The Job (Part II)
After about another hour of conversation and an impromptu tour from Dr. Du Maurier, a young woman in a black suit knocks on the door of the greenhouse attachment where Will and the doctor are discussing the value of compost starters.
"Bedelia," she says softly, throwing a cautious look to Will. "Doctor Sutcliffe is finishing now. Should I—"
"Yes, Chiyoh, that would be good of you," Dr. Du Maurier interrupts quickly. She makes a swift move in righting a precariously potted mint, easily wedging herself between Will and the woman at the door. "Please tell him I will be with him shortly."
Though Dr. Du Maurier is blocking his line of sight, he can practically feel the woman's eyes on him. She lingers at the door for a moment longer before slinking back around the corner, her steps light and almost silent on the wood floors.
He does his best not to look at the woman fondling the herbs. He knows that if he does, he'll only see that which is probably best left unnoticed and very much nothis business anyway. He sees it now, in the corner of his eye, how stiffly she holds herself, and how tightly her knees press together.
He does his best to keep his face neutral. "Is Doctor Lecter away often?"
"More frequently in the fall and winter months," she hums, hesitant to follow up with anything else. "He is an inconsistent sojourner, but his absence is not felt so deeply."
"So this," he gestures. "You take care of the estate, his gardens, and his child? You must be paid a small fortune."
The question is neither unkind nor unwarranted. When he'd asked about the reach of the grounds, he'd been given a much more specific answer than he'd been expecting. The place was more equitable to a small city than any sort of modern estate, and it was something Du Maurier was entirely responsible for the upkeep of while the other doctor was away.
He posed more, similar questions and received similar answers throughout the tour: there was a groundskeeper for the immediate attachments to the house: trees, a pool, and a small stream nearby; there was a trusted landscaping company who periodically managed the hedges and garden Will had apparently passed on his way in; there was a monthly deep cleaning team.
"The greenhouse and hedge gardens are actually my own curation," she corrects, smiling. "Doctor Lecter prefers to reap his harvests from the company he keeps."
This is a joke, but Will doesn't get it. It's clear this Dr. Lecter is cultured, traveled, and prefers to entertain; that much is obvious in the multitude of rooms and sitting areas of the house. This is a place made for traveling parties or feudal lords.
Will thinks of fishing-boathouses and a bunking cabin just off of the Missouri River he and his father spent a few summers in. He finds he can't drudge up anything comparable to the loneliness of inheritance.
Despite its foreignness to him and the lack of sympathy he shows it, Will can at least respect the solitude that must accompany having three separate dining rooms.
Doctor Du Maurier, either ignorant of or disinterested in Will's internal musings, continues her answer after a pause. "A fortune, I am paid not. Doctor Lecter and I have a mutual understanding that allows me to stay as I am. Thankfully, should it ever be decided I leave, I was successful enough in my own practice to land on a secure enough perch until I was called upon again."
There was a lot to unpack with that statement.
Will chooses carefully. "Private practice?"
"I was a psychiatrist, in another life."
Of course she was.
If Will's life was a tree, he'd be pushed off of the top and each branch hitting him on the way down would be a different psychiatrist. If he had to put money on it, he would guess she, too, specialized in especially difficult or disturbed patients.
Damm psychiatrists.
She starts walking again, sidelong glances thrown between him and the door. "I'm afraid I do have to attend to Dr. Sutcliffe now. I trust you remember your way back to your things."—(He doesn't, but it's not as though he's doing to tell her that)—"In the meantime, feel free to roam or settle as you please. I'll have someone fetch you for dinner."
She waits until he nods before leaving, taking any lightness to be interpreted in the greenhouse with her. There are several other herbs budding around him, as well as flowering aloe succulents and pronounced jades. At the back, obscured by various seedlings, Will can see several barbed plants and some groups of more carnivorous upstarts. In one corner, he glances a large swath of Heliamphora staring back at him.
He leaves, feeling decidedly skittish in among the clashing flora. The kitchen beyond it doesn't provide much more comfort, the sea of stainless steel and dark wood not providing the juxtaposition and calm he was looking for.
These were not places made for others to feel welcome in, Will deduces. They were clearly made to be someone's sanctum in the house,.
Not usually one to wander in unfamiliar places, Will finds himself gravitating back to a recognizable path through several corridors and up the stairs again.
The house speaks of ornate four-poster beds and ostentatiousness. Traditional barrel-vaulted ceilings and gothic imagery, this place seems to honor its position in the old country while also giving the impression of something infantile.
It was old, and then not so. Even accounting for renovations and remodeling, there was nothing ancestral about this place other than that it was clearly — if distantly — inherited. No memories clearly attached to the structure or layout itself and no evidence that anyone had lived there for more than a couple of years.
Eventually, Will's feet take him back to Abigail's room. He shrugs at her door: this is the reason why he's still here, after all.
At least for now.
The role he was offered was vague and Will imagined it was meant to stay that way.
Unsurprisingly, Abigail apparently had a penchant for running off the more traditional services her caretakers hired. Nannies, tutors, and "socialization specialists" were not known for tenures of more than a few weeks in the household. It would seem that, with the exceptions of Du Maurier and some regular household staff, rare visits from neighbors, and even rarer visits from Dr. Lecter, the girl was almost entirely isolated at — what Will was charitably calling — the estate.
On paper, Will might be considered another one of her tutors, encouraging Abigail's academic interests in psychology or literature in even intervals during the week. It was suggested he try teaching her more practical information, like driving and oil changes. She was a hunter, and fishing might prove a better outlet, and so on.
(Will decides that the smile on Dr. Du Maurier's face when he asks if Abigail might need a cooking lesson is another joke he has no desire to be let in on.)
"This all, of course, assuming you aren't completely taken with your arrangement at Dr. Chilton's," the doctor allows, flashing him another smile. "We wouldn't want to cause any further distress, of course."
A badly designed out for an offer that didn't seem to have much of a catch. Clearly, she was lying to him or hiding something, but the prospect of leaving to go directly to the realm of the infamous Doctor Frederick Chilton didn't seem like enough of a better second option for him to shoot her down so quickly.
He'd told her he would give her his answer the next day, after meeting Abigail and getting to know her as a conscious, autonomous being. After all, he was nearly certain that minding flighty, mercurial teenagers with authority issues had not been a part of his immunologist's recovery plan.
He said he would think about it, and considering that lately, it would seem Will was known for headlong decisions in regards to his own state of being, he sits outside her door for what feels like hours doing just that.
Unacquainted with his own inner-monologue, though — or even just vaguely weighing pros and cons of his decision-making — Will decides to do what he's recently done best in moments of intense doubt and self-reflection: he calls Alana Bloom.
She picks up on the second ring, clearly anticipating his call. "Will! How was your flight? Did you make it to Frederick's alright?"
Right, he thinks. She had told him to call her when he landed, but that had been put on hold. He explains the delay, asking her to pass on his regards to Chilton for the night, should she speak to him before Will does.
She agrees and then immediately backtracks. “A runaway? Did you call the authorities?”
“That’s why I’m calling, actually. They said it was a case you worked on before? Uh, Lecter?”
Doctor Du Maurier had mentioned Abigail's link with Alana briefly when he explained why Frederick, as she had not-so-delicately asked. He was uncomfortable having the information before either Alana or Abigail gave it to him but kept that part to himself.
Alana hums while she thinks, the sound drawing a small smile out of Will. Despite his previous romantic inclinations toward her before he had gotten sick, he finds himself filled with nothing but a soft fondness for her now. She had proved to be a sturdy anchor during his treatment, and then again in his recovery. Her absence is amplified now in the dark, empty hallway.
Suddenly, “Oh! Will, you must be at Hannibal’s.”
Hannibal's.
Hannibal Lecter.
The name sounds oddly familiar. He mouths it away from the receiver, but it doesn't help. Alana sounds ecstatic about the development, however, and when he asks why she laughs.
“You remember what I said about Frederick’s ... more invasive tendencies?”
Will snorts. “You called him a nosy son of a bitch.”
“I did not."
She did.
“You said he could be worse than Freddie Lounds sometimes.”
A pause.
“I may have been drinking at the time,” she allots. He doesn’t need to see her to know she’s smiling one of those shy smiles she gives him when she thinks he doesn’t notice.
Just now, in this moment, he misses her terribly.
“Anyway," she continues. "Hannibal doesn’t have that problem. I studied under him years ago and we still connect when he's stateside. Oh, Will, this is just perfect! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself. Hannibal’s will be the perfect place for you to get back on your feet. It’s quiet there, very secluded, and he’s such a perfect host—"
Will sighs and she stops short. “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he warns. “I haven’t even decided if I’m staying the night, let alone the duration of my sabbatical.”
Now that's a lie. Even if he'd wanted to leave tonight, cabs weren't running past four. And, even if they did, both Alana and Italian Mapping! had failed him so spectacularly, he wasn't even sure he knew where Chilton's was in relation to here. It would appear Will's foreseeable future was in the hands of Dr. Du Maurier for the time being and she didn't seem like one keen on helping him navigate the countryside anytime soon.
“That’s fair,” she relents, and it’s clearly a pain for her to do so. “All I ask is that you consider it. Hannibal's place would allow you all the freedom you need for your hermit-like tendencies,” she jokes.
Whether "other tendencies" included nearly dying of encephalitis or accidentally emulating serial killers isn't immediately apparent and Will is too polite to ask.
“He’s definitely not going to be my psychiatrist, Alana. He’s not even here.”
She pauses again. “He’s not?”
“No," Will tells her. "Just a Doctor Du Maurier, a woman named Chiyoh, and his daughter, as far as I’ve seen.”
"Wait, Doctor Du— Bedelia? And did you say the girl is at Hannibal's?"
"Yes? She lives here, I think," he says slowly. "They both do."
She doesn't say anything for a long time, her breathing and some rustling in the background are the only signs she hasn't hung up on him yet. When she speaks, her voice is calmer but firm and urgent.
"How old is this girl, Will?"
"I don't know. She's a teenager, at least. High-school aged," he decides.
"Could she be about sixteen?"
He could see that. "Sure."
"Did you happen to get a name?"
"Abigail."
"Abigail ... Abigail Lecter?"
"Yes, I think." He'd referred to her as Dr. Lecter's child several times and was never corrected.
The pause this time is much longer and completely silent. In his mind, Will can see her putting the phone down entirely, closing her eyes and counting to ten like she once suggested he do when overwhelmed. He's confused by her reaction, and then not.
He doesn't know Lecter, but he could easily see the trope be playing out: a man, tired of his life, moves away to start anew, handing out half-truths here and there when confronted with his old one or purposefully hiding pieces entirely for himself.
Remove some key details and nouns and that was essentially what Will was doing now.
Still, to not fess up the existence of a whole child that Alana clearly had some relationship with previously seemed a little suspicious. He doesn't get to dwell on that long before she finally speaks again.
"Well, I'm just glad you aren't by yourself out there," she recovers, but her tone doesn't hold the same lightness it did when she answered. "I've often worried about Hannibal rattling about that old place by himself... Yes, I think you're much better off there."
He just grunts in acknowledgment and the conversation is over not long after that.
Yes, the dogs and the FBI consultations are going well. Yes, the Ripper and Shrike cases were still considered open only on a technical basis, but yes, they were still a top priority for Jack's unit. No, Jack didn't have anything to say but Oh, as it turns out Zeller and Price (and Beverly, especially) did have something to say to him. (And sorry, Will, but Beverly did get your number out of me, but she promised not to call.)
Will decides to mark the conversation down as a practice in picking his battles and tries not to sigh too deeply when he hangs up.
Abigail wakes slowly and sore the next afternoon. She's unwilling to see Dr. Du Maurier, he learns, but is already asking for Will.
"She called you ‘the crazy American with the glasses,’ so I’d prepare yourself," the doctor had told him.
He wasn't afraid to admit he was out of his depth. He was far out of his depth. Maybe, if he'd been more capable with his peer group when he was her age, this wouldn't have seemed so daunting. As that wasn't the case, Will found himself clammy and out of breath standing in front of the door he'd nearly camped out in front of the evening before.
It wasn't until Dr. Du Maurier had come to collect him for dinner that he realized he'd never mustered a motivation to leave on his own.
Left up to Will's tastes, they'd eaten in silence at a small table in the kitchen and finished quickly. After, she led him back through different combinations of stairs and hallways to his room in what she told him was the south wing of the house. She mentioned a little about the bedroom: smaller than those found in the other wings and spartan in comparison. She told him it would be a spartan existence, but at least there would be a connecting bathroom.
When Dr. Du Maurier finally left, Will opened the door and stopped short, laughing — he’d been right about the bedposts.
Now, he stands in front of Abigail's door and his palms are sweating. (All of him is sweating, really, but he does his best not to think of that.)
Instead, he knocks and waits.
He enters when she permits him to but leaves the rest up to her, not moving from a few paces inside the door. ( you weren’t good with teenagers when you were a teenager, let alone one so obviously damaged as this. you should cut your losses and leave now. )
In the end, it’s Abigail that breaks the silence between them. “My father says it's rude to not make eye contact with the person you're speaking with.”
( you're not leaving. )
He smiles at that a little but his eyes don’t move from the foot of her bed. "Not my strong suit."
"Being rude?"
"Eye contact."
She shifts on the bed and pulls her knees up to rest under her. "Bedelia said you work for the FBI."
"I did," Wills says. "Used to, I mean. Still might one day."
"The FBI doesn't have jurisdiction here," she says confidently. "That's INTERPOL. Why are you here?"
Will cocks his head. Okay then. "There are a few things wrong with that. But I told you, I'm not with the FBI." Slowly, he moves to stand closer to the foot of her bed, wrapping one hand around the knobbed post there. "Do you remember me from yesterday?"
"You had glasses then," she says. "You hit me with your car."
"In a manner of speaking," he says, stifling a smile. "Really, you hit yourself with my cab—"
"Did he send you here?"
"What?"
"It's a simple question," she says, eyes sharp on him. "Did he hire you? Are you here to spy on me for him so he doesn't have to come back himself?"
So lonely.
"I assume you mean your father?" Will says, and chuckles a little when she nods slowly. "I was on my way to one of your neighbor's yesterday. You sidetracked me, and now I'm here. I don't have a clue who your father even is."
Which is only just true. Between Dr. Du Maurier and Abigail, Will feels like he knows Dr. Lecter on something of an intimate level.
Luckily, Abigail doesn't seem to compute and just nods again, moving on. "Why did you stay the night?"
Will tucks his tongue into his cheek. Normally he'd do his best to avoid seeing patterns where there weren't any, but it was hard not to wonder what it was about the women in this house asking him questions he didn't want to answer. He figures to try honesty.
"I had to make sure you were alright," he tells her. "You looked scared. I thought it might be good to see what you were trying to get away from."
She looks grimly amused by this notion. "And what have you found?"
"I don't know."
Her eyes narrow and she tilts her head. "Try again."
He purses his lips. "You don't want to be here, which you would be able to manage, except that this is a house full of people who don't want to be here. This place feels like an animal skin and it's suffocating you."
"So? I'm unhappy. A lot of kids are unhappy." She takes a pause then, considering. "Why did I try to leave?"
"You didn't think you'd be caught," Will says, trying to keep himself removed from it. "You hoped desperately that you would be. But not by me, or Dr. Du Maurier, or anyone else here. This is the only way you know how to get his attention."
"My father?"
"Your father," he agrees slowly, less sure now. "You feel as though he's forgotten you exist and you've decided to take more active measures in your efforts to remind him that you do."
She takes another long, skeptical look at him. "You pulled that together pretty quickly."
He shrugs. "It's not an original story."
"You're not very good with children, are you?"
He tries a smile. "It's never been said to be among my better suits, no."
Abigail considers him for a moment, sizing him up. Will tries to hold himself incredibly still while tilts her head back and forth. She's very obviously making some sort of decision — coming to some sort of conclusion — and he so desperately doesn't want to fuck that up by something as mundane as breathing.
Finally, she says, "You're American."
"So are you."
She shakes her head. "That's not what my passport says. Hannibal moved me here when I was eleven and we never looked back."
He hums. "Where were you before then?"
"Maryland," she says, and then quirks her lips a little. "Midwest, before that."
"Anything eventful?"
He earns a small laugh. "Nothing you would've heard about, no." She hums to herself a moment, still thinking through the amusement. "Are you staying?"
The way she poses it, the question seems innocuous. If Will wasn't truly tuned in, he might've mistaken her tone for boredom.
But she's paying him rapt attention. He doesn't miss the way her eyes track him and focus — curious, if not altogether predatory.
Silent and stalking, he thinks, like a hungry thing wading in savannah grass.
( you're not so simple of prey, though. She has to know that by now. )
"I'm considering it," he tells her. "Dr. Du Maurier mentioned something about staying here instead of continuing on my way to Chilton's." Her faces twitches a little. "What do you think?"
She shrugs. "I don't care what you do."
"That's not what she thinks," Will offers. "'S not what I think either."
"Oh yeah?" Will nods. "And what do you think?"
"I think you could use a friend, or a mentor, or something. Someone who you don't hate; someone you can trust. It would appear that they're taking this last little prison break of yours pretty seriously and I imagine you could use someone in your corner."
"And that's you?"
"It could be."
It shouldn't be.
"This doesn't seem like a bad idea to you?"
"Maybe." It does. "Feels a bit like walking into a trap face-first."
"And you're okay with that?"
"No." ( you are. you fucking liar yes you are. you sustain destruction like unleavened bread and you'll keep going like this until you can admit it. ) "But I can take care of myself. All you have to do is promise not to run away again, if that's what you want."
She rolls her eyes. "I think I can manage that."
She can't.
He holds his hand out for her to shake anyway, smiling when she does. "It's a deal then."
It's not.
He's right: she tries to run again before the week is out. Twice, by his count, and brought back kicking and screaming both times.
Will doesn't blame her.
She seems to like him enough, so he relishes what he can in that. She demands his company every afternoon after that first day and refuses to eat without him by her bedside in the evenings.
They talk endlessly, trading conversation like novelty playing cards.
This one for that. I'll tell you about my time as a cop if you tell me what's the deal with the haunted samurai armor. Oh? You've got a Frederick Chilton incident? I'll trade you a "what the fuck is up with that greenhouse" bonanza.
They share a love of french doors and cottage-style roofs, but can't seem to agree as to whether or not the stucco finish on the East Wing of the manor is tacky or not. Yes, they do think that Chiyoh and Dr. Du Maurier stare a bit too longingly at one another, but neither of them is entirely sure as to what that means. They gush for hours over admiration for the Confessionalists but nearly collapse their whole arrangement over the Beats.
( There's a silent agreement not to even mention Dr. Lecter in passing, and despite Will's burning curiosity, he holds his end of that bargain. )
It's simple but it's theirs, and it gets them close enough that when she tries to run for the first time after five days, he has to remind himself not to be hurt.
Abigail is smart enough, at least, to wait until she's cleared of sustained head trauma to run the first time. He learns later she snuck out a few hours after their shared dinner: steak (the T-bone of which was just sharp enough to jam the hinges of the bedroom door) and parsnip pureé (which was apparently perfect for lubricating the squeaky window lock.) She's back within hours, flailing about in a fireman's carry on Chiyoh's shoulders.
He finds her pouting and stiff-eyed the morning after, thick bandages wrapped around her shoulder and down her middle.
( This isn't about him and he knows that. He knows nothing he does or doesn't do will fill whatever hole she's digging for Dr. Lecter. All he can do is hold her when she cries about her failed attempt in the morning and hope she'll come to him next time. )
She doesn't.
She's not smart enough to finish out her antibiotics before running the second time, as it turns out, which sees her bed-bound for another two weeks until she's given the all-clear on infections. This time, he doesn't bother to hide his disappointment.
"You could have killed yourself out there."
"I know my way around. I would've been fine until I got to the next town."
"No, you wouldn't have. You were already passed out on the side of the road when they found you. A few hours more, and who knows? I've called time for victims who had more of a chance than you did out there."
"Maybe you should go back to them, then!"
"Maybe I will."
They don't say anything really after that — just sit in acrimonious silence until the dinner bell rings. It's not until he moves to get up that she moves, shooting forward to fist her hand into the bottom hem of his shirt.
"Will?" She looks up at him through wet lashes, her lip quivering and fist shaking where she holds it out. She's afraid. "Please don't go."
So he doesn't.
Things get much easier after that.
He doesn't mean to keep the dog.
( In his defense, he'd say he, in fact, didn't keep the dog. Really, saying he kept the dog is a statement based on circumstantial evidence at best, Abigail, thank you and he doesn't feel the need to justify himself to anyone. )
Will's content.
He doesn't know if he can describe what he and Abigail do as teaching: on odd days, they come together in a sitting room or in the gardens or the house's main library to discuss texts Will "assigns" or current events, and on others, Will teaches her more practical things, like self-defense or the basics of car mechanics.
When he's not with Abigail, he avails himself to the library, or talks with Bedelia, or goes on long walks on the winding paths through the countryside. He gets weekly emails from Alana and texts daily with Beverly, but other than that, the Will Graham of old is almost a figment of his imagination.
He's very much comfortable in this new skin of his — but he's so lonely, sometimes.
Bedelia has her gardens and sometimes Abigail can't wait to get out of lessons to go log on to some online chat room. It gets so bad that once, he tries to talk to Chiyoh about the weather.
( she's a woman who spends fourteen hours a day holed up in a watchtower with a gun. you're lucky the worst thing she did to you was laugh you out of the kitchen )
The dog thing just sort of happens:
It's those aimless, backroads walks that nudge him along the same oath as the shaggy little thing. It limps to and away from him constantly along the walk, and by the end of it, Will is allowed to pet and scratch to his heart's content. It leaves when Will gets back to the house but comes back on the dot when Will heads out for his walk the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.
One day, he's hunching over outside of the back kitchen door in the middle of the night feeding the little guy cooking scraps, and then one day, a few weeks later, Abigail's woodworking lessons are being dominated by DIY manuals and the intimate details of canine-friendly insulation materials. It's not until he's labeling a worn-through, lidless Tupperware bowl Winston that he accepts the fact that yeah, he's got a dog.
What of it?
One month passes.
He takes up baking with Bedelia. Together, they churn out breads and passive aggression in droves, following failed attempts at cookies and pies. Nothing sweet makes it out of that kitchen alive, something Will actively tries not to think about when he's alone.
When the weather turns sweltering, he trades aimless walks for languishing, half-clothed, in the stream near the edge of the estate. His reading hour on the porch swing in the sun room of the west wing of the house turns into intermittent naps in sun spots.
One particular treat: trips to the well-ventilated market an hour and a half away in the nearest town over.
Usually, he'll walk or borrow one of the few regular-looking cars out of the small, unattached garages near the house. It's a ritual done best in silence no matter how he does it, and on the rare occasion, he does accept company, tries to accommodate a bit of conversation.
Winston helps, but he's unable to fill the void of diversified, adult human contact.
Will decides not to examine that too closely and be grateful for what he has.
It's another month, then, and then another. Before he knows it, he's telling Alana he has to be homesoon as an excuse to go during a call in the middle of a trip to the market. A slip of the tongue, really, or a lack of minced words. He's forgotten himself, at any rate.
Careless.
His mind reels for a long while after he hangs up, and it's not until he hits an unfamiliar pike in the road that he looks around to realize that patch of yellow grass is not the patch of yellow grass he's familiar with and the broken chicken wire fence he's supposed to take a right at is nowhere in sight.
He looks around for any other familiar landmark and finds none.
He does not panic. His heart races and his palms sweat profusely but he does not panic. Everything is fine and he's likely only a few feet off of his regular path.
( you are so sure everyone loses time now and again. you know this. you can't have been walking for more than thirty minutes and that's ... everybody does that, right? )
He doesn't get to answer that thought for himself because suddenly, barreling at a speed that can't be legal, there's a car in the road.
And then suddenly—
Correction: there's a car in the ditch.
It takes a moment for his limbs to remember that they're attached to him and that he wants to move. It takes a moment, but he quickly abandons his bags in the road and jogs over to the car.
Small, cratered dents curve around a thick tree branch fallen on the hood of the car. There are deep scratches around the windshield and sickening occasional hiccups coming from the engine, but other than that, the car seems fine.
He moves to survey the damage to the tires, but before he can, the driver's side door swings open unceremoniously. Feet, clad in rich, tanned leather, strike the ground much steadier than Will would expect. He watches them make an aborted move to support weight before slipping and landing flat again.
Will moves around the car in time to hear the air leave the man in an oompf as he falls back in his seat again.
"Uh," he says, dumbly. "Buongiorno?"
Even looking at the long bridge of his nose, Will can tell the man is staring. Gawking, maybe, or whatever his approximation of it was, anyway. ( Interesting, Will thinks a little viciously, with a suit pattern like that, whose calling the kettle outlandish? )
"Buongiorno." He is clearly very amused. His sharp features seem almost placid for having just, you know, crashed his car. "Tu non parli italiano vero?"
"I- I don't—"
"I thought not," the man says, chiding almost. "The local populace knows better than to walk in the middle of this road."
Will's jaw ticks. "Reckless drivers?"
But the man is not listening to him. Instead, he tries again to get to his feet, pushing from the heels this time with a strength that seems out of place for the man's lithe frame. He falls, again, with a pained hiss and hand shooting to his ribcage.
"Are you okay?" Will asks, deciding he can hate the guy tangentially and be helpful at the same time.
The man sighs, clearly reeling a little from the pain, but nods.
"I wouldn't tough it out if I were you. Rib injuries can get pretty nasty, and you've got a while till the next town." Still nothing. Will notices some cuts on the man's hands and neck and feels a bit more determined. "Do you have someone I can call?"
“There's no need for something like that," the man says, obviously a little shorter than he intended. He takes a deep breath and shifts to get more comfortable. "If you would, please: there is a bag in the trunk.”
Will goes to retrieve it. It’s a weighted, leather thing — good condition and a gold monogrammed ‘H’ engraved brightly against the dark stain of the front. The man quietly thanks him and begins pulling out bandages and disinfectant.
He feels a hollow shock of amusement. “Is this area quartered off for healthcare professionals?”
“Not that I am aware of,” the man answers softly, not bothering to look up until it becomes clear that Will is just going to stand there like anidiot. “Are you-?”
“No, I’m— sorry,” Pull it together, Graham. “I live with one. Or, um, in his house. He’s a doctor, too. A surgeon, I believe.”
The man pauses in his application, mild surprise and caution — not dissimilar to Bedelia’s face when Will had first introduced himself. With the sun hitting his face just so and the small sweat broke out against his brow, they could be twins.
Finally, his expression tips over into a smile. The man is far too pleased with himself in Will's opinion. “Are you referring to Dr. Lecter?”
“I might be.”
The man finishes with the disinfectant and begins wrapping silently, contemplating. He pulls tight at the beige wrap around his wrist and doesn't so much as grimace. “You’re comfortable working for a man you’ve never met?”
Hm.
That isn't the question you want to ask. “I wouldn't be the first,” he says. And then, “What makes you think that I haven’t met him?”
The man levels him with a strange smirk marred with distraction. Pain, Will thinks, but not really. You have a high pain tolerance, something carefully cultivated for years.
“You’re new to the household,” the man observes, like it's obvious. “Though his ship runs smoothly, Dr. Lecter isn’t known to man its helm for long. He’s been away almost constantly for months now, and you’re not familiar enough with his grounds to have been here any longer than that.” His lips quirk at that, privately laughing at some joke. “You mentioned you don't know what he does for a living.”
Will shakes his head. He hadn’t had time. “I didn’t—"
“You did. You didn’t mean to, but you did. Not one for gossip, I suppose.” The man ducks his head and Will meets his eyes before skirting away again. “Or eye contact, it would seem?”
Will rolls his eyes. "I'd argue we've both had enough distraction for one day."
The man nods sagely, lips twitching again.
It's a short end to their time together: Will helps give the car a running start back out of the ditch, and the man thanks him for his help — even goes as far as to offer him a ride home.
"It can be dangerous out here, I'm told. I'd hate for you to come across any unsavory characters."
"A grandmother fallen on the path to the wolf's den?"
The smile he earns for that is almost blinding. "Something like that. Hurry home now, Will. It would be rude to keep that wolf waiting."
He offers a smile of his own and a stilted wave. Between one breath and the next, the man is gone and Will is alone. Again.
It isn’t until a few minutes after the man pulls away and Will’s resumed his walk that the realization washes over him that the stranger had never told him his name, never offering it himself and Will having been too frazzled to ask after it.
It's not until he finds the right patch of yellow grass and chicken wire fence that he realizes he never offered the man his name, either.
Meandering. Better word for a walk than Will'd ever used. Stalling was really more accurate in this instance.
He made his way back to the house at a glacial pace. He crossed the prologue field in a zagged compilation of tight strides and lazy turns. When he made it to the asphalt, he cut through the begonia hedges, stopping for a moment to stand over them. The spiral pattern among the thicket of gravel and stone was striking — a wide berth of deep reds and pinks bleeding slowly into whites at the center.
Something cared for and alive, the arrangement might have been beautiful or even vaguely aesthetically pleasing to Will in any other circumstance. Here, though, against the backdrop of a place so solitary and singular, it just felt ominous.
Who's keeping you alive in the middle of all of this? Who has life to give in a place like this?
Will ignores it and keeps walking, almost spiteful in the yawning shadow of the estate. The energy he had after crawling back out of that ditch is gone now.
There's no suspense when he reaches the cobblestone courtyard, the house just an arm's reach away.
There's no need for suspense — he knows what awaits him there.