nineteen ♢ video

[versusnurture]

[When the feed comes on, the first thing there is is a wall and half of a desk. Those people on board who've been inside will know it as Abigail's room. There's a small blood smear on the edge of the desk, another dark spot on the corner of the lens.]

[She doesn't turn it towards herself, but the camera does move towards the desk, is set down at the edge of it. Two hands appear in the frame, blood-caked, palm-up. There's blood under her nails, too, drier blood that's oxidized to a deep, almost black color.]

[She doesn't say anything. But after a moment, there's a strangled noise, and she knocks the camera off the desk. The briefest flash of dark hair and a pale face; then it hits the floor and shuts off.]

Comments

[ichoosefight]

[ ... ]

You've, uh. You got a little something.

private/text

[versusnurture]

I don't have a washcloth.

[Which is a perfectly ordinary response.]

private/text

[ichoosefight]

I find running water works pretty well by itself. [ And yet more ... ] Do you need to borrow a private bathroom?

text; private

[orderfromchaos]

once you made me promise to talk when I come back bloody

no rush

but im your friend too

text; private

[versusnurture]

I don't remember your name

spam

[mirrortouch]

[ He knows that room and immediately he's to his feet, he's following them willingly and quickly (like a lamb to slaughter) over to her room, because he knows that room. He knows that hair and and he could say he knows those hands but not so caked with red, he's never seen them so filthy.

It couldn't be. But it has to be.

He's at her room sooner than he can even count, and he knocks sharply before he tries the handle. ]

Abigail?

spam

[versusnurture]

[It was a lure. Of course it was.]

[She didn't know it would catch him, though. When she hears his voice, her eyes shutter. The last time she saw him . . .]

[That's why she has to open the door. Because of the last time she saw him: the way he pressed his hands to her neck like he was trying to strangle her, trying to hold her blood in against the impossible tide of her heart pumping against her body. The last time she saw him, he was dying, too.]

[She leaves bloody fingerprints on the doorknob and the frame when she opens up. Her hands fall limp to her side when she sees him. Him, whole and hale if not happy, his gut unrent. She frowns, a confused and tight expression. This is not how things were.]

You're not dead. [Impossible to tell if she's happy or not about this.]

Video

[voluntaryapnea]

[He doesn't recognize the room. All he sees is the blood, and two hands covered in it. It sends a chill down his spine.]

Hello?

private/text

[versusnurture]

[After a slight delay:]

who are you?

video / private

[dinosize]

[ It's the blood that he notices. The blood that stands out. ]

Are you all right?

video / private

[versusnurture]

[These people, they're so vague. On the other end, she's wringing her hands together absently. Her voice is distant.]

Assuming 'all right' is the same as 'okay' [unhurt, breathing normally, not in immediate danger of dying], yes. I'm all right.

You look--

[Her brow furrows.]

Familiar.

[halftheman]

Abigail?

[ He's not okay with this. He can't do a goddamn thing from his bed, but he not okay with this. ]

text/private

[versusnurture]

I remember you too

you read Steinbeck

[text/private]

[routemistress]

i'm glad you're back.

do you need anything? has Ben seen you?

do you remember?

[text/private]

[versusnurture]

you know ben?

[Which answers the second and third questions, anyway.]

private, audio

[adelphoktonos]

Is the blood yours?

private, text

[versusnurture]

not mine.

spam }

[semifreakingnormal]

[Maybe he should have asked if she wanted to see him. Maybe he should tread more lightly. But he sees that one, quick shot of her face, and she is here, and there's blood, and he doesn't think past that. He doesn't think past that at all.

So many people have gone, but at least one came back. At least Abigail, who deserves the chance most of all, came back. He's not sure what that means for inmates. He's not sure he wants to know what it means, but he'll find out anyway. If she wants him to know, he can't not listen.

It only takes half a minute - maybe a minute, since he resists that urge to lope on all fours. But soon enough after seeing the video, he's at her door, knocking. It's hard not to just pound his fist against the door, but somehow, he resists.]

spam }

[versusnurture]

[She isn't expecting him - how could she be? For a moment she even considers letting the knocking continue, acting like she isn't here. It would be an obvious lie, but she doesn't know who's there.]

[Instead, she grips her bloody knife in her bloody hands and opens the door a crack, peering out into the hallway. She doesn't react much when she sees him; just furrows her brows and stares with wide eyes at this boy with his fist raised against her door.]

[voice ; private]

[walkingmeltdown]

[He has been ignoring everyone from the semi-comfort of his infirmary bed. Ignoring kindness, responding to compassion and sympathy with hostility. Erecting walls. Creating distance.

Despite all of that seeing Abigail has returned strikes a note of relief in him, seeing her bloody creates a pinprick of concern. And both cause him to be angry with himself; his first impulse is to scratch it out, do whatever he can to snuff this weakness out of him.

But no, he reminds himself, forcing calm. Abigail Hobbs was one of his resources from the very beginning. She was helpful when he needed it, understood things he didn't need to say. Back and forth, they offered just the right amount of trust.

If he loses her it will be no great loss, he thinks. But if he can, it would still benefit him to keep her on as an ally.]

You're back, Miss Hobbs? I won't ask what happened, or if you're all right...I'm certain more than a few have beaten me to it. But do let me know if there is anything just now that you need from me.

[His voice is cool and clipped, the way he spoke to her more at the very beginning. When all he cared about was information, usefulness, rather than individual people.]

[voice ; private]

[versusnurture]

[She doesn't respond immediately. There is, to be honest, quite a lot going on. Derek Powers is an uncertain piece of a very large puzzle. Most people, when she hears their voice, fit somewhere as enemies or friends in the schema that is overlaid in her mind, the part of her memory that was gone and is returning.]

[But he's complicated. The way he speaks now is familiar, but doesn't feel as familiar as it should be. She has to close her eyes and press her fingers to the bridge of her nose before she can think of what the difference is, where the change began. She has to take time to dredge up that memory.]

[When she responds, it's with confusion, her voice thick like she's thinking about something far away.]

You're . . .

The Red Queen hypothesis. That was you?

[warisart]

[Ben feels as good as new; he's not paying attention to that or it would bother him more, but instead he cares only that he can now function at peak performance. He does not have to nurse a healing gut wound as he makes his way back down to Abigail's cabin, stopping by his own only to collect the one belonging of hers he held onto, to drop off the knife for later repair, and to pick up her file. He knows instantly that it has changed, flipping through it where he pulls it from its drawer, but he doesn't stay to read it. He returns to her.

The front of his grey t-shirt is still maroon and stiff with dried and drying blood, it still clings to the inside of his field jacket, but his hands are clean and he takes care to keep the bear clean as well. He reads a few lines between the levels as he walks, and he feels something solidifying in his chest, something hot and sharp and heavy.

Ben knocks when he arrives, but he has distanced himself from everything around him by the time he does so.]

Abigail, it's Ben.

[versusnurture]

[She has laid her bait by now. She's done what she was trained to do, once and again by two men who she called father. She is a little calmer, but not much, sitting at the edge of her bed with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes closed. Now her hands are clean, the blood washed off in Stephanie's sink.]

I'm here. [She's here; she is present; she is alive; she is solid.] Come in.

[She trusts him and doesn't trust him. She doesn't trust the way she trusts him, instinctively, like there's no way not to. But she wants him close all the same, wants to cling to his shirtfront and cry, wants to talk to him like an adult, like she hasn't talked to anyone in ages.]

[It's all very confusing.]

private }

[youwill]

[Hannibal is a mess. It's not entirely visible from the outside, he has found the time to breathe, to think, to file all his angers, all his furies, in the way he would have at home. He places mental business cards in a mental rotary, tucks it away in the drawer of an elegant desk in his newly restored memory palace.

It vanished on him, and knowing that still makes his heart stutter in a way that violence and murder never have.

Not never. Just not for a very long time.

It's some time before he sees this video, lost as it was in the sea of something other that he has been living. When he does spot it, he is momentarily adrift. Alive, not alive, alive. He swallows hard, and does not go to her. It's difficult to resist, but it's important.]

Abigail.

[He is very nearly emotional. He is concerned.]

private }

[versusnurture]

Hannibal?

[He's here. It feels like she's exhaling a thousand held breaths at once. Oh, god, he's here, he is--he hasn't left--he'll tell her what to do.]

[All of a sudden she's crying, relief and dread twisting in her stomach. Bile rises in her mouth, and she almost throws up, almost, swallows it down, but she sobs and sobs before she can get herself under control to string words together. When she finally does, when she gets the camera set up so she can look at him, she's barely coherent, her face streaked with tears, her lip trembling.]

I thought you were gone! I thought--

[A shuddering breath; she bites her lip hard enough that it goes white and presses her cool palms to her warm cheeks. No, no, no, no, no.]

I thought you left. Don't leave.