#can you imagine Jacob and Barney in the same room??

[frecklystars]

I love that all of my friends who have watched Crazy Stupid Love with me will point at Ryan Gosling's character and say "ohhh I see why you like him... he's like your other F/O, Barney Stinson :) except he kinda respects women a little bit more" and I'm like... what. oh... huh.

I see.

[lamptracker]

FIC: Win/Win (part 9/?)

ySo guess what I did today!

Overall Summary: Temporarily homeless, the reader needs a place to stay. Her friend Tom, who has a reputation for being a womanizer, has an extra room… and an idea.

Very loosely based on the How I Met Your Mother episode “World’s Greatest Couple,” where Lily posed as Barney’s wife to help him get rid of his one-night stands.

Part summary: At Jacob and Zendaya’s wedding reception, the reader breaks her “no talking to Tony” rule, but for a good reason. Tom makes a split-second decision that impacts their future. It’s fluff, you guys. Pure unadulterated FLUFF

Series Masterlist

I forget who I actually had tagged for this thing so I’m going off my taglist: 

@flokidottir-imagines-br  @musiclover1263  @judemoos   @drxgxnslxyer   @hollanderheart   @thequeensardine   @ive-got-some-lies-to-tell   @captainbuckyy   @xxtomxo   @bringmethehorizonandpizza

“So, how do I look?” (Y/n) asked, stepping into the living room in a long, one-shouldered pink gown. She did a little twirl, causing the bottom of the skirt to flare slightly.

Tom bit his lower lip as he finished tying his tie. “You look absolutely stunning, love.”

(y/n) giggled. “You don’t look so bad yourself, y’know.”

“I clean up alright.” Tom adjusted his tie so it tucked into the vest of his tuxedo. “You ready for this wedding?”

“Absolutely. I am so happy for Jacob and Z, this wedding is going to be so much fun.”

“You know Tony’s going to be there?”

(Y/n) groaned. “I know. Just have to ignore him, y’know? As long as I don’t have to look at Morgan too much I’ll be fine. She should have had that baby by now, I wonder why Jacob’s never mentioned it?”

“Beats me, love.” Tom held out his arm, bent at the elbow; (y/n) looped her own arm through it. “Shall we?”

“We shall.”

At the reception, after (y/n) had given her maid of honor speech and Tom and Harrison their co-best-man speech, Jacob and Zendaya were enjoying their first dance. (y/n) watched them silently for a little while before she noticed Tony sitting at a table near the back corner of the room, by himself.

“This is going to be one of the odder sentences coming out of my mouth,” she said to Tom, “but...uh… I’m going to go talk to Tony.” She pointed at Tony, alone in the corner.

Tom nodded. “Want me to come along?”

“You can if you want, but you’re absolutely not obligated.” 

Tom smiled warmly at her. “Think I’ll go harass Harrison and Amelia for a bit, then. Good luck.”

(y/n) kissed his cheek softly before heading back to the corner; she slid out a chair next to Tony and sat down. “You look like you’d rather be getting a root canal,” she remarked. 

“Wouldn’t be so bad at this point.” Tony shrugged. “Thought you never wanted to talk to me again.”

“I didn’t,” (y/n) agreed. “But you look so sad back here, and part of me does still care about you, so… oh, hey, how’s fatherhood?”

Tony snorted. “Dunno,” he replied, sneering. “Why don’t you ask the baby’s father?”

(Y/n)’s eyes grew wide. “Wh-what?”

“That crack you made that last time we talked? That ‘Are you sure you’re the father?’ Turns out… I’m not. She cheated on me with a guy from work, he got her pregnant. She confessed everything when I got home that day. I took a DNA test after he was born just to make sure, and sure enough…” Tony sighed. “Morgan still wanted me to be part of their lives, though. She kept calling me, texting me, it was so… I just wanted to move on, you know? But she was making it impossible. Made me realize I was putting you through the same thing. If it sucked for me, I can’t imagine how much it sucked for you.”

“Wow, Tony, I’m really sorry about all that. I really was kidding.”

“I know you were. But, look, (y/n). I just want to apologize for the way I treated you. I should have left you alone the first time you asked me to. I was awful, and I know it, and I’m truly sorry.”

“You know what, Tony?” (y/n) smiled at him. “I forgive you, I really do.”

Tony smiled back at her. “Thank you, (y/n), that means a lot. So I’m a little bummed today, but I’ll survive. Hey, how are things going with Tom?”

“Really great. He’s so amazing, Tony. He’s funny, he’s caring, he’s...he is just all-around amazing. I really love him.”

“I’m so glad you’re happy,” Tony said. “I still care about you too, and I just want you to be happy. If Tom makes you happy, then good for you guys.”

“I’m impressed, Tony. You’ve really grown up these last few months.”

“Well, when someone does to you the thing you’ve been doing to someone else for almost a year… it’s a tough lesson to learn, but boy have I learned it.” Tony stood up slowly. “I will absolutely understand if you say no, but… can we still be friends after this?”

(y/n) pushed her chair back as she stood up. “Sure. Not, like super-close friends. But I definitely will get rid of my voodoo doll of you now.”

“That explains why my back hurt the other day, then.”

(y/n) laughed. “I’m kidding, come here.” She pulled him into a quick hug. “Now, try to have some fun, okay? I’m gonna go find Tom.”

“Okay. You have fun too. It was really nice to get to talk to you today.”

“Yeah, you too.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before making her way back to the front of the ballroom.

“Everything alright?” Tom asked, when (y/n) approached him again.

“Yeah. Let’s go dance, I’ll tell you all about it.” She grasped his hand and led him to the dance floor as a slower song started to play. “So turns out, Morgan’s baby? Not Tony’s.”

Tom gasped loudly. “You’re kidding!”

“Nope. AND! Apparently all that stuff he was doing to me after we broke up, she did to him. And he realized how much it sucks, so he apologized for it. We’re on good terms again, I mean obviously I’ll never date him again but at least now we can be in the same room without me waiting for an anvil to fall on his head.”

“You know what that is? That’s growth.” Tom smiled warmly at her.  

“What, me or Tony?”

“Yes.”

(y/n) threw her head back, laughing, as she and Tom twirled around the dance floor.

As the reception wound down, (y/n) and Tom stayed behind to clean up while Jacob and Zendaya went to their hotel. 

“I can’t believe you caught the bouquet,” Tom said.

“I can’t believe the garter bounced off your head and landed in Jacob’s grandma’s lap,” you replied, giggling at the memory as Tom rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, not one of my finer moments. Think we only have a couple guest tables left to un-decorate, then the bridal party table and we should be all set.”

(y/n) nodded as she carefully gathered decorations off the table she was standing next to.

Tom could not believe his luck. He thought that, after Ellie, he would never settle down again. Ever. But then, he met you, and you took a chance on him…

...he knew, right then and there, he had to find a way to hang on to you forever.

“Hey, um, (y/n)?”

She put a picture frame holding Zendaya and Jacob’s engagement picture in a box and whirled around. “Yeah, Tom?”

“Here’s a hypothetical question for you. Is it bad form to propose to someone at someone else’s wedding reception?”

“Only if the bride and groom and all 300 guests are still there. Why?”

Tom grasped her hand, dropping to one knee.

“Tom, you… I… Thomas Stanley Holland!”

“Look, (y/n). I thought I was in love before. And I thought I would never be in love ever again. And then… and then you came along and you proved me wrong on both counts. What I had with Ellie, it wasn’t love, not the love you’ve shown me and let me be a part of. And you’ve melted what Harrison once called the ‘icy lump in my chest masquerading as a heart’, and taught me how to love and be loved. I can’t… I don’t want to let that go. You were my fake wife once, and now I want nothing more than for you to be the real thing. I was going to wait until I bought a ring, but I can’t anymore. (y/n), will you marry me?”

Tears sprang to (y/n)’s eyes as she smiled and started nodding feverishly. “Yes!” she gasped. 

Tom sprang to his feet and cupped her face in his hands. “I love you,” he said as he leaned in to press a gentle kiss to her lips.

“I love you, Tom.”

[elfnerdherder]

The Fault in My Code: Ch. 10

You can read Chapter 10 on Ao3 Here

Chapter 10:

                          To Catch a Madman: It Takes a Madman?

           Two murders, both horrendous in their method and brutality, have swept across the nation in a state of panic. We remember Michael Frost, who targeted his victims and strung them up like icicle lights towards the anniversary of his soulmate’s demise, and we certainly remember Charles Ganse, whose obsession with soulmates caused him to kidnap couples in order to collect their mismatched eyes. There are none so deadly as the Red Dragon, though, who has finally stepped out of the darkness in order to drag Dr. Will Graham to the light.

           We last remember Dr. Will Graham as a consultant to the FBI who aided in psychological profiles of killers. After his admittance to a psyche ward following his killing of Garrett Jacob Hobbs ���you will remember him better as the Minnesota Shrike –we believed his career in profiling criminals was at an end. It seems, with the death of two and more to come, that he has been brought out of retirement in order to help the FBI one more time.

           I found him outside of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, after a meeting he’d held with Baltimore’s own resident cannibal, Hannibal Lecter. He was neither calm nor collected, and I was once again reminded of how he’d been just a few years before, a consultant for the FBI, but certainly no agent. The screening process alone is arduous to be an agent, and it is quick to find any forms of mental instability.

           Is the FBI so desperate that they not only turned to Dr. Graham, but to Hannibal the Cannibal, too? Are they at such a loss that in order to catch this madman, they employ not one, but two? These are desperate times for America, and we can only witness with trepidation the bumbling ways that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is trying to keep us safe. To be sure, the Red Dragon is watching, and he’s as amused as we are terrified.

           “Will,” Jack cautioned.

           “I’m fine,” Will said pleasantly. The coffee sloshing over the rim of his cup said otherwise, but Jack wasn’t going to point that out. His hands shook, and he stared out of the window, elbow digging into the newspaper with a vengeance. He imagined it to be Freddie Lounds’ face.

           “It could have been worse.”

           “She talked about my-”

           “I know what she talked about,” Jack cut in smoothly. “Forget about her. She doesn’t matter; I do. I say it’s not relevant.”

           “She’s right, though. You’re desperate, and we haven’t got much.”

           “We know who it is, we know his motivations, we know what he’s capable of, and we know that at some point, he’s going to try for Lecter. That’s far more than we had a month ago.”

           “How’s he choosing them, Jack.” Will destroyed a buttered roll beneath anxious fingers. “That’s how you find him, now that he’s shadow suspended in dust. You got his wife safe, you got his face, and you’ve got an art gallery that wants his head for eating prized art, but you don’t know how he’s choosing who to kill, so you don’t know where to find him.”

           “Do you have an idea?” Jack asked.

           Will finished his coffee and set the cup down a little too hard; it rattled in the saucer and drew the ire of the waitress walking by. An hour of sitting, and they’d ordered coffee, biscuits and gravy without the gravy, and a roll. Her worst nightmare realized.

           “I think I’d be good bait,” he said. He stared out of the window, watching a colorful argument wedged between two cars. They were soulmates, their faces close enough to kiss, their fists close enough to hurt. He thought about Hannibal stroking his back to ease the knots out of it, and he shuddered.

           “Molly wouldn’t forgive me if I used you as bait,” Jack said, but he didn’t sound opposed in the least. A thread of intrigue filtered in his voice.

           “She already hates you,” Will said cheerfully. “She asked if the safe house would have any Crawfords in it, and when I said no she was grateful I took that into consideration.”

           Silence. Jack was many things, but the years taught Will that he wasn’t kind. He’d done his fair share of putting Will in the sort of mental places that Alana ground her teeth at night over, and he did so with conscious precision and no guilt. If it meant they caught a killer, what did he care what happened to Will? Will was just one, and the body count of a serial killer was far too many to risk.

           “I’ll see what can be done,” Jack said slowly.

           Will left him in the shitty diner with Lounds’ article, a disintegrated roll, and the responsibility of the tip to the murderous, matching-eyed waitress.

-

           Chilton intercepted him on his way to Lecter, and for that he was annoyed. He seemed to radiate something, though, something that gave Will enough pause to be uncertain, on edge. He followed him to his office and sat down, legs spread and hands resting on his thighs. He gnawed on his bottom lip.

           “You know, Dr. Graham, I have to say that I’m an absolute horror at keeping secrets,” Chilton began, and Will bit down on his lip a little harder to keep something snarky at bay. “I’ve been rather good about this one, but recent events have led me to believe that I would be doing you a disservice to keep quiet any longer.”

           “What,” Will prompted flatly.

           Chilton turned his computer monitor around so that Will could see it; a series of videos were shown, from isolation rooms to hallways to Abel Gideon’s room. Will studied them dispassionately, although his heart stumbled a little. He didn’t like where this was going.

           “Now, according to the law, I can only keep video of hallways, access points, and rooms where the patient is a danger to themselves and must be monitored. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I wheedled, Lecter’s room was none of those things.”

           “Alright.”

           “Then your clever little stint with the partitions put you at an advantage, allowing a wall of privacy.”

           Will said nothing to that, since such a clever little stint had been his goal in its entirety.

           “What I do have, though, is audio.” Chilton’s brown eyes flickered in triumph, noting the tensing of Will’s shoulders. He couldn’t help it, an involuntary action.

           “That’s not legal, either,” Will managed. His fingers curled to fists on his lap.

           “We have arguably one of the smartest serial killers within these walls, Dr. Graham, and I wasn’t going to leave his actions here to chance,” Chilton retorted. “He wasn’t forthcoming in conversations-”

           “So you bugged his room to hear just what he said when you weren’t around,” Will snapped. His leg jiggled slightly as he bounced its weight on the ball of his foot.

           “There was nothing of true note until you came along, in reality,” Chilton said, unheeding of Will’s discomfort. “You walked through those doors, though, Dr. Graham, and something changed fundamentally.”

           He clicked a button on the screen, and a crackly, soft but clear voice came through.

           “What the fuck did you do to me?”

           “I don’t understand; of what am I being accused?”

           “Stop,” Will prompted. Chilton didn’t stop, merely fast-forwarded. Will despised hearing just how panicked and terrified he sounded.

           “If I kiss you now, will you ask me for more?”

           “Run along now, Dr. Graham, before I make you stay.”

           “Stop,” Will said again, harsher. That time, Chilton did. He clasped his hands on his desk, pleased to see Will’s undivided attention.

           “One-sided connection indeed, Dr. Graham,” he said triumphantly. “At first, I was happy to let this continue, learn as I needed on a psychological level as well as a soulmate level. Your horror in of itself was enough to satisfy me. After your last meeting with him, though, Barney informed me that through the cracks in the partition, it wasn’t a mere conversation you were having with him. The silence on the audio was enough to convince me.”

           “It’s not illegal to have a soulmate,” Will said, but it sounded tinny, even to him. The back of his neck prickled, uncomfortable, and he was aware that about four hundred and fifty seven yards away, Hannibal knew something was amiss.

           “Not in the least, but I do have to protect you from yourself.” Chilton smiled, and it didn’t reach his eyes. “I said he gets into your head, Dr. Graham, and I was correct.”

           Hannibal got into his head. Matthew Brown took one eye, Hannibal took another. Will thought of his dreams where he removed his eyes, fingers blood-stained and lips trembling as he tried to put himself back together. Whenever Hannibal tried to do it for him, he cringed away from it. He was in his head, he was in his eyes, he was in his fucking dreams.

           “What are you going to do, then?” Will asked, and this time his tone was far better controlled. Darker. Harsher. “He has pertinent information regarding the serial killer that the FBI is currently hunting for, and pulling me from interviewing him would be seen as an obstruction of justice. He won’t speak to anyone else but me on the matter –let alone you, who had to bug his room in order to glean any words from him in their entirety.”

           It wasn’t quite smart to goad the one holding the key to his soulmate, but Will didn’t back down, his eyes flicking up to Chilton’s chin, then his two brown eyes that darkened at the challenge. Will wasn’t afraid of becoming a soulmate to Chilton. Chilton would die alone because no one in the world would chemically bond to him. The thought made Will smile, a savage twist at the edges.

           “I have no designs on making this public, since his stacks of lonely hearts letters would only grow at the thought that he would potentially connect to any of them, too. He sometimes makes me feel more like a secretary rather than an administrator.” At that, Chilton sniffed. “At the same time, Dr. Graham, we must look out for one another, mustn’t we? Psychiatrists and all.”

           “Psychiatrists and all,” Will echoed.

           “I want you to keep him talking. I want you to get him to talk about himself. As fascinated as I am with the way he’s delved into you, he’s the one I’m attempting to write a book on. If I tried to write a book about you, I think Dr. Bloom would fly down here in a rage with Verger lawyers at her back.”

           “I’m under no legal obligation to do that,” Will said. “In fact, I can think of several laws put in place for the sole purpose of protecting soulmates against that.”

           “Oh, come now, Dr. Graham; you know that the connection between the two of you isn’t something you want.” Chilton propped his chin up and considered Will, fingers curling like hooks over his cheek. “I could all but feel your repulsion radiating from you every time you walked through my doors. We can help one another.”

           “I’m not going to let you use me.”

           “If you’re not inclined to help, I’m not entirely inclined to keep your secrets.”

           There it was. The blackmail on the table. Will bit down on the fat of his cheek, hard. He could just imagine the fury on Jack’s face, the horror and indignation at his secrecy and his mental state. Maybe if he’d come clean sooner, they’d have simply removed him from the case, but this far into everything, it’d be seen as something worse. Jack would take it just about as personally as anyone was capable of –an attack of the worst kind, seeing as how the only person in the world Will seemed capable of connecting to was a cannibalistic serial killer.

           “I’ll see what I can do,” Will said at last. He gritted his teeth. “Last time I tried to play him, though, I’ll remind you that my girlfriend was almost murdered.”

           “I have every faith in you,” Chilton said, pleased.

           He was given his partitions, whatever that meant. Will rocked from his heels to his toes, then back again as they were set up. Beside him, Abel leaned against the bars.

           “I saw what you did,” he said conversationally.

           “Did you, Dr. Gideon?”

           “You got Matthew Brown sentenced here rather than prison. A smart move on your part, Dr. Graham. Now that his contacts are out, he’s just one of us in the end.”

           So am I, Will thought savagely.

           “I thought it was best, given his half-connection. The psychotic break alone wasn’t something they’d help him with in a prison.”

           “That, and his half-connection to you is all the orderlies can talk about,” Gideon said gleefully. “Dr. Graham, so entrenched in soulmates that people are connecting to him left and right. First Matthew, then Hannibal Lecter. Just what would it take for you to connect back, I wonder?”

           The knowing look on his face told Will that the question was rhetorical. He knew everything.

           “…You tried to warn me,” he said at last, taking a step closer to the bars.

           Gideon tilted his head, regarded Will with a small, twitching smile. He looked around, like he was searching for someone else that may have been listening in, then shrugged innocently, leaning into the corner between the bars and the wall.

           “I may have been inclined,” he said slyly.

           Will stared at him, the faint stubble, the face soft rather than angled like Lecter’s. He didn’t work out with a ferocity that Will felt Hannibal did, muscles aching in the aftermath. He was content with his bed and what little he was allowed inside of the cell. He had nothing better to do, Will supposed, than to try and stir the shit, rile him up.

           And yet…

           “Thank you, Dr. Gideon,” he said at last, sincere. “For trying.”

           “As I said, I do like it when people are polite. No reason or motive in the world other than the fact that you choose to be kind when you could be cruel. Enough people are cruel when they could be kind, I think.”

           Will nodded, rubbed his mouth to wipe away the small smile that threatened. He wondered what Abel Gideon would think if he knew that Will had intentionally found a way to lock Matthew Brown back into the BSHCI. He’d been cruel when he could have been kind. Maybe though, maybe Abel Gideon of all people would see he’d only done it because people had a habit of just not leaving him the hell alone, like Alana and Will both wanted so damn much.

           “Prepare yourself, though, Dr. Graham,” Abel said when Will didn’t speak. “You’re not going to like what you see just on the other side of that partition. Not. One. Bit.”

           “…Thank you for the warning,” he said, and at a nod from Barney at the partition, he turned and walked around it, leaving Abel in his corner, smirking with his secrets.

           Abel was right. He didn’t like it. Not. One. Bit.

           He pushed down against the concrete, and it pushed back. There had been a time, when he was younger and far less in control of himself –he steadfastly ignored the fact that he still didn’t really feel in control of himself –when he’d dig his fingernails so hard into his palms that he’d break skin. It was that or shout, fists hitting dry wall as he tried to get the demons out from under his skin. There was a myriad of ways to try and control the sudden rush of fury, and he was sometimes an avid fan of counting backwards from ten, then twenty, then fifty. He did that now, staring. Hannibal studied his body language, gaze narrowed and curious.

           “They took your things,” Will said after the silence felt too heavy.

           “A punishment for ultimately leading you into a wild goose chase, obstructing justice, and endangering lives, or so I’m told,” Hannibal replied amiably. If he was troubled, he gave no indication. Will was absolutely troubled, though. The drawings on the wall were gone, as well as the books, newspapers, and table. Even the chair, bolted as it had been, had been taken away, holes in the ground where it’d been screwed into the floor. The pens, letters, and magazines were also missing, and it, for the first time, seemed like an honest, true cell.

           Apart from the initial shock, there was a dark part of Will that delighted in Hannibal having to live among the muck and the mire like the rest of the murderers and killers had to. What other serial killer could boast an extensive library and constant correspondence with psychiatrists and grad students? There was something righteously glorious about three grey, hideous cement walls.

           No, the only thing that truly bothered Will was the glass wall that separated them from floor to ceiling, nothing but holes along the top of the glass allowing air to circulate and speech to be heard. It looked to be a foot thick, a dense and formidable material. How Chilton had gotten it up in a day, Will wasn’t quite sure –it was likely he’d had it at the ready when he was done eavesdropping on Will and Hannibal. The invasion of his privacy, of his weaknesses exposed in such a blasé manner –

           -It made him think an awful lot about how doing bad things to bad people felt really, really good.

           “I’d ask how you’re feeling, but it’s an extreme enough emotion that I don’t have to ask. It’s radiating in my pulse,” Hannibal said.

           “Dr. Chilton is listening.”

           “Yes, I imagine he is,” he agreed. “When you leave, he will likely filter in an evangelical broadcast to make me reflect on the things I’ve done. That, coupled with the glass divider; he does enjoy his petty torments.”

           “That invasive, fucking-” He cut himself off. Chilton was listening.

           His head cocked to the side, curious. “Did you suppose I’d be granted privacy?”

           “I supposed I’d be granted privacy,” Will said. He thought about sitting down, but he tossed the idea. His blood curdled, livid.

           “It made me curious about what you’d do next. Is this the end for us?”

           Will shook his head, and he walked to the barrier, the tips of his shoes brushing against the wall. In the reflection of the glass, he saw both himself and Hannibal, and he wondered dazedly if that’s what it was to be soulmates –to see so much of yourself in someone else that you bled together. He swallowed with difficulty; he didn’t want to bleed out, to become a distorted part of himself. His madness was like an oil spill, and he desperately wanted to contain it.

           “Ah, I see; you take no issue in avoiding being so close to me as long as it is by your choice, but now that the choice was taken away, you’re upset.”

           “Is this funny to you?” Will asked.

           “Yes,” Hannibal said, shaking his head no. Will tasted the thinly veiled fury that licked along his bones, and he wasn’t sure anymore if it was his or of it was Lecter’s. It was possessive. Dark. “What are you going to do now, dear Will? I’m curious.”

           “I don’t know,” Will said. A lie, and Hannibal felt it as much as he saw it in the dark look beyond the plastic lenses Will wore to hide just what he was. A moment, charged with something smacking of sin, flickered between them. Hannibal licked his lips. They didn’t need words, and Will wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

           Will lifted his hand up, and he placed his palm to the glass, pressed his fingertips deep like he could break the barrier by will alone. He stared into Hannibal’s mismatched eyes, Hannibal stared back, and after a second that tasted like a thousand heartbeats, Hannibal lifted his palm and pressed back.

           I’ll play your game, Hannibal mouthed to him. Since you were so obliging to play mine.

           Will nodded, and he walked away, leaving Hannibal with his palm print and the sense of something on the horizon. His bones hummed, small sparks of electricity on his tongue.

-

           Jack Crawford was about as well-versed in the art of swearing as any other person. As he raged and paced in the confines of Will’s hotel room, he used every word under the sun that he could grasp onto in such a moment as that, palms hot and eyes blindingly furious. Will watched from the safety of the chair he sometimes slept in, a whiskey sour in hand, chewed-up straw dangling from his mouth. His eyes did not itch, nor did they convey a lie bought at the convenient price of $24.99.

           “And of all of the fucking, god damned, piece of shit –over a month, Will? A fucking month?” A deep inhalation. “More than a month, quite a few fucking months?”

           “Hannibal god-damned Lecter?” Will mouthed along with him, swirling his drink.

           “When I said –and I know I fucking said it –when I fucking said to come to me if you felt you were in too deep, did it occur to you that that was too deep?”

           A rhetorical question. Will made the mistake of not-quite catching that the first time, and he’d been verbally steamrolled. Hence the drink.

           Well over an hour took Jack to stopping mid-step and staring at the wall like it had the answers. The fight hadn’t left him, but the ability to convey even his basest of emotions had. Like a balloon pricked with a fine-tipped needle, the air had to ease out of him sooner or later. Three drinks later, in Will’s case.

           “It’s not ideal for me, either, Jack,” Will said, turning the straw over and over in his hands. “It’s not been a vacation.”

           “You lied to me,” Jack managed, still staring at the wall.

           “I told you I didn’t want to do this, and you made me do this. I walked in there, and I got fucked over more than you did, I think.”

           “Oh, you think?” Jack rounded on him, but seeing the empty glass in his hand seemed to shock some of the anger out of him –he balked at the image of a too calm Dr. Graham.

           “I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got a serial killer in my head, and I’ve got one at my back, scratching at it.’”

           “This has compromised this entire investigation,” Jack groused.

           “It hasn’t. I haven’t broken any laws, and Lecter’s already imprisoned for murdering people, so his obstruction of justice isn’t really going to bother him too much,” Will pointed out. “Besides, it gives you what you want, doesn’t it? I’ve got a real bad feeling that I should linger right around this area, and you need me to help you catch your Red Dragon, right around this area.”

           “Oh, no, the fuck you are,” Jack snarled. “You’re on a plane to Molly –Christ’s sake, Will, does Molly know?”

           “Molly knows,” said Will amiably.

           “How’s she feel about that?”

           “I’m thinking, ‘I warned you this would change me, Molly. You won’t know me the same.’ And she said, ‘I’ll get to know you all over again.’”

           “You’re off this case, and I-”

           “The fuck I am, Jack,” Will said, and Jack stopped at the sound of the glass falling out of Will’s hand, hitting the floor with an anticlimactic thud and rolling on its side. Will thought about leaving it, but he ultimately sighed, bent down and retrieved it, straw dangling from his lips. He thought about Molly and cringed.

           “I didn’t hear that,” Jack warned him.

           “You did,” Will retorted. “Molly almost died because of Red Dragon, and you dragged me out of a pretty god damn good life to come find him for you. I’ve got a maroon eye that belongs to a serial killer behind a glass wall, and I’ve got a pretty good idea to suss out your killer that you wanted so badly you wrecked my life to get him.”

           There were many things that Jack Crawford was, but kind was not one of them. Will felt his eyes, weighing and assessing, and he knew without having to know that he’d piqued his interest –enough to at least hear him out. In the end, no matter what he felt for Will, mercy wasn’t one of those things. He’d sacrifice Will for anything, and Will was counting on that.

           “What’s the idea?”

           “He loves reading about Lecter, doesn’t he? And now I’ve interested him.” Will shifted in his chair, getting comfortable. He rubbed his bad eye. “I’m thinking, ‘the only thing worse than getting caught is your idol denouncing you.’ I’m thinking… ‘Why don’t we draw him out to me?’”

           “Bait,” Jack said, clipped.

           “Freddie Lounds is biting at the bit to get me to do an interview. I’ve got four voicemails. We get her to write about me, write about Lecter, and really make Red Dragon mad. Get Chilton in on it, too, let out some stuff about his inability to acquire a soulmate, his impotency, leanings towards things he’d feel as inferior to him –sexuality, appearance, you name it. Two doctors talking about it, one an expert in soulmates, the other an ‘expert’ with criminal psychology? You want him to make a mistake, you gotta make him mad enough to do it, Jack. We’ve gotta make Red Dragon mad.”

           Jack started pacing again. This time, Will leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling rather than track it, letting his eyelids keep track of time. At one hundred blinks, his footsteps trailed to a stop, and Will pulled the straw from his mouth, tying aimless knots into it.

           “We do this, I’ve got round-the-clock guard on you. You’re wearing Kevlar.”

           “Bullet wounds are headshots on the victims, Jack. He goes for the head.”

           “You’re wearing Kevlar,” Jack snapped.

           “I’ll wear Kevlar,” Will groused.

           “We’ll need to take pictures to make it believable. Will you take pictures?”

           Will sighed, like it was the most difficult thing he’d ever been asked to do. “I’ll take pictures.”

           “You’re a son-of-a-bitch,” Jack informed him.

           Will didn’t have it in him to disagree. Somehow, the lack of fight made Jack anxious, and he shifted from one foot to the other.

           “…You have killers in your head all the time, Will. What’s it feel like to have this one, now that it’s…chemical rather than psychological?” he asked when he found the words he’d been fumbling for. After yelling so long, the sudden curiosity was almost laughable.

           “Like putting my hands in black paint and pressing it over my eyes,” he said, and he finally looked at Jack, dropping the straw onto the table beside him.

           “I’m sorry,” Jack said, and it wasn’t for the cussing.

           “Me too,” Will replied.

-

           Freddie Lounds handled herself far better than anyone expected. With the aid of an ecstatic Chilton and a resigned Crawford, Will sat down with her and answered questions no honest journalist would ask, phrased his words in a way no true psychiatrist would. Chilton added in a word or two on the matter, and it became a sort of banter back and forth, the two of them building off of one another’s ‘theories’ on the ‘Soul Stealer’.

           “He’s certainly inbred,” Will said.

           “Prone to homosexual tendencies,” Chilton added in.

           Will’s contacts remained in. Now that Jack knew, Will had no fear of Chilton. What little ground he’d hoped to gain ahead of Will for his book –Blood and Chocolate, he’d confided in Will –was lost. Not that Will would tell him that, though.

           Hannibal was behind a glass wall, and Will didn’t like it.

           When Freddie pulled out her camera, Will noted the tense stance and expression on Jack’s face, and he took great delight in posing as she directed, although he faltered somewhat when she asked about having a photo by the graveside of Mrs. Hess. That was met with a curt no. Chilton couldn’t resist stepping in for a few photos, and there was a collective expression of pleasant surprise when Will put an affable hand on Chilton’s shoulder.

           In the end, Freddie held her hand out to Will, and Jack almost fell out of his chair when Will clasped it firmly and thanked her for her hard work.

[i-am-very-very-tired]

On Monday night, late in the program for the 69th annual benefit and student fashion show at Parsons School of Design, a group of graduating seniors stood onstage and extolled the talents of one of the evening’s honorees. She was “inspiring.” Her style was “amazing.” Her brand was “amazing.” (There were a lot of “amazings.”) Who was this fashion paragon, role model for all of the young would-be designers in the room thanks to her creativity, philanthropy and talent? Not, as it happened, a fellow graduate who had fought her way to the top of the industry through perseverance, sweat and imagination. Not a retailer who had promoted and facilitated the growth of multiple businesses over the years. Rihanna. Yes, the Barbadian musical artist/entrepreneur — who has, it seems, officially made the transition from fashion plate to fashion force a mere three years after being crowned a “fashion icon” by the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Or so her positioning on the same platform that has also honored alumni like Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan and Jason Wu would suggest. But is her trajectory from a good celebrity to dress to a serious creative a new paradigm or a paradox? What exactly is the lesson — it was enshrined in a quasi-academic setting, after all — of Rihanna? Someday there may be a course in the way she has pretty much rewritten every rule book about the relationship between celebrities and design and what it takes to have a successful career in fashion. But for now, let’s work with the crib notes. It began in 2008, when she performed at a benefit for Raising Malawi sponsored by Gucci and held at the United Nations, to the delight and discovery of the style set in attendance. Six years later, she received her CFDA award and set off a thousand flashbulbs when she stood onstage in a sheer rhinestone-spotted Adam Selman gown and white fur boa. In short order she signed a deal with Puma to become its creative director and design her own line (Fenty x Puma), took that line to the runways of New York Fashion Week and then to Paris (where she showed in the same site as Valentino), became contributing creative director of Stance Socks, received the Footwear News Award for shoe of the year (the first woman to do so) and dipped in and out of collaborations with Dior (on sunglasses), Manolo Blahnik (on shoes) and Chopard (on high-end jewelry). She did this all while maintaining her position as an ambassador for Dior and wearing clothes from a broad assortment of names — from Vetements to recent Parsons grads — with whom she has no contractual relationship. “She has a quite unique ability to do it all at the same time,” said Burak Cakmak, the dean of fashion at Parsons. And he is referring not just to her own creativity, but also to her ability to get the global brands with whom she works to agree to her (very flexible) terms. This has never really happened before. A brief history review: Up to this point, there have been effectively three kinds of strategies for celebrity would-be designers. First, the “license your name and make a profit from your fame” approach, one that has had varying levels of success: Jennifer Lopez’s Sweetface line failed and Jessica Simpson’s namesake empire was a wild success. Second, the “humble yourself before the industry and disappear into the atelier to pay your dues” tack. This has been the favored mode if you want to be seen as a serious fashion person, as exemplified by Victoria Beckham, the Olsen sisters and (at least at the moment, a somewhat chastened) Kanye West. And third, the newest iteration: the pop-up rock collection gambit, as adopted by Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and the Weeknd, and essentially an expanded, upstyled version of what used to be called “tour merch.” Rihanna, however, fits into none of the above. She is both serious about, and promiscuous in, her style. While she says she is heavily involved with her brand, she also freelances widely across the fashion world, often for competing names. Sure, she has the buffer of her social media fan base, a potential consumer bonanza to dangle in front of any brand, a weapon to wield and ensure her freedom. But that’s only part of the explanation. There are a few different theories as to the rest. One has to do with the reputation she built as a risk taker who does not hew to a singular path but zigs and zags as she desires: musically, sartorially and professionally. In this hypothesis, her career in fashion simply reflects her career in music, and thus has its own authentic internal logic (authenticity being a big deal these days). Especially when you consider her evident delight in dressing up. And it is also possible that she is simply the most visible beneficiary of a battle that was fought first by Ms. Beckham et al., who took the initial heat for (we all assumed) daring to think that because they wore clothes well, they could make clothes well. “Kanye paid the dues for Rihanna,” said Marina Larroudé, the fashion director of Barneys, referring to the fact that Mr. West, with all of his ambition, hubris and early attempts to show in Paris, softened us all up and made us willing to entertain the idea that celebrities can legitimately become designers, and that their work should be judged on its own merits. But what sort of message does that send to the rest of the fashion world? To consumers, for example, about where the value in their garments lie? To the kids sitting in the audience looking at Rihanna after going to school to learn exactly the sort of thing she never did? “Anything is possible!” said Fern Mallis, a fashion consultant. “It’s a whole new ballgame in this industry, and she shows that.” That’s one way of looking at it. Mr. Cakmak offered another. The whole serve-many-masters thing is a situation most design school graduates face, he said. They may start their own brand, but they also have to work behind the scenes for others to pay for it, and Rihanna models this behavior (even if she is not so much hidden as front and center in every scene). As for the notion that she swooped in without any training and was almost immediately regarded as a substantive player, he said that in today’s world “there’s a studio behind every person selling a product,” and you need both to succeed. Rihanna has, for example, her stylist, Mel Ottenberg. And Puma, which is owned by Kering, which also owns Gucci and YSL (among other brands). There is a lot of traditional know-how to back her up, and the need for traditional know-how equals jobs. “We’re all rethinking the system, and Rihanna is part of that,” Ms. Larroudé said. She may be the most visible signpost of it. Certainly, onstage at Parsons in an oversize khaki suit (designed by Matthew Adams Dolan, a Parsons alumnus), she was impossible to miss. But whether the direction she signifies is up or down — or merely a big sideways hop — is not yet entirely clear.