Abigail Hobbs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
versusnurture) wrote2014-08-08 07:23 pm
versusnurture) wrote2014-08-08 07:23 pm
twenty ♢ private & spam
private/voice } ben
I want to go.
[This quiet but insistent. She wants to go. She hasn't been outside in so long. She wants to go.]
[She doesn't want to go alone, though.]
private/voice } will
[She debates not contacting him. She's still angry at what she considers to be his betrayal, but - well, he's still Will. They were still supposed to be family. And she thinks he will understand her need for quiet, for green, for whatever there is to find out there.]
Did you see what it is yet? Outside.
spam } throughout port
[Most of her time is spent with Ben or near Ben. She isn't yet confident enough to venture out on her own much, so she stays close and takes short walks away from their site.]
[She explores the woods, carefully and slowly, making sure not to disturb anything irreparably. Her father taught her how to walk without a sound, and she remembers him whenever she sees an animal. She doesn't try to hunt anything. They have enough food.]
[Occasionally she comes up behind someone and goes still, freezing like a deer in headlights, as if she expects to be reprimanded for getting so close. Occasionally she'll watch someone from a distance. Once she climbs a tree, just to get a better vantage point, and sits twenty-five feet above the ground for several hours, just because it feels nice to be above it all and the breeze is refreshing.]
I want to go.
[This quiet but insistent. She wants to go. She hasn't been outside in so long. She wants to go.]
[She doesn't want to go alone, though.]
private/voice } will
[She debates not contacting him. She's still angry at what she considers to be his betrayal, but - well, he's still Will. They were still supposed to be family. And she thinks he will understand her need for quiet, for green, for whatever there is to find out there.]
Did you see what it is yet? Outside.
spam } throughout port
[Most of her time is spent with Ben or near Ben. She isn't yet confident enough to venture out on her own much, so she stays close and takes short walks away from their site.]
[She explores the woods, carefully and slowly, making sure not to disturb anything irreparably. Her father taught her how to walk without a sound, and she remembers him whenever she sees an animal. She doesn't try to hunt anything. They have enough food.]
[Occasionally she comes up behind someone and goes still, freezing like a deer in headlights, as if she expects to be reprimanded for getting so close. Occasionally she'll watch someone from a distance. Once she climbs a tree, just to get a better vantage point, and sits twenty-five feet above the ground for several hours, just because it feels nice to be above it all and the breeze is refreshing.]
no subject
[Even now she doesn't look away. Her grin fades, replaced by something that has been noticeably absent from her face since she returned, something that grows from the inside and leaches outward until it's strong enough the whole world can see: determination. She's dead-set on telling the truth, just this one time, and then she can go back to hiding for a while.]
Leaving Hannibal means leaving home. He made himself my home. He's the last connection to - everything I had before. And I love him. Like family.
He told me to kill people and I did. He told me to die and I did. If he told me to kill you, I'd try, even though--
Do you understand what I'm saying? I should walk away. I should never talk to him again. But it would kill me.
no subject
He knows what that's like. He knows how a great a strength it can be, even as times it feels like it's destroying you.
He wouldn't be Blight if not for the refusal of something within him to simply die when he probably should.]
I understand.
[He's cringing, a bit; it's not so much in his actual expression, as it is in his voice, his posture. He dislikes strongly that of all people she would be so anchored to, it would have to be Hannibal Lecter. He thinks she is so much better than that. But he won't try to tell her what to do - because that is after all what Hannibal himself would do.
And while he hates that he can even admit it, he does have more than an inkling, what she might feel like.]
Anyone else who would ever betray me, even dare to think of trying to defy me...they would get nothing but my disdain, my disgust, and then I would destroy them. I have no use for such. Fallacies.
[His mouth twists into a sneer, then relaxes back into a frown proper.]
I think that I tried to kill my son, right before I died. My memories aren't all that clear. But I was acting out of rage and self-defense, all instinct. Now, that I can think on it, even if I were given the chance...I couldn't do that, to him. I couldn't.
I should. I doubt that he would spare me in return, were he to have another shot. But I can't make myself want him dead. And I can't make myself learn to hate him. He's disappointed me, disrespected me, and our relationship was never one of love.
But...he is still my son. No matter what.
no subject
[She is quiet, contemplative. Probably if Paxton were here, she wouldn't try to harm him, out of respect for his father. But she'd want to, that's the difference. Where Blight can't, she could, and would, easily, if asked to. It might be a relief.]
[Just the same, she knows Hannibal would be dead so many more times over if people didn't respect her and hold off for her sake. For just a moment, a series of seconds strung together, that makes her feel powerful. Then it just makes her feel hollow.]
But you probably think the same thing about Hannibal, right? That he deserves it. That he doesn't deserve me.
I think . . . if people were truly individualistic, it would be easier for each of us. But then I guess if we didn't protect each other even when it didn't make sense, we'd all be dead.
Deader.
[If Paxton came here and tried to kill Blight, though, she'd kill him. That's where her instinct to preserve those close to her pushes past her instinct to allow them to make her own decisions. She will never say this, wonders if Blight knows it's true. Wonders if it's hypocritical. Decides she doesn't care much.]
no subject
[He loves his son and he hates that it took him this long to acknowledge it properly, that this ever-fraught relationship has been transformed into a constant source of doubt and anger and pain. He never treated their connection with such meaning in life, why should it get to haunt him so in death?
If Abigail said even part of what she's thinking out loud, that she would kill his son for him if he couldn't, that she would move to defend him in such a way, he would be...touched, really. Somehow that's the only word proper for it. He would ascribe a gesture of significance, where others may only see something to be disgusted by. Horrified. But murder by itself on its own, that's hardly a shocking thing to him.]
We're a social animal, Miss Hobbs. A species designed and inclined to function in communal groups. Even those of us that try somewhat ardently not to be. [There is a mild air of self-deprecating defeat in how he says this.]
no subject
[It would be stretching the truth to say she wishes Blight were spared this. She is selfishly pleased that, however his desire for human connection manifests, it extends to her. But maybe she wishes they could both be spared except for the things they choose, the connections they vet to ensure their safety, their lack of vulnerability.]
[The way they've vetted each other.]
It's disturbing. Being reduced to a bundle of instincts. It seems like it keeps happening, over and over.
no subject
[When he says 'you' he means 'us', he means the same problem he feels keeps happening to both him and Abigail. She trusted the wrong person, got too close to the wrong man, put her faith out of desperation in a monster. And he keeps telling himself he should be careful, should never blindly trust anyone - until he does.
And then he always loses everything.]