hadriel | audio & action cw: mention of suicide

[ Action / Audio]

[ It's been a rough few weeks and Will knows that the oncoming weeks ahead are probably going to be just as bad for him. He has a lot of explaining to do and a few apologies to make, which isn't the easiest thing to deal with. His double caused a significant amount of damage both to others as well as to himself.

He's not in the best mindset as he sits out in the cold, just a few hundred yards from the colosseum. The thought of entering it and letting whatever beasts have been brought through the door maim him or worse. With bruises from head to toe and a few fractures scattered around his bones here and there, falling from the window of his fourth story spire had left him a little worse for wear, as had the final fight with his double.

Beside him were a few bottles of water, a small handful of chocolate bars and what was left of one of his bottles of aspirin, Will had originally intended to offer some help to anyone leaving the arena in poor shape, only his mood had gotten the better of him. He knew it was dangerous for him to be out in public right now, what with several people cursing his name and after his blood, but Will wasn't thinking straight (when was he ever?) Stricken with grief after watching someone special to him, take their own life in order to save his, Will was in a state of both physical and mental pain. Still, he would sit and wait, see if anyone needed his help, or if he could even muster the effort to help when the time came. ]

I have a few supplies... If anyone might need them?

[ Stroking his dog, Winston who acted as a guard around his deflated master. ]

[ Private audio to Tyki ]

[ Will was an intelligent man, it didn't take him long after picking out a few words that he recognized in Portuguese to work out roughly what the rest of the message meant. The part he was truly struggling with, was deciding if it was a prank or not?

After some pondering, deciding he really had nothing to lose, Will picked up his device, switched the settings to private and contacted the number left on the flyer. ]

I might have a need for your offered services.

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"Stay calm?" Echoing Hannibal's words as he was lowered into the bath tub. His hands feel out and Will tried to pull himself up a little. He was confused, almost delirious, it was possible he was trying to get out of the tub until Hannibal turned on all of the fossets, that is.

" Hnn!" Will gasped out, finding it hard to catch his breath as the ice cold water flushed over his still clothed body. The shower cooled his head and admittedly, it was nice but as for the water pouring in and over him from the tap, Will was less pleased about. "C-c-c-old..." He shivered, slipping and sliding about as he thrashed a little, trying to get a grip and sit up properly, all to no avail. Will found himself laying on his back, the water pooling around his ears, soaked through to the bone freezing cold.

Sure, Hannibal knew what he was doing, but still, it was a huge shock to Will's system. He'd been suffering from the heat and swelling in his head for a dangerous amount of time now, it was bound to startle him to suddenly have his whole body temperature drop low.

After a moment of breathing fast and his heart feeling as if it was going to pound right out of his chest, Will began to calm. He was cold and wet, uncomfortable and a feeling rather under the weather. Every muscle and bone in his body were hurting him. Coming to his senses a little better, Will looked around. Vision still somewhat blurred but at least he knew where he was this time. "Hannibal?"

Hannibal held on as Will thrashed, making sure that he didn't injure himself against the tub or the wall. It had been something of a gamble, with the shock to Will's system, but one Hannibal felt was warranted. Still, there was some relief when Will calmed and finally recognized where he was.

"Yes, Will. Just relax. I know being in soaked clothes isn't the most comfortable experience, but we need to be sure your temperature has stabilized before moving you."

He calmed as Hannibal spoke to him, explained what he'd been doing and why. Will felt a little guilty, a little selfish too. Hannibal had only just arrived here and yet he'd already monopolized his time and his help.

"I'm sorry you had to be here. Had to see me like this." Heaving, shivering a little after each breath as the cold began to set in. Will shivered as he sat up in the tub, still unwell and still suffering but for the time being, his temperature had dropped down to something much closer to normal, less dangerous.

Tipping his head back and looking up at the ceiling, Will's expression was that of a broken man. "Maybe this is punishment? Maybe this is all just a hallucination, you're not really here, I'm not really here... Maybe I'll wake up and this will all be over.?" If only it was as simple as that.

Hannibal, having held Will under the shower, was nearly as wet as his friend, and nearly as cold. Colder, perhaps, since he did not have a fever to lower. Yet he had sufficient mastery over his own body that he was not shivering, even as the cold water soaked through his shirt and ran off in sharkblood-tinted rivulets.

"Again, I assure you that I am, in fact, here. As for punishment, why would these gods you speak of bring a friend to punish you? One that can ease your suffering, no less?" This Will, still so young in their relationship, did not have the context to realize the ironic complications of that statement.

He pressed a hand to Will's forehead, and, satisfied, leaned past him to turn off the water.

"C-Can I get o-out?" Hugging his arms around his chest, in an attempt to try and warm up. It was a huge shock to his system, all of it! Hannibal arriving, the illness cooking his brain from inside out, the leftovers from his double and knowing that Abigail was, in fact, dead.

As he sat there in the porcelain bathtub, Will looked Hannibal up and down. It was perhaps the first time since seeing him here, that he noticed a slight age about his eyes, his brow, and complexion. No, no he must be having difficulty seeing?

"I can't... I can't see very well, Hannibal... You look... Different? Can't quite place my finger on it." Will stared for some time, though his head started to pound with a dull and mild headache. Taking more notice of the blood and the small tears in Hannibal's shirt. Concern suddenly washed over him like a wave of the water he was marinating in.

"That's all just from the colosseum?" Reaching a dripping wet, cold hand out and grasping a corner of Hannibal's own soaked shirt, pulling himself up and a little closer to it, to investigate. Despite his own condition, Will was more interested in Hannibal right now.

"I would rather you wait, just for a few moments, just to make sure that your fever doesn't return too quickly." He was going to get up and fetch some aspirin for Will, but then his friend noticed the differences in Hannibal that indicated the four-odd years that separated them. Hannibal knew there had to be many, from the lines around his eyes, the touch of grey in his hair, the paleness from years in a windowless room. Here was a crossroads. He could be honest with Will, tell him that he was from a time in Will's future. But that would require an elaborate fiction for what had transpired in that time, since Hannibal was not going to tell Will that he spends time in Chilton's institution for Hannibal's crimes, that Hannibal stabs him and kills Abigail, that they are captured by Mason Verger, that Hannibal surrenders to thwart Will's attempts to expel him from his life, that the last thing Hannibal remembered was Will dragging him off a cliff. No. Better to meet Will where he is.

"You have been in this place for some time, Will," he answered gently. "When we are away from people we know, particularly when the time of separation is particularly eventful, when we see them again we can notice things that have always been there." When Will examined his shirt, Hannibal looked down at it and wondered if any of the blood was from the Red Dragon. He could not be sure. He was pretty quickly bloodied in the coliseum.

"There were sharks in the coliseum. They could swim in the sand, which was exceedingly bizarre. They bled quite a bit, though."

Given Will's current situation, it was easy to convince him of what he was saying. It was true, you never really notice things about people until you spend some time apart from them. As he recalled just how long he had been stranded here, underground in this cave, this city, Will thought back to everything that had happened to him.

The living dead filling the streets. The dragons spreading their wings and casting death wherever their shadow fell. The demons and various monsters that followed them and how could he forget the doppelgangers? Yes, it was understandable that Hannibal would look different to Will and he to Hannibal. Sighing deeply as he let his concerns melt away.

Will turned his attention back to the blood stains on Hannibal's attire. "As unbelievable as it sounds... I believe it." Far stranger things had happened. Sinking back into the cold water, his teeth chattering as his lower jaw began to tremble and shake. The cold was setting in, if his temperature was still high now, it would be a miracle. "I don't know w-which is worse?... B-being so- so cold or b-boiling my b-brains out?"

audio & action cw: mention of suicide

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