PSL: Travels outside the Barge (w/Malcolm)

[empathicfault]

Piloting their new ship is a little difficult. It takes reading the (somehow enclosed) manual back-to-front and learning the control panel, now situated in what looks like a little closet on the window side of the living room. It's in the new hallway that leads to the small courtyard, which Will intends to decorate once they get this one chore done first.

Thankfully, the majority of the controls are intuition-based, going off the person who puts their hand on a small orb on the panel. The rest, as it turns out, is tweaking. And luckily (or otherwise), no tweaking is necessary for their first flight.

They're heading to Will's home world.

But Will doesn't specify where, just a year later than he left. he inadvertently brings them to where he'd left. The door opens from a wall of Hannibal's cliffside home, and looks out onto the driveway. The Dragon's wings are still there, staining the cement. They overlook the grey day and the churning seaside.

Will finds himself stuck in the doorway, unsure whether he's compelled to walk out and remember or slam the door shut and take them elsewhere.

Comments

[abrightboy]

“It’s perfect. It’s like a Hallmark movie,” Malcolm says, taking a careful, small bite of mousse. “We might have to save Christmas when we’re done eating, though,” he jokes. He takes a sip of coffee. He considers his mousse, then glances at Will. “Are you going to be able to have some of this?” Most of it. Probably most of it.

[empathicfault]

Will chuckles at the Hallmark comment. "Ah, a twist on the classic. I'm the country bumpkin and you're the big city guy, and you come here to show me the magic of Christmastime in the country," he summarizes. He nods, content. He remembers something like that when he and Harkin were sharing dreams. Another breach that Red's been through. He wouldn't mind doing that again.

"I'll eat what you don't want, Malcolm. Always." He's not always big on sweets, but he's more than happy to enjoy treats if it means Malcolm gets to try them, too. "How's the taste?"

[abrightboy]

He smiles when Will says 'Always'. He takes another bite.

"It's really nice. Very smooth texture too. Not too sweet. Very... fruit."

[empathicfault]

"Sounds great," Will replies. "Mine's got the interplay of bitter and sweet. I'll probably be up an extra hour tonight. They did not skimp on the espresso."

He's silent for a moment, taking in the sights and the smells in here. It's fairly crowded- he expects some level of crush of the emotions of everyone around them. There's a few tired people, one lady who's just about at the end of her rope with her toddler. But the majority are in much the same space as they are- pleasantly surprised and enjoying the break.

"I'm a little surprised. Even this world, I see differently when I'm with you." He looks thoughtful, then shakes his head. "Maybe it's merely that I'm no longer tethered to it." If he sat down and really looked into it, would he condemn this world as strongly? Would he insist that Molly needed to leave?

[abrightboy]

"Things look different when you're happy, compared to when you're sad," Malcolm points out simply, taking another small, careful bite.

[empathicfault]

Will's struck silent for a moment, and a slow smile creeps onto his face. "I suppose that's true."

There's a brief silence as they both eat, Will clearly savoring the flavor as he runs his tongue over his lips. He looks at Malcolm, then his gaze dips down to the table between them. "It took me so long to even understand what 'being happy' and 'being sad' was. During most of my childhood years, I thought it was being next to someone at the right time."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiles and clicks his spoon against Will's playfully.

"Isn't it?"

Maybe not in the way he thought.

[empathicfault]

"And here I thought I was a hopeless romantic." Will snorts and shakes his head, but he's beaming underneath the layer of snark. He lets out a laugh and eats some more of his trifle.

That's when he feels a chill down his spine- a searing cold that goes straight down to the spinal cord.

He looks up, pulling himself from his rose-colored mindset for a moment. He doesn't show off being alarmed, but he does look around. He listens and he breathes deep, taking in scents.

The woman with the toddler is finally leaving. The other customers are mostly still here, generally in no hurry to leave. There's people walking past the window and a couple on the other side of the street. It smells like the mountains, and one of the customers had a workout and didn't shower before they stopped here. He notices the distinct smell of old books for just a moment before the door closes and that fades, as well.

There's nothing. He turns back to Malcolm.

"Sorry. Don't think I'll be able to fully relax until we're out of here."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm notices when Will becomes suddenly vigilant, though someone who didn't know him would not. His own spoon hovers above the dish as he watches Will's face. He knows Will is in that zone where he's extending his sense all around him, feeling out all the people nearby.

His tension eases when Will's does, though his spoon doesn't go right back into the dish.

"...But it's okay? He's not... here?"

[empathicfault]

"He's not alive," Will replies, too loudly and forcefully for an ice cream shop. It earns him stares he's used to. Well, so much for being inconspicuous.

He licks his lips, takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a sigh. By then, the chatter has started up again. Will murmurs to Malcolm, far more quietly, "I saw to that."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is accustomed to being stared at with vague unfounded suspicion. He barely notices.

“That’s a relief,” he assures Will.

[empathicfault]

"It is," he admits. "Doesn't mean I'm not keeping an eye out for Freddie or any of the other murderers I caught. I keep expecting them to be right in the corner of my eye."

He takes another bite of his treat, but- it doesn't quite illicit the same spark of happiness he had before. He's thoroughly ruined the mood by remembering what most of this world seems composed of. "I do feel closer to them here. I'll have to ask Wiktor if that's...I don't know, something."

[abrightboy]

“Well, they’re from here? So their energy is… in this world… somewhere. Right?” He doesn’t know that much about it; if he’s honest, he feels like… not even a third wheel to that training. Like winter tires in the summer, stored in a shed somewhere. But he gamely tries.

[empathicfault]

Will goes to say something. Then he stops, thinks, and rubs his face with one hand. "It all sounds so much more reasonable on the Barge. Nearly scientific, even. Here?" Will shakes his head. He sounds like a new age cultist, bringing it up.

"I'm not sure if it's energy, if I'm honest. That'd make the most sense. There are...connections I've fostered. That I asked for. I thought it was the specific way I could delude myself, a perk to all the downsides of mental illness. But what I was seeing was real. Objective, merely well hidden."

He sighs and gestures with his spoon. His tone shifts from serious to sarcastic. "Like the most obnoxious set of fingerprints in existence."

[abrightboy]

“You’re like the UV light and they’re the bodily fluids at the crime scene?” Malcolm hazards. Will Graham: the only UV light that can see the stain inside people.

[empathicfault]

Will chuckles, smile coming back. "That sounds more apt. I have to describe what I see, rather than show it to other people. And of course, most would rather not know about these sorts of stains. But they solve murders..."

[abrightboy]

“It goes over well with a very specific crowd,” Malcolm notes with a grin. Himself, for one. And others that are… less of a support when it happens but just want to milk it like a cow full of answers. He knows about those too. “It’s not weird,” he says matter of factly, taking another little bite of dessert.

[empathicfault]

Will smiles at Malcolm, then down at his treat. "It is weird. But if you'd like to be nicer about it, you can always call it unique. I- I don't regret the way I am, not anymore. I've missed my ability to See in certain Breaches, floods. I feel adrift without it."

He finishes off his dessert and leaves the spoon in the dish. "Most of my problems were with other people misinterpreting the very clear things I would tell them, willfully or not. Hence us going to rectify the situation with one in particular."

As Will's thoughts turned to Jack, the smile slid off his face. All right, maybe he regretted not doing him in with Hannibal ages ago. It's not like any of it got any better. Jack only became more Himself with the passing of Bella. But- acknowledgement of the hurt would be enough.

[abrightboy]

"I don't want to be euphemistic about it, but I do want you to be... you." He manages one more bite, then pushes the rest of his dessert towards Will. "Also it's just really cool when you do the thing," he says with a grin. He pauses, then frowns faintly. "That doesn't sound like them, does it?"

[empathicfault]

Will grabs Malcolm's dish in one smooth motion and starts taking bites out of it. It's a pretty practiced habit, now.

At the question, he gives Malcolm a knowing smile. "Not at all. You appreciate the act. Others would merely want the results, filtered down for their particular use. You've always been fascinated with the entirety of my mind. Same as I have been of yours."

It's a trait Malcolm shares with Hannibal, and that one trait had almost been enough to cover a myriad of monstrous acts and true sins in the murderer. How can he help but be enamored with it when it comes to Malcolm?

[abrightboy]

That recognition - of what he sees, of what Will sees in him - brings the biggest lovesick smile to his face.

"Do you think he still works for the FBI?" Jack of course. "They wouldn't have fired him?"

[empathicfault]

"Oh, he'll be there. It's all he has left. The higher-ups will let him cling to that job even while they start to 'phase out' the department. No one wants his position, truly."

He tilts his head. "Although...I was thinking we could wait for him at his house. He'd never leave it, not with all that remains of his wife there. I'm sure Forensics can enjoy his shiner the day after we see him."

Besides, Will wants to be properly menacing, and he doesn't know if he'd be able to with all those agents around. He taught most of them, after all.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiles, considering it.

“No, you’re right, that’s creepier.” He glances around. “He came to this town looking for you? At your home?” He’s pretty sure he knows the answer to that question, but the one that follows it is the one he’s truly curious about and he looks at Will’s face as he asks. “What do you think your life would have been like if he hadn’t come?”

[empathicfault]

Will nods at the first question, because of course Jack did.

As for the second..."I'd still be with Molly, poorly imitating a normal man. Maybe I would've been home when Hannibal sent The Dragon to attack us. I might've killed him myself, but at least someone would've died."

The Look from a couple of customers return, but Will is too busy reconstructing how these events would play out to notice. "I can't say if I'd be too engrossed in my playhouse life to leave it or not, honestly. What I do know is- the longer I stuck with Molly, the more we'd both grow slowly dissatisfied."

[abrightboy]

“Because you couldn’t show her all of yourself,” Malcolm surmises. “And she’d know there was a wall she couldn’t get past.”