[ 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. ]

Comments

[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.]