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hyperfixiation-station · 1 year ago

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Information Pt.3

TW: Blood, Torture, Violence

Summary: You get rescued(finally)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Silent. From the moment Price had found you in that dingy cell, broken and bleeding, that was all you had been. You were silent when they moved you, though it had to have hurt with how many broken bones and lacerations you had. You were silent when the medics asked you where you were injured, how you had been hurt. You were silent through the debriefings, through the desperate attempts to find out what you had been through, what secrets you had spilled. You were silent through all of it.

It wasn’t your fault, not really. A mental barrier you had constructed during months of torture to keep secrets from spilling, a dam built with a mantra of DON’T TALK to keep your thoughts at bay as your captors repeatedly tried to draw them out of you.

Even now, when the rational part of your brain knew you were safe, knew that these men, the men you served with, the men who had tracked you down and saved you, were to be trusted, the barrier would not fall.

Every ‘what did they want from you, what did you see, did you recognize them, how many of them were there’ was met with silence. Anytime you opened your mouth you were hit with a wave of fear so strong it sent you into a panic attack.

They understood, in part. They had seen recordings, seen the rooms, seen your broken body at the time of rescue.

It took them 2 days to get to you after figuring out your location. They went in guns blazing, and tore the place to the ground. They split up, Price and Gaz taking the left with Soap and Ghost taking the right. They shot at anything that moved in their quest for vengeance, breaking down doors and checking every nook and cranny for where you might be locked up.

Price found you about a quarter of the way into the camp. He took the bottom floor and Gaz took the top as they cleared the building. He had stopped before a door that was different, metal and welded shut with a small little flap in the middle, instead of solid and wooden like the others. It took him and Gaz some prying and metalwork, but they got the door open.

Price almost cried when his eyes adjusted to the change in light. You lay curled in the corner, back to the wall as you shied away from the light. Your hair was tangled and matted with dried blood, your clothes were torn and dirty and your skin was crusted with so much blood and grime that he couldn’t even see you underneath it.

“Y/n?” He had called, but there was no response. He crept slowly toward you, keeping his movements as open and relaxed as possible. He crouched in front of you, taking note of your dilated pupils, sunken eyes, obviously malnourished form. He winced at the weird bulges in your skin, indicative of broken bones.

“Sorry love.” He whispered to you, taking a steadying breath as he slid his arms under you and lifted. Hise expected you to cry out, the action no doubt causing unspeakable pain, but you didn’t. In fact, you didn’t react at all. He didn’t dwell on it then, opting to get you somewhere safe and secure.

“9 broken ribs, a broken left femur, both shoulders dislocated, pneumonia, dehydration and severe malnutrition, multiple lacerations that required stitches, broken wrists, all 10 fingers broken, right kneecap dislocated, multiple concussions, and a hairline fracture on their skull.” The doctor had said. It hurt all of them to hear how badly wounded you were.

They gave you two weeks to recover before asking any questions. The first week you were unconscious, in a coma as your body tried to heal you. The second week you spent in worrying silence, saying nothing to anyone, not to your doctors, not to your teammates, not to your friends.

Price sent Ghost in first. He had had similar experiences and Price figured he would be able to relate. However when Ghost came storming out an hour later, slamming the door behind him, he came to regret that decision.

“I got over it.” He had said, “Why can’t they?” Price reminded him that not everyone responds to trauma the same way and sent him away.

Soap tried next, and came out near tears after sending you into a panic attack after calling you ‘Little Bird’. He was confused until Ghost not-so-gently reminded him of the video they had seen, of the words ‘Pretty Bird’ being used over and over. Ghost pretended not to hear him throwing up in the toilet later.

Gaz tried, to no avail. He ended up just sitting in silence with you, showing you videos of his cats. He counted it a victory when your busted lips twitched into a tiny grin for a few seconds.

And on and on it went, with refusing to speak to anyone. They were losing hope until the psychiatrist finally spoke with you.

“GIve them time.” She said gently, “You trying to force a response will just make this worse.”

So they do. The higher-ups still want answers, of course, but Price manages to dissuade them from asking until you are out of the hospital. They spend the weeks treating you as normal as possible, stopping by to give you updates on missions, show you a video of Soap absolutely biffing it in training, tell you the latest gossip of which recruit is sleeping with who. But even though they are trying, they still handle you with kiddie gloves, afraid that the wrong word or look will make you shatter irreversibly.

Which brings you to now. It’s nearly 2 A.M, and visiting hours are long over as you stand unsteadily in the bathroom, staring at your pale, pathetic form in the mirror. You open and close your mouth, trying and failing to get words out, the barrier cemented in your mind by blood and tears too strong to break down.

‘Speak, you stupid fucking bitch!’ You scream mentally at yourself, ‘You have to speak! If you don’t you'll be discharged and you'll never be able to serve again! They already think you’re broken, and if you can’t tell them different they’ll never treat you the same. Stop. being. So. Fucking. Pathetic.’

Tears streak your cheeks as you slide down the wall. You draw your knees up, hiding your face in them as your shoulders shake with silent sobs. Rationally, you know you are safe. Rationally, you know that if you were to speak, nothing would happen. But it’s not the rational part of your brain that is keeping you from speaking.

Going dark in that hellhole you were trapped in had saved your life, and you couldn’t seem to get past it. Sure, not responding had almost killed you right at first, as Kravchenko became more and more ruthless in his attempts to get you to speak again, but eventually he grew bored. His little plaything had lost its sparkle, and he locked you in a cell and threw away the key as soon as he lost interest. But starving to death was still a better alternative to the all-consuming agony that had been your day-to-day.

And now, the subconscious, irrational part of your brain was convinced that if you spoke you’d be dragged right back and strapped to a table, that you’d wake up to find that your rescue had all been a dream. That you-

“-/n! Y/N! Y/N!” You flinch, startled out of your reverie. You look down to see rivulets of blood running down your arms, your nails having gouged holes into your skin. You look up to see the eyes of a worried nurse, holding your hands in hers.

“There you are. We lost you for a minute. Do you mind letting me bandage you up here?” Her voice is soft and gentle and you find yourself nodding, letting her lead you back to your bed where she cleans and bandages your upper arms.

“What are you doing up so late sweetie?” Her voice is calming, almost hypnotic, “I mean, I’m awake cause I get paid to be, but you should be sleeping all your injuries away, shouldn’t you dearie? If I was you, I’d of been cryin’ too, being awake at 2 A.M. for free.” She laughs, the sound echoing through the room, “Course, I suppose you probably think I’m crazy for agreeing to work this shift anyways. Did you know I was supposed to have this shift off? But Roberta’s kids have the flu and so I agreed-” She keeps talking, her voice soothing your fears and helping you relax. YOu can’t help but mentally thank Roberta’s kids for being sick, for sending this wonderful lady who does not treat you like you're going to break at any moment to you tonight.

“And that should about do it dearie. Just press that little call button if you need any more help, alright?” She says cheerfully. She squeezes your hand and heads to the door before pausing.

“Make sure to get some sleep.” She leaves, gently closing the door behind her. Something about her makes you feel safer than you have since falling off that helicopter. Maybe it was her motherly demeanor, maybe it was the fact that she treated you like a normal human being, maybe it was the fact that she could have put you on a psych hold an ddin;t, but whatever it was, you loved her for it.

And as the door closes and the room stills, you whisper a quiet “thanks.”

Part 4?

~tags~

@louthedino @scarletdfox @dangerkitten1705 @warenai @spineless-spino @rainy-darling

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scarletdreamers · 9 days ago

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A small excerpt of a scene from the Hannigram fic for anyone who's curious. Had trouble finding something that wouldn't really spoil anything (and just selecting a scene in general goddamn). This scene takes places a little after the first half of the story. For reference, they are currently in Lisbon, Will killed a man the previous night and they are supposed to leave by boat the next day. A week or so prior Hannibal revealed some details about his aunt and his past, and Will can't stop thinking about it.

As requisted, angsty murder husbands, here you go. And thank you all so much for the support. I hope you all enjoy.

‘’It’s quite frustrating to be mad at someone who’s already dead, you know? To harbour wrath without being able to avenge it.’’

I didn’t ask where we were going. I would see it once the car came to a stop. That, or you kept driving until we tumbled off the face of the earth. I trusted you enough to make the choice.

Your fingers tightened around the wheel. Then loosened again. And a small pout became visible on your lips, though it was supposed to hide something harder to determine. The streetlights came over your face in gentle flashes, painting it a dark gold for two seconds before giving it back to the shadows of the car.

‘’I can imagine.’’

But of course you could only imagine. Anyone who ever angered you had either been slaughtered and served, or paid a great price for their mistakes.

‘’Is this about what I told you a week ago?’’ You then added, in a way that indicated you’d expected this conversation all along. There was no need to mention it for us both to know exactly what this was about.

‘’I just hate it that there’s things inside of you I can’t touch. Things I can’t have. Those people are examples of that. And that house was poisonous.’’

It was that exact moment that we drove towards the city’s harbour that I knew how you were going to handle the situation. I could see the lights of the giant bridge, they danced on the water like little moving stars in an endless night sky that held no light of its own.

‘’I want to get them out of you.’’ I continued. ‘’I need to. I don’t think I can ever truly forget about them otherwise.’’

It was a very honest confession that exposed the centre of my frustration. And all I could hope for was for you not to get angry because I desired to save you, knowing you had no need or want to be saved.

It was just how I had felt, back in that house. Like a desperate surgeon of selfish pity. Who wanted nothing more than to take his scalpel and cut you open to get out what was killing you so much it made you live in silence. A surgeon that ignored your say in it, in the operation. Because I was supposed to save you. A lover is supposed to save you the way a doctor should either take away your pain or allow you to die.

But then again, what could I actually do? I wasn’t even a surgeon. I was but a lover, unable to express my feelings about some parts of you because I knew that I wanted them dead. You grew flowers out of lungs and made them into art, and I turned minds into maps that led to captivity or insanity. What more was there to say?

You pulled over and we stopped only a few yards away from the water. My attention kept being pulled to that bridge in the distance. Full of lights and iron grandeur, the way it towered over the water. Connecting two halves of a city that seemed like they had been ripped apart by the sea, or maybe just never close enough to really belong together.

‘’My uncle was very kind to me. He was a great man and taught me most things my parents didn’t get the opportunity to. He was wise and caring. As was my aunt. You shouldn’t blame it on my uncle and aunt that I wasn’t fond of that house.’’ You explained. I couldn’t for sure say I was listening when I opened the car door and stepped into the cold night.

It was very windy. My hair got blown into my face right away and the cold made my eyes sting. Lisbon was a beautiful city. Maybe in some other life we would’ve settled here. Maybe there we would’ve stayed to wither away of old age, in each other’s bed and each other’s hair and each other’s dust. It was a life in which the body in the trunk was the last body we buried and we, for once in our lives, accepted a future of bright normalcy. Bright like a soft ray of sunlight on smoke steaming from a teacup in the early morning. We might’ve been happy here. In some apartment with weightless curtains and a cellar filled with white wines and champagne, like I imagined old couples in Lisbon having.

I leaned against the car, the stones tiles under my feet stopped to reveal dark waters to my right. I heard a second car door shut behind me. It wasn’t long until your figure approached and offered me a pair of leather gloves. They were probably meant to avoid unnecessary fingerprints on the bag, but I thankfully took them because my hands were cold. The pockets of my coat didn’t help much.

‘’Will, I know that what I told you has distorted your views of my aunt for the worse, but you have to understand she was not an evil woman.’’ Your voice echoed next to me. I felt the corners of my mouth stretch into a grimace. I hadn't meant to. ‘’One flaw doesn’t make a person immoral or cruel altogether. She loved me, and I adored her. As I said, she never tried anything when I didn’t want it and took better care of me than my own mother ever could. She was no worse than we are. She’s not even comparable to us. I am way worse, yet you don’t disregard me for it. Then why her?’’

It was almost annoying how there was nothing dishonest about that. The least I could do was to not be dishonest in return.

‘’It’s because I don’t know her. To me she’s a stain on a past that isn’t mine.’’ It was supposed to be a sigh in defeat, but it came out bitter. ‘’I want to protect you. From external influences.'’

From people other than me. You know damn well I only accept fear and hurt when love is the motive.

‘’She didn’t curse me. Neither is she the reason that I am who I am today. I had acknowledged my own cruelty long before her, Will. And my worst memories come from a time way before her. She was just there, after it happened. An aftereffect that came with the damage of losing my parents and later my sister. You should broaden your perspective. Try not only looking into my mind, but also dive into hers. You will see why I am not angry at her. Not like you are at the figures that did you wrong.’’

It was almost funny, how the wind was messing up your hair, too.

‘’You think I’m angry about my past?’’

I saw it in your eyes, a clear answer. A reflection of something I couldn’t see unless I was presented with a mirror.

‘’Your past is a white flame that swallows you alive, Will.’’

Had you been anyone else, I would have taken that as a personal attack. It was the way there were hints of adoration, of understanding, that made me tolerate it.

I caught a man who saw such things once, after all. Sinners with their heads on fire. That man thought he was God, and he was convinced that God was destroyable. He made himself angels. Guardians. To allow those wrongdoers, swallowed by flames, a passage to heaven. And to avoid ending up in there himself.

God is destroyable. He truly is. I saw it. I saw it happen three times. There’s multiple versions of him, too. Multiple different takes on the story. Pieces of him in different bodies, different people. Some don’t know what to do with a piece of God inside of them, and others completely become him. Some, very few, maybe only one, become their own nemesis. Fighting against that piece of cruel divinity by becoming something even worse. As if to challenge it.

I said I had known three. The first one strung himself up in a barn, because the burden was too much to bear and being an angel seemed simpler.

The second had a son with the eyes of a saint and the mind of the devil. He raised it. The little monster, the tiny beast. He raised it until it got old enough to know what it could do with its hands. Then he succumbed to the waters, hoping he would be forgiven. God can’t be forgiven. My father learned that the hard way.

The last of the three destroyed himself in my arms on the bedroom floor not even a week ago. He destroyed himself in his own kitchen years ago, also in my arms, knife stuck in my guts and a dying daughter at our feet. He couldn’t make an angel of himself in the hope of being saved. He knew there was no higher being to save him. Instead he chose to endure, in the hope of finding a better life with the man that didn’t consider him untouchable, unlike everyone else he ever met. Unlike everyone he ever created, controlled, influenced. This god wanted to marry his own end, as the best of us do.

There have been many gods in the world, but this one was mine to believe in. Mine alone. And none of those others could ever be lovelier and more real than he was.

‘’I see it burning you every day. Your anger is visible. I might not know the specifics. I don’t know what your father did, what happened to your mother and what role your uncle, whom you mentioned only once, plays in this, but I know that it makes you angry. Your pain is your power. Your anger is a motivation, often it’s the fundament of your beautiful strength of character, but it will also be your downfall if you try to keep it inside of you for too long.’’

And unlike others, this man refuses to watch over everything. To see everything. This man who carries fragmented pieces of god in his heart that he keeps as fuel to his spite, sometimes closes his eyes. He withdraws, and realises that he can get hurt too.

He gave me his understanding, his trust, and half of his heart came along with it. Everything that hurts me, hurts him, and he can barely manage it. Despite his narcissism and the belief that he can do anything, he can hardly carry it. And he knows it, that’s why he gets quiet.

‘’No one has ever called me angry before.'' I mumbled. The wind was still hurting my eyes.

‘’That’s because you’ve been dominated by empathy your entire life. Your ability to sympathise with the actions and personal pains of those who did you wrong overshadows the rage that is stored in a deeper, darker place. Everyone assumes you can’t actually be angry because you understand the wrongdoer, but understanding doesn’t kill anger. It only makes your rage more righteous. I can see it, Will. That you’re angry, but you have never tried to mention it. That’s why I never asked.’’

This was something the therapist could’ve told me in Baltimore, but somehow it didn't sound like him. Not at all. Written on paper, his words would’ve read like a diagnosis. Here, under a sky so dark the crows couldn’t pierce through it and a city burning behind us, it felt more like a reminder. A reminder by someone I had spent a lifetime knowing. A lifetime opening up to, opening up for.

I never mentioned it, because deep down I must’ve known that you knew it all along, anyway.

I turned my head and laughed. Smiled so broadly I must’ve looked like a madman. The white rows of bony teeth baring themselves to you like a row of bullets. I lowered my head. If it had been hanging on a small string, a little ribbon, it would’ve tumbled right off and ended up in the sea.

‘’Do you think I’m angry right now?”’

You hesitated to answer. Not because you were unsure of what you were about to say, but because I’d surprised you. You were trying to find out what made me smile like that. I was too.

‘’At my aunt? Yes. Intentionally. At your own history? Also yes, but unintentionally, enough to forget it’s there. At us and the situation we’re in? No. For the first time in years, no. Ever since before I framed you, I haven’t seen this much peace in you when it comes to our relationship. And that’s what ultimately matters, isn’t it?’’

I lifted my head. The smile had been swept off my face.

‘’Is there really that big of a difference?’’

‘’Currently your mind is a calm sea wherever I’m involved, Will. I can smell lovesickness. It’s physical, you know. It has the same smell as nausea if you were both really high on sugars and toxins. I used to smell it on you all the time, sometimes stronger or weaker, but there have rarely been days where I haven’t smelled it. And when you get really used to something, you’ll realise it way sooner once it’s gone. I don’t smell it on you anymore. Or at least, barely. That’s enough to tell me how you feel about me right now.’’

Could I hide anything from you?

‘’When did you first smell it, then?’’

‘’The night I killed Abigail.’’

I shook my head, trying to wipe it clean of the memories that were trying to push their way in.

‘’Not earlier?’’

‘’No.’’ You answered, steady, smiling at me with a nostalgia that gave me the impression we were talking about birthdays. Old, never forgotten, but always melancholic at their core. Another year passing. Another year lost. ‘’Before that it was betrayal and anger, but not lovesickness. Back then we weren’t far enough past one another's walls to know we were in too deep. Lovesickness only comes when you realise you’re absolutely lost in the other.’’

Lovesickness. The way you described it made me think of bad, fabricated chocolate. Full of so much stuff you shouldn’t want to put into your body, despite the desire to. And in the end, you still do. Because your small child hands can’t resist temptation. Just like the way adult hands always long for another hand to hold. The need for chocolate will fade as one grows older, sensitivity to temptation won't. To wanting things you aren't supposed to have.

‘’I realised that I didn’t do anything to hurt you back when you stabbed me. I had a gun, I could shoot or fight, but I wanted your embrace. So much that I let myself be hurt for the sake of being held. I think it dawned on me there, that I was in love with you. Badly, unfixably and unhealthily. That it wasn’t just a game for me anymore.’’

I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. And you probably meant to speak up, but remained silent.

Identically different.

I wanted to ask you when you smelled it on yourself for the first time, but the nights in Essonne that were full of nothing but hollow, aching loneliness came back to me. What did when matter. My nose wasn’t as good as yours, but I could also sense it. I could feel it in the throbbing pulse of your heart. The restraint. I noticed it through your hitched breaths in the deep blue dark, through the tiniest of twitches as you slept and the most subtle of gazed. That deep rooted sadness of which I still wasn’t sure to who it belonged. Not to you. You were many things, but you weren't sad. Not Hannibal Lecter. Maybe the orphan who lost his little sister in the eternal snow.

I blamed it on that stupid house. That stupid woman. That stupid room and kitchen and those stupid woods. If I wanted to make conversation with the dead I had a whole graveyard ready inside my head. I didn’t also need one in my garden. Or under the floor on which I slept.

I slammed my hand against the car behind me. It surprised me, too.

‘’I just feel so worked up about it. About what you told me. And I know you don’t like it and probably shouldn't have shared it if you had known about this, but-’’

‘’You’re angry for me. Not at me. That makes all the difference.’’ You cut me off, hand and fingers digging into my jaw. I was kissed after those words. Lips on cold lips that were as cold as my hands. When you let me go it felt as if the wind rushing between us was trespassing through a holy space.

I broke free from both you and the car, walked over to the trunk and took out the big, heavy bag. Without thinking twice about it or asking for your help I marged to the water. I didn’t bother telling you that all his organs were still intact. I could do well for a few more weeks without human meat on my dinner plate. We didn’t have a kitchen here in the first place.

You watched me as I took some bricks out of the car once I put the bag down. Then I walked over to the edge, dropped the bricks in the bag without looking inside of it, lifted the thing, and dropped it into the big inky liquid in front of us. I knew that you wouldn’t have brought me here if the water wasn’t deep enough, so I didn’t actually worry about it being found soon.

As easy as that was, I got rid of the body. After a few seconds the rimpling of the water was all the evidence there was that something heavy was now sinking to the bottom. I promised myself to never learn the man’s name. Names created empathy, empathy made attachment and a bunch of nightmares.

You were probably a bit undignified by my direct and impulsive way of taking care of the matter, but you had no say in this. I killed him, you wanted me to get rid of him, and I did. There was nothing ceremonial, nothing beautiful, about this murder. It was plain cruelty, then forgotten in a night of desire, and now discarded to be forgotten again.

You never forgot, but I made sure to give you something else to associate this night with as I pushed you back against the car and crashed into you. I pushed my hands up the ridiculously neat and expensive shirt of your tuxedo and kissed you, both of us seeking stability against a car in the empty night. My leather clothed fingers took a hold of your waist and for a moment I forgot who we were and who we were supposed to be.

A hurricane in the shape of a body doesn’t make it less powerful. Or less destructive. Natural disasters and forces are, after all, the rage of the world allowing itself to manifest and burst on the earth’s surface. They rip land and sea in two, separating cities in halves, dismembering humans and making houses give in on themselves.

Maybe we had that in common too. You collected church collapses, and as a little boy I used to keep track of every hurricane, every earthquake or flood and tsunami near the west and southern coast. Growing up in Louisiana it was common to hear stories about natural disasters, and I liked them. The idea of them. Not in the way you were amused by a church roof tumbling down, but in the sense that it comforted me. The knowledge that something very big and unstoppable, something humans had no say in, could come around and wipe out a whole state. I sat in front of tv watching the news in silence, while my father got restless with concern. I never figured out if he was concerned about the hurricanes or about me.

I wondered what he would say if he saw me now. I wondered if he would want me to apologise or vice versa. I hoped that despite everything, he still cared for me like he did back then. He might not have liked me very much, but he loved me enough to worry about me. I would’ve liked it if he had said something to me now, for that heavy voice that was almost identical to mine nowadays to make itself audible inside my head like it used to. With you all over my mouth pressed up against an old car that he would’ve loved, seeing me with a man that I loved. I was in love with the most horrible man alive. Though that was only true when I didn’t count myself among men, and remembered who the title actually belonged to.

But my dad didn’t say anything. And that if he asked me what happiness was to me, then I would’ve told him it was this. This was the closest I was going to get, at least for now. Leaving it all behind really does work when you have someone to forget it all with.

Eventually we ran out of breath and I was satisfied with the extent of which I ruined your shirt. I pulled open the car door while my other hand still held your hips in place and gave you a little tuck at the rim of your trousers.

‘’Let’s go and spend the night in the hotel. I’m cold.’’

There was a little cut in my lip that I didn’t notice until it started to sting from nakedness in the cold. I wasn’t sure how it got there, but the coppery taste wasn’t unwelcomed. I sucked on it as I stepped back inside the car, thinking of the colourlessness of water. Thinking of how even a quiet stream can colour red if it’s filled with enough corpses.