maskormenacelogs | we came out from the deep

[He had to go home. A weekend was long enough. Too long, perhaps. Perhaps she'd have Words for him (or a Lack Of Words for him) once she found out he'd been back and gone elsewhere, but that was a risk he had been willing to take when he made his first stop Frederick Chilton's. Nothing to do for it now, the past being in the past and all. In more ways than one, his less customized wedding band damn near burning a hole in his back pocket. As tempting as it was to crawl home in clothes snagged from Chilton's personal closet, Will was neither suicidal nor quite that pathetic. He'd grabbed his usual of too-large jeans and baggy red plaid from the nearest second-hand store to make his triumphant ("triumphant") return home in. And rather than go through the front door like a normal husband coming home from the Porter war, if only because of who his wife was at heart, he took a different, better approach.

He took note of the state of the garden as he came to the window of their master bedroom, flicking open his pocket knife with every intention to unlock the window and climb in if it was necessary. If he couldn't get the absolute best outcome...and there it was. Will waved eagerly to the first pair of fuzzy, dark eyes that landed on him, smiling when he realized he happened to be Eduardo. Godfather of the bunch, the one Will had a couple of hang ups around but loved just the same, scurrying over to lift the window for him with an unusual amount of cheerful eagerness was something that just felt right. Felt right for them to be the only ones to witness it, too. And more than right, it felt perfect whenever Will barely got a leg in the open window before the little fuzzball all but jumped on him, wrapping his tiny arms around Will's throat in a welcome home hug, one Will immediately responds to by wrapping his arm around him with a short, quiet laugh and a loving, "Good to see you, too, old man."

The reunion doesn't take long, and then Will's slid into the room with raccoon in tow, gently putting him down before he asks (not tells, always asks) if Eduardo can fetch April for him. Bring her to the room. Only after he watches the old fellow's tail vanish does Will basically collapse on the edge of the bed, running one hand over his face and taking a moment to move his hair into the most unruly do imaginable as he waited.]

[ April is not hard for Eduardo to find, not in her new room of the blanket fort. Will might note the bedroom looks relatively unused from when he left- other than the fact an April Grade Hissy Fit had occurred a few weeks ago. Clothes thrown around, bed sheets torn off and cast to the floor, the works. The raccoons had wisely opted to just let this one go, choosing not to clean and risk April having a worse one in revenge, and so it still all stands as a testament to her displeasure.

Eduardo goes straight to get her, but raccoon gossip moves faster than April can be harassed into standing. The whole pack currently in the house is assembling to go see Will, leaking in through the doors and window. By the time April, dressed in her normal tank-top and shorts pajamas, makes it to the room, there's a small hoard.

All of which scatter when she comes rushing in to more or less tackle him to floor with the force of her embrace. How well that works is in Will's court, because April is clearly not wasting a moment to do anything like think that he might have come back with new and exciting stomach scars that shouldn't be agitated.]

[Every single raccoon in this house will be properly hugged and tended to with the utmost affection (especially EAR) soon. He listens to the familiar, comfortable noise with furrowed brow, wondering if Eduardo passed the message along, or if Will was spotted already, or if he just smells enough everything with a good nose can pick up on him. There's a minor pang of guilt he doesn't have anything in his pockets to share, and then that's all replaced with a mix of worry and joy at spotting April in her natural state.

Joy beats all worries out when her reaction is so favorable. He lets it happen, of course he does, has no reason not to. Even though his face has been hacked slightly, momentary pain is no longer concern. Not when the payoff if he ignores it, as he easily can, is April essentially trapping him between her and the floor. That's one of the best places to be in any world, he'd be mad to try wriggling out of it. Rather, he almost madly works to return it, bury his face against her shoulder and wrap his arms around her so tightly it's bordering on too much.]

Hi to you, too. [His voice is ridiculously fond and he goes down without a fight. He remembers how he left her. Poor April, she deserves a half-mustache ride, she could sit on his tummy scar and he wouldn't find it anything other than justified.] Miss me?

[He wishes he could say he missed her, but alas. They both know that's a fucking lie.]

I hate you so fucking much.

[ Emotions, Will. Her emotions. Her emotions and his stupid, awful, special place in them, so that for once April has to actually give in to her intense relief that he's back and be happy instead of being able to angrily lash out for all the pain of the past couple weeks like she wants to. Like she would with literally anyone else she cared about (just ask Grey).

Goddamn horrible, terrible, no-good, perfect Will Graham. She keeps her face pressed against the crook of his neck, not even straddling but simply collapsed on top of him for a long moment. He voice is a little thicker as all she can do is repeat.]

So. Fucking. Much.

[And he's just holding her so tightly it's quite clear however much she hates him is either being ignored or discredited as false. False! Or if she does truly hate him, too fucking bad. He's not letting go. He'll chase her to the ends of the Earth, he will seduce her, time and again, however much he has to. He has all the time in every world to do it now, after all. April's not getting away from him unless she sincerely wants to.]

If this is what you do to people you hate, I'm not sure I wanna know what you'd do to people you loved.

[Murmured, one set of fingers gently combing through her hair while the other grasps around her waist and Will ignores the track record established between him and people who love worse than hate. No room for Hannibal Lecter on the floor now, deal with it.]

Marry them. Sometimes.

[ Life was so hard. She wants to push up and move and get to a point where she can actually see him and welcome him back properly. But That would involve not being entirely pressed up against him, ear where she can hear his heart and know he's there. She should get clone powers. That would be a fair repayment from the porter for the past month of pain. Two Aprils that can cover all the conflicting things she wants to do at any given moment. ]

You left.

I did not.

[For the first time, his hands move to push instead of pull, going to put some distance between the two of them so he can look her in the eye. Reunions are great, definitely, but that particular word choice is just unfair.]

You know I'd never leave you, especially not like that. [Why would he leave one of his favorite places? Not just because April's wrath would be an ungodly thing to witness, either.] That wasn't me, that was...you know.

[ It is a sign of the depth of her affection that she is silent for a moment there rather than simply spitting out the first reply that comes to mind without thinking it through. Fairness didn't factor into April's feelings of hurt or expression of displeasure. But there she remained, silent and frowning down at him with what she will never, ever acknowledge as tears gathering for a long moment.

And decides going into how the porter was an asshole and so was April really was the stupidest possible conversation they could have right now.]

Your face is all messed up, babe.

[Will knows better than to acknowledge anything like tears from April, keeps his hands on her face almost chastely settled on her cheeks. He won't be rubbing at her eyes, won't be encouraging those pesky emotions. Not now. Not when he's just got her back and is quite content to be pinned to the floor.]

Needs a couple weeks to heal is all. [His lips thin out anyway. Not quite a frown; Will doesn't need to actually frown to have all the signs of one.] Unless you want me to find someone who can fix it. Would another scar bother you?

[Since...he's already got an old one on his forehead, he knows. But April is the one who wakes up to him in the mornings! If she doesn't want to see that, he'll get it buffed out. If she doesn't care, he has no reason to care, either.]

What?

[ Would scars bother her? God, he was seriously too much sometimes. She gives a small huff then gives up on the whole pretense of supporting herself above him and falls back down those few inches, clear forehead against scarred one. ]

I don't care about having them. It's the getting them thing. That's the bothering.

[Bonk. His eyebrows shift for a second like there was an actual bonk, the whole semi-sinister look rather offset by the fact he slides his hands down to rest on her hips and he has to fight off a smile.]

I don't much like getting them, either. [Lessons learned the hard way, ie. the nearly lethal way, are not altogether enjoyable. Alert the presses, this is breaking new information.] Home stuff. It's over, and I didn't leave you to fend for yourself during Thanksgiving.

[So that counts for something, doesn't it?]

[ Home stuff. The Thanksgiving thing is sitting there, an easy exit out of any awkward conversation. But if it isn't hit now, April's pretty sure she's never going to touch on it. Back home and here were too separate in her head, not just two different words but two different lifetimes. A mentality probably borne from never, ever going home since she'd got here. But with Will?

The sigh is soft enough it's all air and no sound, but Will's in prime position to feel it. ]

Anything you wanna...give updates about?

[ Talk about didn't feel like the right word. April hadn't been there, wasn't from the world and couldn't ever get into the head space that Lecter-Land seemed to force people into. So she couldn't really sympathize with the need to keep on good social terms with mass murderers. But. If there were items he wanted her to be aware of, it was probably now or never. ]

[A prime position that's only getting primer. Will shifts his legs and wraps his arms around her, fully welcoming to the idea of human sleeping bag. As long as April wants, of course. There is a circular bit of metal in his back pocket about to burn straight through it. Like a wedding band would really destroy fabric, wriggle out, and hop up between them.]

It's been four years. [Murmured; he wishes that could be the end of it, he really does.] I wouldn't...

[Abigail died. Hannibal was caught. I got married. He almost killed my family and then escaped so I killed us both. Except, man, for how direct and easy that sounds in his head? Not the same trying to wrap his tongue around, to get it out. How does he tell his wife in one world he's dead?]

...you know I love you, don't you?

[SMOOTH.]

[ Of all the words to say, those sounded the most dangerous. That could be followed with anything from I had a hooker in the other world to after reconsidering, Hannibal's life of psychological torture and serial murder sounded just dandy and I've gotten the body count up to 20 already. Wanna get matching murder outfits and discuss our new thematic MO?

Okay. Probably not that bad. But that question made it hard to take any option off the table. Nothing good ever came after that.

So she thinks it's only fair she gets to lift her head and look him right in the eye after that question.]

Yeah...

Edited 2015-11-07 20:18 (UTC)

[Oh no. Eye contact. They're really doing this, no hiding. Wouldn't be polite to try and scurrying off now. He stares at April, expression inscrutable as he tries to come up with the most important facts in the least worrisome phrasing. Eventually, he pulls one arm back to fish that wedding band from his back pocket, carefully holding it up far enough away that April can see it while he'd have to crane his head to have it in his sight. He doesn't look.]

Molly. We had a son. Well. She did—I adopted him. His father wasn't...right. [A quick, sharp laugh cuts off the next line of thought, prevents him from making it known he's aware he's not right, either. But there are different types of wrong. Some can be lived with, some can't. And my my look at all those past tense verbs getting tossed out.] You should...you should know that update. It's only fair.

[He sounds like however fair it is he still doesn't like actually saying it. Because he doesn't.]

[ Well.

What to do with a problem like that? The did and had implied something...but dead wasn't a big thing to the Porter. If this Molly was dead there was no reason she couldn't just show up. Which...might not mean anything. Anyway. Will had been Will so far. Not 'oops, we need to rethink this' jerkface. So it looked like April was going to have to actually stand by one of her beliefs and embrace there is there, here is here to the fullest extent.

Eventually. Later. When she's had time to get over Will being gone and now back and married. Why think about problems now when she can leave that to future April? Who knows. Future April might deserve it.

The didn't mean she doesn't stare at the ring for a long minute before replying, fingers tightening when she has a grip on him. ]

What else?

[Going as well as he can hope for, Will stuffs the ring back in his pocket. Out of sight, out of mind. April's heard it, seen it, no point rubbing it in her face. But then that leaves really only one thing...and regardless of how good April is at the whole divide of what happens back home, he's not sure how to drop this particular bomb. He would never have to know how Molly had reacted to her husband taking a plunge into the Atlantic, and although that wasn't kind of him, no, at least he wouldn't have to see her face when the news hit. This is different, has him faltering.

He glances at the ceiling above them, licks his lips, and takes in a deep breath as if there's anything that could properly stabilize him for this conversation. (There isn't, as far as he's aware.)]

You won't have to worry about me leaving you again. [Steady as she goes, one arm still loosely wrapped around her, he manages the absolute gall to look at her face again. No running. No hiding. No enjoyment, either, but them's the breaks.] I don't have anywhere to go now. This is...this is it for me.

[Perhaps it's unfair. Will may vanish and never return, and April's left with the knowledge he's not going back to fight dogs and fish and serial killers, but to something less tangible. If there is a life after things pass, depends on beliefs. Or lack of beliefs. And yet all he can remember is her insistence about: But... married isn't just the roses and orphan hoarding and stuff parts. It's gotta be all in or- Or what are we doing? and how if she wanted normal she wouldn't have been with him. Isn't a recently deceased but still functionally living husband pretty abnormal?

A recently deceased but still functionally living husband who's smiling at her. Not because he's proud, or he finds his death a happy situation...but because he's genuinely pleased that, if this is it for him, April's here. On a sliding scale of disadvantages, she's always going to be the enormous spike in it that's purely the opposite.]

[ There was both a blessing and a curse in April's staunch opinion that life in the City (and no matter how long went by where they were in freaking Florida, the world of the Porter would always be the City to her) was a separate one from back home. On the plus side, death in those other realities didn't matter much. On the down side, anytime anyone left the City forever, she considered them dead. Even if their alternate universe counterpart had nothing but unicorn farts and rainbows in their 'home' universe, the person she had known was dead and gone.

So she takes Will's news in stride. And is too relieved to have him back- married even older man he was- to bother arguing her perspective on the whole 'this was always it for you' thing. It was just another item on a long list of things that didn't matter right now. Far more important was laying her head back down, ear against his chest, and just...finishing this part. Then getting back to their real life.]

The usual suspect?

[He already told her he loved her, but he's sorely tempted to repeat it. Because he does, God, he loves April. And he loves her enough, he knows her enough to never mistake what others might see as a lack of "appropriate" reaction for apathy. This isn't apathy, her ear finely tuned to the beat of his heart, warm and breathing and all-consuming around him. April cares, but she's herself and no one else, and Will couldn't be happier for that. For April knowing who she was and never kowtowing to some bullshit societal pressure to act a certain way when she found it useless, pointless, not her.

His hand goes back to her hair, fingers idly slipping through it as he lets out a quiet hum. Thinking, not that he really has to. Just how to say it.]

Hannibal? No. [For the gravity of the situation, Will sounds amused. He can't be blamed, can he? He won. He was in a hopeless, dismal, beautiful place and he clawed back a victory in a way Hannibal would have never predicted.] He was there, but it was...all me. S'the only way he'd ever go down, and I. Had nothing left. Killed two birds with one stone, as they say.

[Because they're both dead. Literally. A+ wordplay.]

You killed yourself?

[ There are many things April can suppress a knee-jerk emotional response to. Or at least manage to substitute sarcasm in for the real thing. But hearing Will Graham casually- fuck, with amusement- actually, seriously, no jokes here, talk about taking his own life is apparently not on this list. In fact, it make her heart painfully skip a beat in surprise as she (with no regard to grinding elbows into stomachs or hands pressing into shoulders) sits quickly up to stare down at him.

So. She was really just learning all kinds of new things tonight. About them both.]

You killed yourself?

[Oho, so that's where the upset comes in. Of course Will understands it's not easily understood, that the reasons people take their lives are varied and many of them upsetting. Of course he does. Just like he knew, when he fell off that cliff, how varied the reactions to the news would be. Friends, colleagues, family, former lovers, some would feel betrayed, devastated, some would know better. Know that it was the only way the bloodshed would end and at least if Will went down, he gave them ease. Comfort. Final relief as he purchased that for himself, all for the mere price of a one-way ticket out.

Still hurts to see any of those reactions, hurts that he's stuck April in a loop. Better than being speechless, he suppose, though still unpleasant. Carefully, slowly, he eases himself up as well, hands on the floor behind him as he pays no mind to any grind marks she left him with.]

Yes. [Perhaps blunt, though he hopes the strained look on his face softens any too-sharp truths.] Because of how things...worked out, it was my best option. I'm not, April—God, I didn't want to die. I'm not like that, it just. It just happened that way.

["I Killed Myself Because Sometimes Things Just Happen That Way: Inside The Mind Of Will Graham."]

[ There is a divide that April is aware neither of them can ever fully cross. Will would never have had the normal house with a picket fence and two kids, all American (okay, half American/half Puerto Rican, technically) childhood. And April will never, ever understand how one even keeps talking to someone that murdered loved ones and then framed you for it, let alone have them still be a presence in ones life four years later.

She can appreciate Hannibal had a special, messed up place in the world of Fred and Will. She can appreciate that she very much got the better deal in life. But these appreciations didn't make moments like this any easier to process.

The best option. She couldn't even wrap her mind around it.]

What happened to...the other. Wife, Will?

[It's possible the only reason Will could wrap his mind around it as the best option was a mix of adrenaline high, stabbing pain, and all the blood loss. "Possible" here mean "definitely didn't hurt the case for suicide-murder being seen as da best."]

Hannibal sent someone after her. And our son. A serial killer I was trying to catch. Sent him to our house while I wasn't there. [And Will is still apparently pissy about this action. Even though he's stating fact and tired, there's an underlying ire as he says it not usually present.] Underestimated her, though. She's...a little injured. [And since Will is aware his world's idea of "a little injured" can mean something much worse, he clarifies.] She was shot, but she's fine. They're both fine. Everyone's, everyone's fine without Hannibal around, that's...

[Mostly why I did it.]

...what matters.

It's not.

[ This was a very bad, no good, terrible direction for the conversation. Because it isn't her goal to make him feel bad or guilty regarding actions taken towards some woman she'd never met. He's just come back, a guilt trip isn't what she's looking for. But all April can see is the exact same scenario playing out again here, to her. Where getting rid of some 'evil' takes priority over her, over Abby, over this entire little family and Will decides on his own, without her, to take one for the team.

Fucking love. At no other point could she want to slap and kiss the same person with equal intensity in the exact same moment. She settles for grabbing onto his shoulders, barely (and just at that) managing not to shake him. ]

It's not the only thing. That matters. At all.

[Of course Will lets her. Even if she shook him, he'd let her. But the seriousness with which she takes to this particular idea above all else renders him speechless. For a moment, lips parted dumbly, he just stares. Not unlike a dead fish, really, though he has the common sense God gave a lemming to realize expressing such isn't a great idea.]

It is back home. [For how stern he's being on this, he's trying to make one thing very clear: this applies only back home. Even if Hannibal returned here, things would be different. How could it not? There would be no repeats. Well, of that particular behavior.] You've seen my stomach every day since I got out of the hospital. Abigail's neck. Her ear. [The knowledge of where that went.] He's an infection. When you're infected, all that matters is getting rid of it. Being healthy again.

[Slightly more honesty he's going to give anyone else, as far as he intends. Abigail doesn't need the spiel, not like this. She already knows.]

we came out from the deep

April Ludgate;

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)