t in similar groups,” he said.

           “No,” Hannibal replied.

           “No legalities that intertwined family names, no school connections, familial connections, or work connections.”

           “Pretty homes, pretty wives, pretty lives,” Hannibal intoned, setting meat in the pan. It hissed and spit at the contact to the metal.

           “The new mirrors are shatter-resistant now,” Will said, thinking of the Panter household, now that no Panter would ever live in it again. He wondered if it’d sold already.

           “What were his interests, Will?”

           “Photography. Before he faked his death to his wife, he worked at a film development place.”

           “Did you take photographs, to better understand his passion for it?”

           Will wasn’t quite sure how Hannibal knew that, but he did. “Yes.”

           “What did you feel, holding a camera poised before happy couples with mismatched eyes and lips wide with the sort of smile that hurt your own jaw?” He poured sherry into the pan, and Will watched the flames lick up along the sides, hungry.

           “Hungry.”

           “And?”

           “Covetous.” The breath left him, and he nodded, seeing. Seeing. “He was finding them long before he faked his death. He wanted to protect Reba, but he also knew Red Dragon would take hold regardless. If he found enough to feed him, he wouldn’t go back for Reba.”

           A pleased, knowing smile flickered along Hannibal’s face, then was gone. He walked over to the small island where Will paused in the mincing of mushrooms, and he picked up a small bowl housing garlic. Will tracked his movement, relished in the hitched gait of his steps. Relished in the knowledge that he put it there.

           “His work at the film development agency gave him access to thousands of families from all around whose lives were picture perfect,” Will said to Hannibal’s back. “He had the pleasure of being able to choose at his leisure. Take notes, keep addresses, then the bastard went on as he liked.”

           “He once showed me a notebook of names, phone numbers, and addresses,” Hannibal admitted guiltlessly. “I thought it rather quaint, his needing to write it down.”

           “You drew some of your best art,” Will said. The word ‘art’ echoed in his head, and he grimaced at the way it sounded. Admiring rather than condemning. “That’s how Alana found you out.”

           “The mushrooms, Will,” Hannibal reminded him. Will didn’t resist the hint of a smirk on his lips as he dipped his head to mince mushrooms.

           They ate in the formal dining room, something Will didn’t miss as a symbolic and mildly pretentious act on Hannibal’s part. He didn’t mind it, though, the ceremony. The knowledge of the how sat heady and hot in his stomach, therefore the inevitable death of Red Dragon was assured. Assured, but…not yet quite alright. He thought of Hannibal’s question, his request.

           There was something just so utterly good about doing bad things to bad people.

           He wasn’t sure how he knew they weren’t alone; the hair on the back of his neck prickled, and his grip on the fork tightened. He looked to Hannibal, Hannibal looked back, and Will was struck with the sensation that how had he ever thought Hannibal didn’t look just right with one eye blue, the other maroon. His mouth opened, intending to say something much like that.

           Then he toppled from his chair with the force of a bullet bursting through his mouth.

           He’d been gutted before; that’d been a dizzying sensation where each pulse of breath seemed to take more and more from him as he spilled blood across the floor with a numbing, gushing feeling right around his intestines. He’d been too shocked to hurt, his brain tamping down the pain at the utter surprise of it.

           This was not that. Not in the least.

            A hot, piercing pain inflamed his cheek as he fell, and when he hit the ground there was a rush of blood that filled his mouth and poured down the back of his throat as he instinctively swallowed, a curse on his lips that was never heard because the poignant hurt snuffed the sound out of him. Each move of his mouth sent waves along his head, making his eyes water, making his nose flare at the scent.

           He was aware of glass shattering. The sound of a chair scraping, footsteps heavy. Then he was up, and he’d never felt more alive.

           Red Dragon looked stronger, darker. More capable than before, when he’d only barely just devoured The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun. Now, he’d had time to devour, to Become. He swung the gun towards Hannibal, but Hannibal’s hands were fast, and a knife glinted in the lowlight before the gun fell and a guttural snarl of pain made Red Dragon pull back, retract. A steak knife jutted out of his hand, the juxtaposition startling in the ambient light.

           Without a thought, Will tackled him back out of the house and down onto the grass, rolling with the force of it, slamming them into the pile of wood that rested near a burn pit. Small cut-outs along the metal of the burn pit resembled wolves in mid-run, and they seemed to snarl, leap. Something bit into the space just under his collarbone, seared flesh with steel, and Will snarled, thumbs coming down onto a struggling face with teeth copper-colored in the moonlight. The moon was fat, full. The bastard waited for a full moon.

           Thumbs pressed into eyes, and at the choking scream the hair on Will’s neck prickled, rose. Blood burst against his thumbs, ran down the face to coat his hands and into the short, buzzed hair of Red Dragon. A force bred of pain lifted, threw. Will had the sensation of flying, then falling, hitting the ground hard. The breath left him, and he wheezed as he scrambled to his feet, pulling the knife from him that Hannibal deemed fit to leave in Red Dragon’s palm.

           They considered one another, one watching, one sniffing the air like he could track by scent alone. Waiting. Breath panted from Will, even as it singed his cheeks, even as it ached his ribs. Blood trailed down Red Dragon’s jaws, cheeks, chin, like scarlet tears.

“You can’t have a soulmate if you don’t have eyes,” Will taunted him, just loud enough to be heard. Red Dragon charged, and Will met him halfway, slamming into him with a force that rattled teeth, bruised bones. He pulled his face away from teeth that snapped, and he slammed the knife into his throat. As given, so returned, and a guttural gasp scratched past his ear.

           He wasn’t fast enough, though; Red Dragon knew he would use the knife to stab, to take. As quickly as it delved in, it was removed, and Will was met with a crippling sensation as something got him in the back, enough that it dropped him, enough that it made lights dance before his eyes, threatened to make him pass out from the pain alone that screamed NO.

           He fell to the side, hands grasping at the knife. He pulled it out and rolled onto his back, wheezing, hisses of breath that made the openings in his cheeks sing sweet misery. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, dark waves rising up, but he held fast, something whispering in his blood that he’d blinded the Red Dragon, but Red Dragon didn’t need eyes to see.

           “See?” Garrett Jacob Hobbs whispered, bleeding life out onto the floor. “…See?”

           “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born,” Red Dragon rasped. The words were heavy, coarse, broken between a ruined windpipe and the horrendous teeth in his mouth, but Will knew them and knew them well.

           He stood, and the moonlight above caressed him, bathed in him a light that turned the blood trailing down Red Dragon’s cheeks a shiny black. Did it bolster Red Dragon as much as it did him? He bared his teeth, considered the knife in his slick hands. Considered the axe sitting just to the side of the wood pile.

           He moved, and Red Dragon lunged with the sound, head bobbing low to hear him. He missed, and Will ran to the axe, lifting it up twisting with the force of it, a sickening sound of metal meeting skin and bone as it connected. Red Dragon gave chase, and Will Graham followed through. He stumbled, though, fell with it, and as Red Dragon collapsed to the ground, lungs giving way to the hands of man, he keened, low and coarse.

           “See?” Will whispered, climbing on top of him. He grabbed him by the throat, gripped tight. “…See?”

           Red Dragon tried to pry his vice-like grip from his throat, but he couldn’t. Blood gushed over his hands, hot and very much alive. Sightless, mutilated eyes gaped, unseeing, and in their lack of sight Will saw.

           “See?” he murmured, and he felt when the breath didn’t come, when the limbs stopped moving. The mouth, fish-like as it fought for air stilled, and the eyeless, gaping holes stared up, up, up where the moon shone high above them, bathing them in its heavenly glow.

           With a soundless death rattle, Red Dragon was no more.

           He slid off of him when he was sure, when his hands cramped with the effort. Dazedly, he blinked past waves of pain, adrenaline making his skin sensitive to touch, to live inside. Should he peel it off? Layer by layer until he saw bone?

           He was aware of too much, of footsteps breaking blades of grass, clicking across the tile of the small eating area now slick with gore. Waves crashed below, hungry, and just above the stars bore witness. Red Dragon was no more because Will devoured him. They saw. They could see.

           Someone helped him up; Hannibal, Hannibal. He stumbled, righted himself, and Will lifted shining eyes to a face of pleasant hunger.

           “It’s black in the moonlight,” he said, and his cheeks fucking burned.

           “How do you feel, Will?” Hannibal asked him. Dazedly, Will noted his arm, blood trailing down the crisp white shirt, and he lifted hands to press to the wound. As he did, his own arm hissed, spit, cursed. He could feel it.

           “Alive,” he murmured, and he looked to Hannibal’s mismatched eyes, stunned. “I feel very alive.”

           “And the Great Red Dragon?”

           “I ate him,” he whispered, wet his lips stained with blood. A dizzying rush took his legs out from under him, and he fell against Hannibal, pressed his forehead to his throat. It wasn’t like the nurse, Lecter’s pulse maintaining calm. His heart hammered in his throat, hammered against Will’s skin, and he nodded with it, bunching the material of Hannibal’s shirt under his hands that ached from stealing the breath from someone.

           He looked up at Hannibal, grabbed his face and held it. He swept thumbs across his cheeks, and if he minded the blood smeared over his skin, he didn’t say anything. Hannibal pressed his forehead to Will’s, and Will inhaled the taste of him.

           “I’m hurting,” he realized, and the burning, numbing sensation at his back clawed its way to his brain.

           “In this moment, you are at your most beautiful,” Hannibal whispered, and arms came around to hold him. A hand passed along the back of his hair, soothing in its ministrations. Hannibal’s own face was sickly pale. “Are you going to kill me now, dear Will?”

           A shudder down his back at the pain radiating from kidney to spine, settling on his shoulder where Hannibal had been wounded. He wanted to touch. His brain reasoned that he should sleep. “I want to sleep, first. Then we’ll talk about that in the morning.”

           He didn’t sleep, but Hannibal did put him under anesthesia so that he could prevent him from dying. As he was going under, Will thought that it was a rather nice thing for him to do.