Coming and Going [for Will Graham]

[live_growstronger]

Methos held the ticket in his hand as he stood in the center of train station, eyeing the electronic board that listed the various trains coming and going. His train seemed to be on time, but he still had a few hours before it would leave.

He'd head to Canada first. There were a few places he'd stored a few items- passports, forms, etc, for identities he could assume. Adam Pierson would be no more.

Then he'd head to the Caribbean, figure out his next move there while he had himself a nice vacation and cleared his head.

Hannibal. He cared for the man, if he could be considered that, but this was for the best. He wasn't safe with him.

Comments

[hard2lookaway]

Taking off his glasses and setting them on the bar, Will rubs at his eyes, looking far too weary for someone his age. "What those who wish to survive do to others is, I suppose, what I have a problem with."

[live_growstronger]

Methos wasn't prone to guilt. If he was he'd never be able to leave the house with all that he'd done.

He finished off his drink, signalling the waiter for another.

"And you wish to do something about it?" he posited, voice casual.

[hard2lookaway]

"Only in one case," Will answers, glasses back on his nose. "That's all."

Then, he figures, he's done. He's too brittle and too broken to do anything else.

[live_growstronger]

It's a bit of a reach, but Methos usually had pretty good instincts with people.

"You're not actually hunting a boar are you?"

[hard2lookaway]

Turning those tired, piercing eyes on Adam, Will shakes his head. "No, I'm not. But this is a monster I'm hunting." Make no mistake of that. And the only bait he has is himself.

[live_growstronger]

Methos sighed. This was a quandary, wasn't it? Will probably had a great many and very good reasons for what he planned. But he suspected he knew precisely which monster Will was speaking of.

He reached for his new drink, "So, it very well may be you who will become the hunted... perhaps you'd be better suited leaving the monster be. For your own sake. Let someone else take care of them?"

[hard2lookaway]

"I have already been hunted," Will says with that brittle, faux-conversational tone he's so good at using. "I have been gutted; I have been left for dead. I have lost everything I can lose. This is all I have left."

Hearing himself say that so starkly is shocking even to Will, for what it's worth.

[live_growstronger]

Methos set down his glass, leveling the man with his full gaze. Trying to catch his gaze, if Will would actually look him in the eye.

"It's not. You still have your life. You are still alive. That is something. Unless you are hoping you will lose that too?" he was as much trying to protect Hannibal as he was trying to protect this man now, it would seem.

[hard2lookaway]

"Unlike some," Will says, turning to look Adam in the eye. "Survival is not my first priority. Maybe I can save someone else. Many someone elses." That's all that matters, now. He can't go back to Molly and Walt. He can't go back to the FBI. He can't run away with Hannibal.

That leaves him with nothing else to do.

[live_growstronger]

"Or you won't. And you'll just be dead." he noted, staring into his glass. He should just leave it. Leave Will to his fate. And Hannibal to his. They would all die eventually, it was all just a matter of how soon. It was time to move on.

Except.

He was going to regret these next words, he was sure of it.

"You're looking for Hannibal, aren't you?"

[hard2lookaway]

Ice washes over Will just like that; he goes stiff, eyes widening. "You know Hannibal Lecter."

Now, he has to be careful. Hannibal inspires great loyalty; this could be bad for Will.

whoops

[live_growstronger]

There had been a hope that perhaps he'd been wrong. That he'd be looking for someone else. But he wasn't surprised to find his suspicions correct.

"I do." Methos agreed, small smile belying nothing. He turned the liquid around in his glass trying to decide what to do and say next. "I'm well aware he's a monster. Just as you say. I'm not unaware of his nature."

[hard2lookaway]

Grip tightening on his glass, Will asks, arch, "And are you moving toward him or away from him in this train station, Adam?"

[live_growstronger]

He reached into his pocket slowly as to not have Will do anything rash, thinking he was going for some sort of weapon. He pulled out the train tickets. They were to Albany, just as he'd said. He set them on the table so Will could see them.

"Away." he noted. Methos took in the whitening grip of Will's hand, frowning. "And you can stop your worrying. I'm not going to hurt you. Whatever I do it won't involve me attempting your life. I try to avoid violence."

He wasn't just saying so. Killing those people at Muskrat Farm hadn't been a hard decision. They were attempting Methos' life too. And they weren't good people. Perhaps Will wasn't a good person either, technically, but he saw something in his eyes that led him to believe he was trying. Just like Methos was at the end of the day.

Methos lifted his glass again, sipping it, like he hadn't any reason to worry, "Such is the reason for my leaving, actually."

[hard2lookaway]

Well, that's interesting.

Will watches him without looking away. "What did he do to you, Adam?" he asks.

[live_growstronger]

Methos quirked a brow at Will's supposition, "Nothing. Aside from likely feeding me a few things I'd rather not have eaten if I'd known better."

He shook his head, "I'm not easily manipulated."

"But I do believe if I spent more time with him, I'd have fallen onto habits I'd rather leave in the past." The long past.

[hard2lookaway]

"Hannibal is good at that. At both those things. At making those close to him do things they never would have done otherwise."

Will is not one to judge. He has eaten more than one meal made up of people.

"So you are leaving because of that? Does he know you're going?"

[live_growstronger]

Only he had done them long before Hannibal had ever come into his life. He hadn't done anything that would change who Methos ultimately was. It didn't seem that Will Graham could say the same.

"Like he's made you into this? A man who would risk the only thing he has left just to try and kill him. You think he doesn't expect you to come? Perhaps you'd be better to do something else. Turn him in, perhaps?" At least if he were captured by the government, they'd be unlikely to kill him. He was too interesting to put to death.

"But yes, I decided to leave before I did things I'd rather not. And I also knew eventually someone would come. Government, someone looking for revenge- like you, and I didn't want caught in the crossfire."

"He knows I'm leaving. And he knows why." And he seemed to accept it, even if he hadn't been necessarily pleased.

[hard2lookaway]

It isn't revenge, what Will is doing. It's much more than that and it's much more complex. But Will doesn't bother to correct him.

"Hannibal Lecter isn't very good at letting people go," Will notes, finishing his beer. "Be careful of that."

[live_growstronger]

He smiled, "Mmm, and I'm very good at doing the opposite." Methos moved on and had to let all his connection go along with it. He had to, to be what he was, in order to stay alive and in order to cope with his immortality and everyone else's lack of it.

"But I'd rather you didn't kill him." Methos admitted, frowning into his glass.

[hard2lookaway]

"I don't have a choice. He has killed and he will not stop. He doesn't consider himself a mere human, Adam. Surely, you noticed that. He cannot be contained and maybe he can't even die. I don't know. But I need to try," Will says, quietly and deliberately.

[live_growstronger]

Methos scoffed, "No one needs to do anything. At least be honest and say you're are doing it because you want to. Like how I want another drink." he smacked his empty glass upside down on the table for emphasis.

"And he can die. Everyone can die. Even people who think themselves more than human." This is said in a way that makes it clear he knows this from experience.

[hard2lookaway]

That's the thing, though. Will doesn't want to. He's making himself do this because to admit that there is a part of him that wants to have run away with Hannibal when he asked.

It's complicated.

Looking into the grooves of the bar, Will just shrugs, though. Unless one has seen Hannibal's true nature, they may not understand.

"Do you love him, Adam?"

[live_growstronger]

Methos was beginning to realize he wasn't going to reason with this man. It was worse than trying to reason with Duncan MacLeod when he got his mind set on some crusade or another.

Immortals and mortals alike, all of them rushing to their deaths. He didn't understand it. And he hoped he never would.

"Not as much as you do, I think." Methos answered, smile mirthless. "I care for him very deeply. Love, yes, it might be called that."

[hard2lookaway]

Reason had left the discussion Hannibal Lecter a long time ago.

When Adam says that, though, Will huffs out a low, humorless laugh. "I don't love him. He left me just alive enough that I didn't have a choice but to follow him and end it, finally. "Just ... watch your back, Adam."

He pushes back from the bar. "Thank you for the drink."