Pretty Purples

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to hold her eyes and tell her that he knew. That coincidences were much more of a possiblity than anything that was being pieced together in his mind. Pieces and strings and tired veins being fused together and connected were often things that could not be believed- not when coincidences were most likely the case. Only this was much more, something about her had always…ignited a feeling in him and now it seemed like he could explain it.

“I thought that my sister died- I thought that I had lost her. She just disappeared from the place we were being held in. They were supposed to kill me.” He takes in a short breath, it hovered in his lungs and slowly escaped his parted lips. The weight constricted and tensed. “They claimed they had killed Mischa.” His eyes turn to her, careful observation, careful gaze. “Nobody knows all the pieces- no matter how long we spend looking for them.”

Her hands shake almost violently as she reaches over to grab the wine glass again, bringing it up to her lips for another long swallow that’s more tedious than comforting. She isn’t ready for this conversation. She’s not sure if she ever has been, despite holding a small sliver of hope throughout the years that maybe they had managed to beat the odds. 

Hannibal being alive brings so much into question that she’s not too sure where to start. Where has he been? Why didn’t he ever try and find her? Who else knew that he was alive? They’re all so important and she doesn’t want to have to choose which one to ask first. She wants to leave and pretend that none of this ever happened. Maybe if she does that then she can forget about him and move on with her life, abandoning the silly little hope that he’s still alive and they can be together again.

But she can’t do that. Not now. For once this isn’t some childish fantasy she’s concocted at night, staring up at the orphanage walls while wishing she could have a family again. She has to start somewhere because this is real. He’s real and alive and sitting in front of her, cool as can possibly be, giving details of his own tragedy back to her that were too similar to her own to be a coincidence. God, was she an idiot for not seeing it sooner? ‘Hannibal Lecter’ surely couldn’t be that popular a name. 

“I suppose this can’t all be coincidence then. You losing a sister named Mischa and I a brother named Hannibal.” Mischa is only stating what she already knows at this point. What else is there to say? It doesn’t seem right to start jumping into a litany of questions -- not when she’s only just had her fears confirmed.

          ❝ You’re telling me. What do we do now? ❞

“Sounds good to me. Well, that is one explanation. I thought I was attracted to redheads, but maybe I’m actually attracted to soulless people. If the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Not at all. But fair warning, it’s a proven fact that gingers have no soul. Seriously. There have been studies about this. Science has proven that four out of every four redheads has no soul. You can’t argue with those statistics.”

He did want her to continue but there was that inner thought that perhaps  it was all just a misunderstanding on his part. He hadn’t known that she would say those latter words. “You mean that you…are a Lecter? Are you certain there were no others that survived?”

“Yes...to both? But I don’t--” She’s in the middle of her sentence when everything finally starts to make sense -- micro-expressions and almost imperceptible muscle tenses that hadn’t quite clicked before suddenly slotting into place in her mind. He’d lost someone, a sister, maybe, and here she was, talking about being a Lecter and having lost family of her own, and it was...wrong. Everything about it felt wrong. She felt sick. 

“No. I don’t know what happened but it’s not...I’m not her. Whoever she was, I’m not her. And you...you aren’t him. This is a coincidence. Us both being Lecters is a coincidence. He didn’t survive okay? Nobody survived or I would have known. Somebody would have told me. I would have known.” Whether she was trying to convince him of that or herself was anyone’s guess.

Will knew it couldn’t be that simple. He could see it on  her face and hear it in her silence. On the other hand, he also knew there was no way in hell someone could receive the information he’d just given her and say no. He could only assume, of course, but both sibling likely had a dream version of the other, the entity born through late night wondering and a long string of what ifs, painted on the canvas of the moonlit bedroom ceiling. Mischa would never meet her version of Hannibal, just as Hannibal would never meet his version of Mischa. 

When she’d made her decision, he hesitated in his own reply, half expecting her to change her mind and take it back. She didn’t, not yet. Will nodded. 

“I—” have a session with him soon. No, he didn’t want to come off as some kind of kleptomaniac, in therapy for stealing only to steal from his therapist. He cleared his throat and skipped over that small detail. “I was going to see him today. In an hour or so. You can come with me.”

An hour. She was going to be seeing her brother in an hour. Excitement bubbled up in her despite her earlier trepidation. It was happening. This was more than just a passing fantasy now -- it was becoming reality. She was going to see her brother again. Thirty plus years later, finally it was happening. With that in mind...well, it almost didn’t matter whether he would live up to her expectations or she his -- all that mattered was that they would be together. Finally.

Of course, the key word in that line of thought was ‘almost’. She could pretend it didn’t matter all she wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that she so desperately felt the need to live up to the image he must have of her. He only knew her as the sweet, innocent little sister who called him ‘Anniba’ and blew bubbles out the bathwater at him. She wasn’t her anymore. She carried the guilt of ‘avenging’ his death now, and no amount of playfulness or snark or bubbliness could change that.

Still. That didn’t mean she couldn’t try. "Thank you,” Mischa said, waiting a minute before taking a step forward and pulling Will into a tight hug. “I cannot stress enough just how thankful I am for this. Just... thank you. You can hate me for hugging you all you want too. I don’t even care. I just...thank you. So, so much.”

      “Yeah?”