Hannibal's house (mostly in the present), Saturday

[sharp_as_knives]

After yesterday's incidents and another night of nightmares, Hannibal was wary, a knife staying with him instead of a scalpel, and he was keeping his eyes open for anything new.

He was cleaning up after breakfast when Alana showed up, mocking him for not finishing the job he had promised to. She was easy enough to banish. Then as he was dressing, Will came again.

And again on his run.

Before lunch, Hannibal had cleaned more blood off his knife than he'd needed to in months. And the emotions he'd felt...he'd figured out at least that they weren't his, but he was ready to be quit of them all the same.


[OOC: Open post!]

Comments

[furnaceface]

Jono hadn't gone on his usual training runs today. He hadn't even gone outside to fight the myriad of monsters who were wandering the island. Not for lack of feeling like he ought to.

It was just... his head hurt. He'd blame as much as possible on his injuries yesterday, but injuries like those ones had never been enough to keep him out of trouble like that before. It was more... just this overwhelming, sweeping wave of emotion, heaping on top of the psionic feedback that he usually dealt with from the island, with a bonus helping of visions coming to haunt him whenever he let his already spread-thin guard down.

Jono had planted himself on the sofa with a kitten in his lap, enough of his bandages pulled down out of the way of his face for him to feel dangerous, and enough covering the rest of him for his psifire to be at least slightly hidden from view.

He'd developed a small twitch at the corner of one eye.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal poured himself some coffee and came to sit by Jono, rubbing Joni on the head. "Perhaps we should work on mental focus today," he said with a touch of exasperation.

[furnaceface]

Exasperation wasn't entirely the word that Jono would be able to use for how he was handling this. If he'd been able to grit his teeth, he would have worn them down, by now.

//Focus on what?//

[sharp_as_knives]

"Anything that isn't outside," Hannibal suggested. "Ourselves." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Good at that, aren't you, Hannibal?" Alana accused. She stalked around them, her heels clicking against the floor. "Thinking of yourself." He opened his eyes, but she was gone. He supposed that was appropriate; she couldn't taunt him with unfinished business if he finished it.

[furnaceface]

//Seems to me as though the inside isn't necessarily much of an improvement,// quietly looking up and lapsing into silence. The next few moments were spent watching as paramedics carried Gayle away on a stretcher, having no idea what to go with a terrified shell of a boy who was moving around and who was begging for help, but who against all logic and reason wasn't a corpse.

But he was clearly one of those mutants, wasn't he? Nobody had ever told them what to do in a situation like this. What about that Xavier guy? No good, no help to them right this minute. He lived in America. Was approaching the boy a danger to themselves?

//Of course it was,// Jono muttered bitterly. //I was alone and scared and had no idea how to control my powers yet.//

[sharp_as_knives]

"And if the first two of those had been addressed, the latter might not have been such an issue," Hannibal pointed out. He stopped and took a step back from Jono's bitterness as best he could.

"You'd never want to leave anybody alone, would you, Hannibal?" Chiyoh accused, her eyes boring into him.

"You made your choice," he answered in turn. "You can free yourself whenever you like."

[furnaceface]

"Bet you wish it was so easy, don't you, Jon?" Blue-grey hands game to rest on Jonothon's shoulders from behind. His own hands, once.

Most of his visits, interestingly enough, had been by different variations of himself.

"You'd go to some bloody insane lengths to be free."

//Not these days, I wouldn't.//

"No?"

The hands on his shoulders disappeared, and a little vial on a chain hung in the air in front of him for a few moments too long.

"Gaunt would've disagreed."

[sharp_as_knives]

"Gaunt had magic, and still needed to catch Jono when he was already vulnerable," Hannibal countered.

"Oh, you'd know all about taking advantage of the vulnerable, wouldn't you, Doctor Lecter?" Will accused. He stalked back and forth in front of them.

[furnaceface]

//I would hardly say Hannibal's been taking advantage,// Jono snapped, eyes glowing as he walked Will move.

He had less patience for this one than the rest of them. By a fair bit, by this point.

"But even if he was, you wouldn't stop him, would you?" Jackson, all blonde hair and smarmy smiles, stepping up behind Will. "You practically throw yourself out there to be taken advantage of. You were ours before I pulled you out of that jail cell. You just didn't know it yet."

[sharp_as_knives]

"He was looking for a place he was valued. You only gave him that at the price of himself." Hannibal took Jono's hand. "He doesn't need your false belonging anymore. I value him for who he is."

"And you valued me," Will accused. "Wanted me, damn the consequences. As what, your protegé? Your lover? Your work of art?"

"You understood me," Hannibal said, the sting of that fresh again. "You knew what you wanted, you saw what you could be. I wanted you to be your own work of art."

[furnaceface]

"Hannibal's got an excellent eye for potential, doesn't he?"

Stepping up beside Will with a predatory grin on his face was Jonothon himself, whole, with with a look in his eye a bit like a caged animal.

"Maybe that's why you two get along so well when I'm nudging the conversation along, hm? A pair of starving jackals, discussing who it was who most needed to die?"

Jono was quiet at that one. He couldn't deny that on days when his subconscious was chewing at him, when he was most depressed and felt like all the control in the world was slipping between his fingers, that thought had actually crossed his mind.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal laughed. "If there's one thing we are not, it's starving. Not for food, companionship, or anything else." He gave Jono, the real one, an affectionate look and kissed his cheek, his lips just brushing the edge of skin and fire.

"If you didn't occasionally contemplate killing me, I doubt we'd get along so well," he confided, still smiling. "You only feel comfortable with me knowing I'm dangerous, remember?" That went both ways.

[furnaceface]

"Speak for yourself, then," the vision sniffed. "This one is constantly starving. He hasn't killed a man in months. It's gnawing at him inside, a soldier who isn't soldiering."

That statement had holes in it, but it wasn't entirely inaccurate, either. Jono gave the figment a nasty look, and then leaned forward to nuzzle his cheek against Hannibal's, clinging to the comfort that came in that.

//I'd be terrified if you weren't,// he admitted, //because of that side of me.//

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal smiled and leaned into Jono, his eyes wicked as he looked at the vision. "It isn't the killing he misses," he said with confidence. "It isn't the soldiering, either. He could have either any time he wanted. It's the purpose and the accomplishment that come from them. What disturbs you is that you're not the only voice in his head anymore."

"No, now he's got you," Will said, eyes narrowed. "Just like I did. What'll you do when he doesn't listen anymore?"

[furnaceface]

//Can't imagine why I would stop listening,// Jono muttered, shaking his head. //Hannibal's gotten into my head, but all he's ever done in there is piece together what's broken. And he's been honest with me. Hannibal is a lot of things, but he's no liar.//

He was a creative embellisher, maybe. He was very good at selective truths. But 'I have killed people and enjoy eating their various meaty parts' was probably the biggest dealbreaker that Hannibal could possibly have shared with him, and here they were.

[sharp_as_knives]

In Jono's lap, Joni stretched and yawned, butted at Jono and Hannibal's hands, then turned to look at the ghosts and hissed.

It was tiny and ineffectual, but rather adorable.

[furnaceface]

See? This was why Jono kept Joni around. All that unconditional affection.

And her excellent taste in who she didn't approve of.

//You're upsetting the kitten,// Jono muttered at the ghosts. //Why don't you two go take your gobshite elsewhere?//

[sharp_as_knives]

There was a thump on the back of the couch, and then Beethoven was between their shoulders (on their shoulders, claws in Hannibal's shirt, sigh), and he looked down at Joni for a second, then up at the ghosts, and growled.

Hannibal chuckled. "Neither of the animals seem to like them much. They've good sense." He eyed Will and the other Jono coldly. "Leave. Now."

[furnaceface]

The not-quite-Jono frowned a little at the cats, seeming to be at a bit of an impasse. On the one hand, he had a job to do here, and making Jonothon miserable was the highlight of his existence.

On the other hand, they were upsetting the cats. And the cats really hadn't done anything the matter.

"Ugh," he muttered, shaking his head. "You're not even bloody worth it. I'll come back when I have nothing better t'do."

... Being a figment and all, that was basically any time ever. But that didn't stop him from fading into the shadows all the same.

[sharp_as_knives]

"I killed you once, Will," Hannibal said to the other vision. "I can and will do it again, if I have to."

Will huffed and and gave him a disdainful look before following the other Jono into oblivion.

[furnaceface]

//Note to self,// Jono muttered, rubbing idly at one of his temples. //Become a crazy cat person.//

Two really was his upper limit, but after these past couple of days, it was a mighty temptation.

[sharp_as_knives]

Beethoven jumped down into Hannibal's lap, and Hannibal wrapped his arm around Jono and replaced Jono's hand with his own. "Worth noting that apparently this old man likes Joni better than he lets on."

Beethoven ignored them both in favor of starting to bathe.

[furnaceface]

//Never going to let you live it down, old man,// Jono said to the cat, a touch of fondness loud and clear in both his voice and the empathic feelings that could be picked up from him.

The cat, unperturbed, continued to bathe.

Cats would be cats, Jono supposed, and just closed his eyes and leaned into Hannibal's touch instead.

[sharp_as_knives]

Hannibal pulled Jono closer and took a deep breath, sending him acceptance, protectiveness, and thanks in lieu of words.