#*worries*

thank you ;-; hhh i'm scared but thamk :)

Will sat on the couch and Hannibal went to the chair with nothing in his hands to distract his attention away.

“You don’t need your notebook?”

Hannibal leaned forward. “No, I do not. Tell me about that day.”

Will stared at his hands and leaned back against the couch cushion sitting up for a moment before he laid down. He couldn’t look Hannibal in the eyes but felt Mischa’s hand in his own.

“It was seventy seven days ago,” Will whispered, “June nineteenth. Mom had been out late the night before telling fortunes at the bar. Dad thought she just waited tables there, but she had a whole bunch of money saved for things he didn’t approve of.”

“Things like...?”

“Crystals, books, things like that. A waste of money, he always said, and my grandma liked to joke with Mama that his beer was a waste too but not in front of him. We never joked like that in front of him.”

“Your grandmother,” Hannibal started, “She’s no longer in your life?”

Will shook his head. “She passed away about a month before. Mom was depressed because she was the last link to the stuff we could do. The rest of the family lived too far away for us to have proper time like that without Gran. So we started doing it ourselves.”

He took a deep breath as Hannibal’s voice soothed him.

“You worked on rituals your father didn’t approve of?”

“Yeah,” Will whispered, “We did it in strange places. Like the car, or just late at night in the garage. He didn’t know why we started going off so much alone and didn’t like it. Dad accused Mama of getting ready to leave him. She said she wasn’t, which was true, and that’s when he hit her the first time.”

“Has he laid hands on you in that way?”

Will’s eyes filled with tears. “No,” he whispered, “Just that day he grabbed my chin and...god I’m getting ahead of things. The day started out the same as always. She was asleep and Dad was getting ready for work. He asked me point blank if we were thinking of running off and I said no. I knew then he didn’t believe me but I didn’t think anything of it.”

“What did you do after he left?”

“I read a book for school, The Great Gatsby. I hate that stupid book.”

“When did your mother wake that morning?”

“Around ten thirty. She and I decided to go to see Gran’s grave. Gran’s ghost wasn’t around, I had hoped it would be but she didn’t have any connection keeping her here. No one needed her,” he whispered, “That’s what Mama said but I wonder now if she kept her away.”

“We had lunch at the grave and that’s when she gave me her necklace. She told me it would keep the monsters away. I asked her to keep it for herself if it was for protection but she said no.”

“You’ve never worn it?”

“No,” Will shook his head, “It’s hers, not mine. I don’t deserve to be protected now anyway. Not after what I did.”

“You went home after?”

He felt Mischa squeeze his hand. “No, we did some rituals in the car. She talked to me about binding, I...I think she knew I’d need it? I was scared but I listened to everything she told me. I replicated the whole thing a week later.”

“You did nothing else?”

Will closed his eyes. “We fought,” he whispered, “I...I was frustrated because I couldn’t get it at first and I...I told her I hated her. That I…wished she wasn’t my mother. That I hated everything being related to her did to me. We didn’t talk the whole ride home.”

“Yes, I remember you telling me something along those lines before now. Your father was not happy to see you upon your return?”

Will started to shake. “No, he wasn’t. He started in on her and she told me to go to my room.”

“When did you hear them?”

Will swallowed a sob. “A few minutes later I heard a crack against the wall. My room was next to theirs. I got up, I was so scared but I got up.”

“You opened the door?”

“Yes.”

“He was strangling her,” Hannibal said, his voice hard.

“Yes.”

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