[ WEEK SIX – KILL LOG (HANNIBAL) ]

[sheriffexe]

[ When Hannibal wakes up, he will find himself lying in the dirt. His vision is blocked by the black cloth bag over his head and his hands are bound with some rope. This might feel like a betrayal of sort from the Sheriff but, well.

The rope isn't terribly tight.

He is lying in front of the hotel and what he won't be able to see is this: the bear trap, laid simply in front of the door to the hotel and beckoning anyone to come closer with it's gleaming metal teeth.

A bit of a fitting way to catch a monster like Hannibal. ]

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[robitussin]

[Her heart is pounding as she approaches the front of the hotel.

She doesn't want to do this; she doesn't know if she can do this. Her chest feels like it's exploding, bursting apart. She's terrified of who she'll be after she does this.

Even so, she grips the pistol in her hand, scooting the sword forward along with her with her foot as she walks towards him. When she's still a decent distance away, she stops walking. A thick swallow, and then she speaks. Her voice wavers.]

I really didn't want to think it was you. Why...? Every week, you could have protected someone, but you never did.

[sating]

[ Hannibal wakes with a start. He takes in a deep breath, breathing in almost harshly. None of this comes as a real surprise to him. If anything, he only feels a distant sense of amusement at what he immediately notices. The bag over his head to the binding of his wrists—Whoever chose these knew him well. He sincerely doubts it's the person that's come to kill him. Which... ]

I had a feeling it would be you, Natalie.

[ Hannibal speaks before she does, which might startle her. He can't see her, and in fact, when he speaks, he hasn't even moved to look towards the footsteps. It's as if he simply knows, though Natalie doesn't know why he does. His sense of smell has always been sharp. He underplayed it, but it was easy to identify someone by their smell. At least, it was for him.

He shifts, and underneath the bag, he smiles slightly as he feels a light weight against his ribs. Good. He hadn't expected that the Sheriff would actually take away his knife, since that would be boring. He tests the ropes on his hand idly, feeling the way they're loose, and his fingers drift down to touch them. He's exploring, because now, she's asking questions. She wants to know why, and that's no surprise. But she shouldn't be asking. She should kill him, he thinks, but his voice is just as easy and calm as it always is. It's a stark contrast to her own wavering voice. ]

There was no point.

[ He says it so simply that it makes it seem like it was some kind of obvious fact. Hannibal still shifts to sit up and get his face out of the dirt, but his movements are slow and non-threatening. He can hear something in the dirt. She's moving something. Does she have a gun in her hand, he wonders? She must have something. ]

It is not what I was asked to do.

[robitussin]

You're a liar. You had no way to know who it would be.

[It's said more to convince herself than to convince him. He has always had a way of vocalizing her thoughts before she thinks them. She can't bear the idea that he saw something like this in her, something this violent and insidious. It makes her skin crawl regardless. She takes a few steps towards him as he speaks, fingers tightening on the handle and the trigger.

She takes a breath to steady herself. She has to do this, for everyone.]

That's a lie, too. The coyotes... Yuna wouldn't have been waiting outside, so she wouldn't have died. Jason wouldn't have been hurt. There was a point. You always had a choice.

[sating]

You are convincing yourself, Natalie. It's more convenient for me to be a liar than for me to tell truths that you find troubling.

[ He breathes out heavily, as if he's tired, shifting to kneel instead. His hands rest lightly at his side as if he's waiting for her, but just out of her sight, his fingers curl around the ropes. He can hear her steps getting closer, so she only needs to be within his lunging distance. Hannibal knows he might not hit his mark and kill her. But he only needs to disarm her. ]

But I do not deny that I had a choice. Though what use would it have been? I could pick a single person to save from violence for only a night? It is hardly permanent.

[ He shrugs, and his fingers slip under the knot and loosens the rope with the motion. ]

I was never tasked with protection. Only entertainment.

[robitussin]

[Unseen, she shakes her head, but she doesn't say anything more to his first words. She tries to take another step forward, but it feels, suddenly, like she's frozen. She's not a good shot; her aim was poor before she lost her arm. She knows this. From this distance, there's a chance she might miss. A few more steps, and she'll have a better chance, and much less of an excuse not to fire. It shouldn't be this difficult. She already made her choice. Now she only has to see it through, but she can't force herself to move.

That is, until he speaks again, and she feels anger swell up inside her, hot and fierce.]

Has all of this been entertaining enough for you, you fucking piece of shit?

[As she continues to move the sword along with her, she moves closer. She raises the gun. She's almost ready to fire.]

[sating]

It is not my entertainment that holds any value.

[ He hears her step closer, hears the anger in her voice, and that's enough. The movement is so smooth that it might seem like Hannibal has been in this exact situation before. He pulls his hands apart as he moves forward, and the rope loosens around his wrists enough that he can move them more separately. He reaches to his coat, and in the pocket he had neatly sewn in earlier this week, he pulls out a sharp kitchen knife.

Hannibal lunges for her viciously and more quickly than would seem possible for him. From the strength and precision of how he stabs out, even blind, it's clearly a good thing that he's wearing that hood. He would have gone for her neck if he were more certain of where she was. But without it being clear, he instead slashes at her hand. Really, it's only a guess, but it's a good enough one for the knife to be likely to hit its mark into her hand. ]

[robitussin]

[She can't even begin to answer before he's moving. It takes her entirely by surprise; her eyes widen, and she doesn't have time to move away or block his advance or do anything else remotely useful before the knife meets her hand.

Shit, is the first thing she thinks, and then she screams in pain. It's blinding, and she knows instinctively that something is wrong with her hand, more than just the deep gash across the back of it. She drops the gun, and kicks it away so he won't be able to grab it immediately. Then, she drops down to grab the sword. She finds that while most of her fingers can curl around it, one is suddenly unable.

So, in her next movements, her grip is clumsy and her hand screams in protest. Still, she's trying to slam the edge of it towards his ribcage, aiming to buy herself a few seconds so she can run away. Even before the injury, it would have felt strange in her grip; she has never been a fighter. It's not at all certain that she'll make her target before she can stop her, though, or how hard the impact will be if she does.]

[sating]

[ It's a good thing she drops to grab the sword, because even when the knife sticks and cuts into her hand, Hannibal pulls it back with a sharp, strong motion. He knows where her hand is, so he can guess at where the rest of her is more accurately. He flips the knife in his hand and swings outward as he takes a step forward. It might bump against her as she drops, but it may also cut some of her hair in the motion.

Lower, then. He almost reaches up to pull the hood off, but he decides against it. For now, he doesn't need the accuracy of his sight. If he can pin her, that will be enough for him to remove it to make that final blow. Both of his hands grip the knife strongly, and he drops too in tandem with the sword's upward motion. He meets the sword and stutters, but there's something raw and animalistic in him now. He stutters, and pain shoots through his side, but he doesn't scream. He knows that his ribs will protect him, because he has the advantage of leverage.

So even as he might sink into the sword, he still swings down to try and stab his knife into her. He won't let it linger, since he doesn't want her to take it from him, so as soon as it sinks into her flesh, he'll pull it back out. Though even so, after that, pain and instinct overwhelms him, and he pulls back from the sword to stumble to the side. He breathes out a pained noise that's shaky, but it doesn't sound afraid at all.

She'll have a moment to run before he'll pursue. ]

[robitussin]

[She watches as strands of her hair fall to the ground. Too close. Much too close, and the chill that passes through her distracts her for a moment.

The knife digs into her shoulder, and she screams again, in pain and fear. Until this point, it didn't occur to her that she might die here. She has no illusions about what's awaiting her after this, but she didn't doubt that she could come out of this encounter alive. Even without her arm, she had a weapon, and she knew he would be bagged and restrained. She didn't him to have a weapon. She didn't expect the ropes to be loose.

She underestimated him, she thinks, and she overestimated Hal. But she isn't done yet.

Pulling at the sword, she takes it with her as she starts to run, trying her hardest to ignore the pain in both her arm and her shoulder. She knows where she's going. She makes a beeline for the bear trap, aiming to run around it. If she can get that far, she stops on the other side.]

[sating]

[ He's been injured more severely than this. Far more severely, actually, and the scars listed on his wanted poster were a testament to that. Each breath and each beat of his heart sends pain searing through his side, but he only huffs out a heavy breath. He has an advantage here, as he always does. People underestimate him. The kind, mild-mannered doctor couldn't be capable of what he is. It's the illusion he maintains, because this is the most honest than Hannibal has been in the town. Here, as blood drips into the dirt, he can be seen for what he truly is—a monster.

Because he only wavers for a moment, breathing heavily from exertion, but not giving up. It's clear how this will end. One of them will die, and he can already tell that she doesn't have the experience necessary unless she's lucky. She's just a young woman, and Hannibal has been playing at this game longer than she's been alive. He pushes himself off the ground, and he hears her steps and measures her gait in his mind through them. He runs after her, and his own footing is much more certain than hers. The pain almost seems to motivate him more than anything else.

Hannibal reaches up with one hand to pull of the bag, because this is his moment to do so. He tugs it with a smooth motion, but in that small moment, he's not able to stop himself quickly enough. He sees the glint of silver, but he feels it much more immediately as the steel jaws clamp around his leg as he runs. There's a stuttered breath that's followed by a harsh yell, because the blade cuts into his flesh, but the force breaks bone. Hannibal stumbles and falls to the ground, though it's more a collapse than anything elegant like he would hope. The knife skitters out of reach, and his breath stutters after the yell as he looks after it with parted lips like he can't believe what's just happened.

But that stutter turns into a laugh.

It's soft and disbelieving, but he relaxes, or perhaps more accurately, knows there's nothing more to fight here. Hannibal lays in the dirt and closes his eyes as he pushes his mind away from that excrutiating pain as has become a talent of his over the years. But still, he speaks, even if it's stuttered between heavy, labored breath. ]

Naturally— It would be... like an animal.

[robitussin]

[She watches him coming straight for the trap, and every instinct in her, for a moment, almost makes her call out a warning for the man who saved her life. She doesn't. She watches, blood dripping steadily from her shoulder and hand and tears starting to drop down from her eyes. She sees the trap close around his leg, and the sound that comes of his mouth makes her want to vomit.

She takes a few more steps back, but when it's clear he isn't pursuing any longer, she moves in his direction, sword still in hand. Adrenaline is pounding through every inch of her body. She feels weightless and panicked, but she can't tell if that's because of the blood loss or because of the sheer terror of what's happened, and what she's about to do. Regardless, she kicks the knife further away from him, careful to keep out of arm's reach. She's seen how fast he can be.

Then she walks back towards where she kicked the gun away. She drops the sword, and bends to pick up this other weapon. She holds it in her hand, weighs it and everything it's going to mean in a moment. She turns back towards him, but she doesn't shoot yet. She stops a few paces away, still blinking back tears.]

I trusted you. I hate you.

[It's weak and watery. She knows it won't matter to him, not with everything she knows about him now, but it's important for her to say it nonetheless. She pauses, lips still parted, and takes in a few more ragged, pained breaths. She steps forwards until she is close enough to shoot him.

There's one more thing she wants to know before she ends this.]

If it had been you who found me first in the clinic, not Xion, what would you have done?

[sating]

[ He looks up at her, watching, curious in the way he always was. Even in this state, Hannibal seems calm and unworried, as if he finds the events nothing short of inevitable. He's breathing hard, because it's not as if he isn't in pain, but it just doesn't seem to fit. There's something very wrong with Hannibal, but it takes this to see it. He takes her hate without so much as a falter in his expression, but its her question that gets his expression to shift, just slightly. There's just a tiny hint of amusement, even now. ]

You- want me to say that I— would have killed you.

[ It's a statement, not a question, and Hannibal closes his eyes again after. He finds that even though he would like to keep watching her and observing her, it's easier for his voice to come out clearer when he closes his eyes. He can wander to a different memory where the pain feels like something much farther away. ]

I would have saved you all the same.

[robitussin]

[He's right, and she realizes it as soon as he confirms it. Her expression twists, betrayal and sorrow and anger all intermingled on her face. Most of her life has been spent pushing people away, terrified to trust anyone too much for fear of disappointment. This was never the particular kind of disappointment she had in mind. Every part of this situation feels so much larger than anything she knows how to contend with. Still, still, he was one of the first people here to earn her trust. The first to learn about her parents, her brother. On impulse, she nearly tells him he's lying again, but she holds it back.

Fighting back a sob, both from the way her shoulder protests as she raises her arm and from every emotion threatening to overtake her, she lifts the gun and points it towards him. Then, inhaling and holding back tears somehow, she starts to laugh. It's not amused or happy. It's hysterical. For years, she has worried about going insane. She wonders if it was inevitable the entire time.]

Yeah, well. Checkmate, you sick fuck.

[Those words, and the cold fury that accompanies them, doesn't stop her from hesitating to fire once more. In the end, it's the memory of Yuna laying under the porch, throat torn out and hair covered in blood, that makes her pull the trigger. Her aim was poor before losing an arm, before being injured, but she aims at the middle of his chest and fires once, twice, until she runs out of bullets.

Then she leans over and vomits onto the ground, dropping the gun as if it were aflame.]

[sating]

[ Hannibal always knew the end would come for him, but he didn't expect it twiceover, admittedly. Yet, there's something fitting about the idea of it, something universally just and poetic about someone like him dying twice. He held no regrets the first time, and he holds none this time. Just as he had the sensation of falling in Will's embrace with a sense of peace, he feels one here too as he lies bleeding and broken on the ground. He knows this is not the end, yet even if it were, it wouldn't particularly matter to him. The only thing he feels a slight regret for is the fact that Will isn't here with him.

She musters up her courage, but Hannibal is far away, deep within the confines of his memory palace as he waits. He has nothing more to taunt her or tease her with, and so in his imagination, he sits in an art gallery, looking up at a painting that he's admired since he was a young man. And next to him sits Will Graham. As he had promised, that is the time he remembers.

The quiet reverie is broken by the shot, and Hannibal's eyes open again, wide, but glassy as he looks up at the sky. It's painful, but pain mixes together easily now. Her first shot isn't accurate, puncturing through his right lung, and he can immediately feel blood wettening his breath. Each shot after is similar, and though she never hits his heart to give him that merciful end, it's not what he would want anyways. He lays bleeding out in the dirt, and it will come quickly.

But he speaks again, one last time, though it's a soft, wet whisper: ]

It could have ended with me. It will not.

[ If she knows what he's referring to, then those parting words will be the last knife he twists in her heart. Hannibal's role held more importance than simply putting people in the stocks or the cells, and if she knows that, he wants her to regret it. But, then again, this has to be entertaining too. He thinks for just a moment that what's watching them should enjoy what's to follow.

Hannibal takes his last breath with a peaceful look on his face. ]

[robitussin]

[She barely registers his words. Standing feet away from his corpse, she wraps her arm around her waist as she dry heaves onto the ground. It keeps happening until she can breathe again without immediately gagging. For the rest of her life, she will remember the sight of his body riddled with bullet holes, the pool of blood circling around him slowly. It will stay there, she knows, even after she's dead. Vaguely, she wonders if that's what he wanted.

Once she can stand straight without being sick, his words come to her. It could have ended with me. No, she thinks bitterly, it couldn't have. She knows Damian would never have done this. As soon as she was chosen, she knew what her decision would be. Killing an innocent person was never an option, nor was dying while he was still a risk to everyone.

Regardless of that logic, a cold sliver of doubt creeps inside her. It mingles with the terror, hatred, and regret she's already feeling. Thoughts race by in screaming vividness - killer, sinner, murderer. Fighting off another wave of nausea, she looks around the scene at the knife, the sword, the gun, the puddle of blood and vomit, and the loose strands of her hair laying there. She thinks for a moment about moving it and hiding it, but in the end, is there really a point? She knows how this will end.

With a pained grimace, she reaches down to grab his arm in her hand. Everything is tinted through a fog of anxiety and despair, but somehow, the adrenaline racing through her provides her with enough strength to drag him to the clinic. Once she's there, she looks around for bandages to treat her wounds, but realizes it's impossible with one injured hand. If only we had a doctor here, she thinks, and suddenly the hysterical laughter has returned, along with a flood of tears she's been holding back all week.

She stands in the middle of the clinic for a while, alternating between laughing and screaming and crying.

Eventually, she tires herself out. She doesn't have the strength or motivation to lift herself onto the bed, so she sits in the doorway to the office, back braced against the wall. Hiding would serve no purpose. She leans her head back, closes her eyes, and falls asleep. She'll stay that way until morning.]