[ The worst things Krouse ever did were for the best reasons he had. He knew that, once upon a time. He'd even thought it mattered, before the bodies started to pile up high enough that justifying it like that became a joke too ugly for even him.
He does feel vulnerable when Hannibal says it, abruptly looming at the foot of the couch and looking down. It's one of the first times in a while that hasn't seemed like such a bad thing to be. A patient on a surgical table is vulnerable, slit open to correct some internal deviation. It's a necessary bleed.
(Vaguely, he remembers Hannibal mentioning one unlucky patient - but it comes and goes, irrelevant to the moment.) ]
Yes.
[ He'd be humiliated to admit that in his right mind. There's a flutter of shame with it even in his state, only it's so much quieter than the longing. He blinks up at Hannibal, noticing unexpected dampness on his eyelashes. ]
I want - [ he stirs groggily, as if to sit up, but gives back into the weightless drag of his limbs almost instantly ] - I want to be able to change anything.
[ For the better, instead of the worse. Even if it's something as inconsequential as himself. Even if it's as small and screwed up as the thing that's finally revealed as Krouse's fidgeting and its twitching conspire to let a fold of crumpled hoodie fall back from it.
A scattering of tiny eyes, each one unique, glare balefully up at Hannibal through Krouse's nipped fingers. Bloodclot irises floating on jaundiced whites, the shape not quite human; a slit-pupiled bead of shocking bilious green; bulging gold stamped with the black hourglass of a cephalopod's strange gaze. Not all of them are set in its several heads. The largest sits above a half-formed replica of a shrunken thumb and forefinger, while tiniest glinting beads of them fringe the corner of a sideways mouth that splits open to show a ring of mismatched teeth, canines and molars of a dozen types crowding haphazardly together. Instead of a tongue, a swollen mass of whorled blisters sits at its center. The extruding tendril pulses and winds tighter as the thing lifts its topmost head, something between rodent and snake, and opens that mouth too, buck incisors stained pinkish with fresh blood.
Krouse strokes his thumb gently over its mottled skin. It wheezes and dribbles, squirming in the light. ]
cw: body horror, finger injuries
He does feel vulnerable when Hannibal says it, abruptly looming at the foot of the couch and looking down. It's one of the first times in a while that hasn't seemed like such a bad thing to be. A patient on a surgical table is vulnerable, slit open to correct some internal deviation. It's a necessary bleed.
(Vaguely, he remembers Hannibal mentioning one unlucky patient - but it comes and goes, irrelevant to the moment.) ]
Yes.
[ He'd be humiliated to admit that in his right mind. There's a flutter of shame with it even in his state, only it's so much quieter than the longing. He blinks up at Hannibal, noticing unexpected dampness on his eyelashes. ]
I want - [ he stirs groggily, as if to sit up, but gives back into the weightless drag of his limbs almost instantly ] - I want to be able to change anything.
[ For the better, instead of the worse. Even if it's something as inconsequential as himself. Even if it's as small and screwed up as the thing that's finally revealed as Krouse's fidgeting and its twitching conspire to let a fold of crumpled hoodie fall back from it.
A scattering of tiny eyes, each one unique, glare balefully up at Hannibal through Krouse's nipped fingers. Bloodclot irises floating on jaundiced whites, the shape not quite human; a slit-pupiled bead of shocking bilious green; bulging gold stamped with the black hourglass of a cephalopod's strange gaze. Not all of them are set in its several heads. The largest sits above a half-formed replica of a shrunken thumb and forefinger, while tiniest glinting beads of them fringe the corner of a sideways mouth that splits open to show a ring of mismatched teeth, canines and molars of a dozen types crowding haphazardly together. Instead of a tongue, a swollen mass of whorled blisters sits at its center. The extruding tendril pulses and winds tighter as the thing lifts its topmost head, something between rodent and snake, and opens that mouth too, buck incisors stained pinkish with fresh blood.
Krouse strokes his thumb gently over its mottled skin. It wheezes and dribbles, squirming in the light. ]