MulltiFandom MultiMuse

Everything was going as per usual. Eliot was in the midst of planning a ball to take place the coming weekend, mostly because things were quiet for the moment and there wasn’t much else that required his time. (But of course, he preferred to be busy.) 

He was being brought canape samples to decide on–one of his favorite parts of the party planning process–when his guard came with the two unfamiliar individuals. Eliot gave a kind smile, kindly dismissing the caterer for the time being as he listened to the very cute young man explain himself. 

The royal guard, unsurprisingly, continued glaring at the visitors (and luckily for the both of them, Margo was away on other business) but Eliot held a hand up as if to pause the hostility. “They mean no harm,” he said, and it was to the guards but he didn’t stop looking to the young man before him. 

And maybe, living up to his reputation, Eliot was checking him out. (Margo wouldn’t have been surprised and certainly would have called him out later, which made it all the more fun even without her being here.) “Perhaps our lost dignitaries are thirsty? Why don’t we have some drinks? I’ve just perfected Fillorian Champagne.” 

“You have champagne here? That’s good to know. A world without champagne is just... horrible to imagine” Rhy teased bumping Lila with his hip in an attempt to make her something aproaching sociable. An obvious failure, but he had to try none the less. 

Lila scowled and bowed her head as if she was the most put upon person in the world. Her hands were tucked into the inner pockets of her long coat (something reminicent of his brother’s, though not nearly as spectacular. That coat was one of a kind after all), face set into an all too familiar scowl. He nudged her once more causing her to hiss something only Rhy could hear... or so he hoped. 

This isn’t why were here. You can flirt any time... there’s a whole world to explore here. 

                                                Attention

Molly and Clarice have seen a real spike in activity, so I am moving them to their own bog to tidy up asks, replies, and my follower list. I will move all active threads over to the new blog as I reply. Please feel free to follow my girls at the above url. Same muses, new blog!

“Trite,” Hannibal clucked his tongue. He expected nothing less of Freddie Lound’s and her particular brand of journalism. She was a pest, a particularly resilient one. Tattle Crime had had some use over the years, but hardly anything that could be described as ‘informational’. Hannibal had been amused by Freddie’s reference to himself and Will as ‘murder husbands’. His gaze became momentarily distant as he thought about Will, only refocusing as Clarice began talking about her father. 

“How did you feel, watching him die?” Hannibal asked, now intent on her face. He leaned in closer to the glass, “Knowing it was you who made the decision? Did the hour seem to stretch on and on, to be much longer than any span of time you had ever known before or since?”

He was interested in whether or not Clarice felt like she had personally killed her father. It was hard for children to distinguish between the reality of a situation and the emotions that surrounded it. Whether or not Clarice carried that inability to distinguish the shooting from her decision would say something about her as a person. She’d hardly be alone in carrying blame, regardless of the truth of the matter. Emotions were irrational, ephemeral things that easily overrode even the strongest ability to reason.

“You can say a lot about Freddie Lounds, but she is never short of a good tagline” Clarice sighed. She had read the Tattler when she needed to, Freddie had a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (or in the so called journalist’s opinion the exact opposite). She had contaminated many a crime scene, and invaded personal space like a bandit. She had posted pictures of Professor Graham post surgery that some of the guys in class had passed around  for a good laugh. Professor Graham had deserved better than that. He deserved at least some decency, but that wasn’t Freddie’s style. 

The stillness seeped into Clarice’s bones as she sat before Doctor Lecter. The glass and the walls around her falling away as she lost herself to the flood of memory. She was there, standing in the room with her younger self as the nurses removed her father’s life support tubes. Her uncle clutching at his wife like he was carrying the burden he had placed so firmly on her shoulders. No one had been there to cling to her, or for her to cling to. 

“I was referring to your happiness, Molly dear,” Hannibal commented from here he stood, still holding the rolled paper in his hands in the center of the cell, “I’m beginning to think you’re a believer in inevitability too, despite what you told me. I am here, in this cell, where Will always knows where I am. And what I am doing. Surely a man in a cage has little to offer over a blushing bride.”

He approached the glass again, resting the rolled paper on top of the exchange that allowed him to pass and receive items, “You’re my company in misery, Molly Graham. And you have told me much of how you would fight. But not what you would offer me. Not what deal you would make, or what message your Mephistopheles should return to the Devil with. Unless…”

His maroon eyes sparked with flecks of red as he looked her over with a long, appraising stare, “The fight is the offer. Daring, daring, girl.”

Without breaking eye contact, he opened the exchange and dropped the roll of paper inside, shoving the drawer out with a loud bang.

Molly watched Hannibal as he shuffled through his papers and seemed to fall on the correct one, whatever it was. She couldn’t see from where she stood, but judging by the drawings that decorated the walls of his cell, views of places Molly had never been and people she would never know, she could assume that what he had in his hands was also a drawing. She watched as he rolled it and looked up to meet his eyes as he continued speaking. 

“Surely” Molly hissed, her eyes narrowing slightly. She knew enough to know that she was being played, but not enough to she the webs this particular spider had woven. She was being trapped... and there was nothing more unsettling than knowing you were surrounded by rip wires, and unable to see a single one. That was her terrible burden. Intelligence enough to see, not enough to understand and know. 

She tracked Hannibal as he approached the glass again, her eyes wide and wet, but more focused and alert than they had been even in the teeth of her fear. Now the fear had shifted, matched itself with adrenaline and anger. “I was under the impression I was speaking directly to the devil” She replied, “but the offer stands. I know, in my heart, there’s nothing I could give you that would turn you away from Will. Nothing I could offer to save him. He’ll have to save himself in the end. But he won’t do it alone. That's my promise. That’s my offer. Will Graham’s informed agency, and my heart. My life... for his safety”

“Nothing new, but this will be quite the torrent, Clarice. Something that’ll run beyond even Freddie Lounds and Tattle Crime,” Hannibal clicked his teeth together seemingly in thought, “Though I know Buffalo Bill is already quite the headline for her. What do the shirts say this time?”

He listened to what the woman on the other side of the glass had to say, his eyes half closing as he imagined the senator’s daughter. Yes, that did seem about right from what he knew of the wayward Jame Gumb and the dearly departed mother. She’d been a tall woman. Pretty. Jame had brought her up in passing the one time that they had actually met, within the context of a psychotherapy joke. Tell me about your mother… standard fair, but there had been more there. He let Clarice go off on her thoughts, closing his eyes further and watching her play with her hair from beneath his lids. As she started to trail off, he interrupted her.

“How did he die, Clarice? Your father. Tell me the truth and…don’t make it clickbait.”

“Buffalo Bill: The Next Big Thing” Clarice muttered. She hated even how the words tasted on her tongue. Not a remark on a killer, but a commentary on the women he had abducted and murdered. It was crude, it was cruel, it was completely Freddie Lounds. The woman had no tact and even less taste. Clarice hoped to never run across her but knew it was only time until their paths crossed. She haunted The Guru’s footsteps and Clarice knew she could only remain anonymous for so long. Particularly if she continued to see Doctor Lecter as regularly as she was. 

Clarice was still caught up in her reflections on the case when Doctor Lecter’s voice halted her completely. She blinked for a moment as her mind slowed to a stop, and then rewound to her childhood memories. It was impossible to think about her father without thinking about flashes of their life. More than his death, his life. It was something she was thankful for. In her waking hours, she knew there had been nothing she could do for him, but in the night he joined the chorus of screams. One more she couldn’t save. One more lost cause. 

She sat up straighter and flicked her hair over her shoulder settling her hands in her lap once more. 

Chester looked around his room and finally found the scissors he was looking for. Of course he’ll hide these well from mother in case she tried to use it against him. He was not going to be the victim this time. He then grabbed the picture of his real mother from his drawer and stared at it for a few minutes. His eyes burned into the photograph as he slid his fingers along the shape of her face. He then pulled the picture close and rested his head against it as he squeezed his eyes shut. 

His leg started to shake and tears formed at his eyes as they trailed hot streaks down his pain stricken face. He then pulled the picture away again as he hyperventilated for a moment. He tried to gain his bearings as disturbing memories tried to break through the walls of his mentality. He then said softly, 

“ This is what you made me do. This is what you turned me into. This is you’re fault… you’re fault. ” 

Chester wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hoodie sleeve. He then placed the picture back in his drawer. He looked toward the bathroom and new he needed to finish what he started. He was coming for her now… 

He walked up from behind her, heavy footsteps suppressed from the blaring blend of instruments from his speaker. He then slid his fingers through her hair as he pulled it back from her face. He then started to cut her hair just bellow her neck where her shoulders began. Next he tied the  severed locks of hair together with a rubber band. This was going to be his trophy. He turned her around to face him before attempting to measure and layer her hair into a short bob.

The boy left Molly alone, her hair dripping around her bare shoulders, her tattered shirt still tangled around her arms. She closed her eyes wincing as the rapidly cooling water on her skin left her shivering. She didn’t have time to be cold. She didn’t have time to be wet... all there was, was an escape. It was all that mattered, and she was already not in anywhere near an ideal situation having been moved to a secondary and unknown location. 

I would have been easy to surrender to despair, to give up and give in to the fear and sorrow welling up inside of her. But she knew better than that. The fear turned to adrenaline, and with it came a strange sense of calm and clarity. She inhaled through her nose, her eyes still closed as she tried to recall what Will had taught her about duct tape restraints. How to break them. And, oh... there it was. She pulled at her lips as the tape over her mouth further loosened. Enough that she could feel the sweat on her upper lip and pant more air into her lungs. She rubbed her cheek against her shoulder trying to roll the tape free, the water she had been submerged in had helped to loosen some of the tape. But, she didn’t have time for more than a few attempts. The boy would be back. She wasn’t sure well, she couldn’t hear him in the other room... couldn’t see him from where she had been left kneeling. 

No, she had to get her hands free. She opened her eyes then, remembering what she had been taught. She pressed her elbows together and then raised her hands over her head then dropped them straight down sharply. It burned at her skin and left abrasions she was sure, but the tape snapped on one side. 

She was about to scrabble to free her mouth and legs when she heard something. Something slightly offbeat from the heavy loud bass and drum beats. It could be someone banging on a wall, or it could be footsteps. And it it was footsteps... 

Shit... he was coming. 

She pressed her wrists together again tucking them down by her knees to hide the break and hoped that it would go unnoticed until she could make a more calculated move. She had just adjusted when she felt fingers in her hair Pulling the thick drak waves away from her face, and then there was the tug and pull of shears roughly hacking at her locks. She could feel the strands falling down her shoulders, some rolling onto the floor, others sticking to her still-damp skin. The hands stopped for a moment and then he was turning her on her knees. Forcing her to face him. 

And as he did, Molly lunged. Her legs still bound, but her hands were free, she tried her best to tackle the boy and wrestle the shears from his hands. To force his body under hers enough that she could get leverage.  To scratch and grab at any exposed skin available to her. To gouge at his eyes.