Quirkless

200 parole 

BNHA

Quirkless

This is a day Izuku never thought he would have seen. 

He’s dead, he thought. 

He’s dead and I’m too late. 

But Bakugou was still breathing, he was still alive. Maybe that's worse. 

Izuku knows Kacchan, knows what will happen now. Izuku knows that when - if - Katsuki is gonna  wake up he’s gonna be pissed. 

He’s gonna scream and shout and he’s gonna try to explode something - or someone, probably Izuku. Except he won’t be able to. 

Deku was the one to find him, half buried under debris, blood smeared all over his black tank top, darkening the color, if it was even possible. He didn’t notice the bullet hole in his chest until he had handed him over to the paramedics. 

He didn’t understand what had happened until he went under surgery and they came back with that damn bullet in a plastic bag. 

“Police will need it as evidence” they said, giving it to him. 

He didn’t realize it was one of those bullet.

He didn’t because his mind refused to grasp that now Bakugou was quirkless. 

Izuku sighed and leaned against the uncomfortable plastic chair. 

Space Oddity

 300 parole 

Sherlock

Space Oddity

It makes so much sense, John needs to sit down and breathe. 

Sherlock cocks his head, he waits for his brain to catch up with the notion he has just told him. 

"Maybe you need a cup of tea," Sherlock nods to himself, and then he goes to the stairwell and yells for Mrs Hudson.

John lets him - "I'm not your housekeeper!" Mrs Hudson yells back, but they both know she will bring them tea, and John hopes to have his shit sort out for when she does, even if he's not sure he'll manage, because Sherlock just blew his mind. 

"You -" John swallows, his mouth dry, "You are an alien." 

Sherlock looks at him as if he were stupid - considering he says so to him almost twenty times a day, it might not be so distant from the truth. 

"Yes, John. I just told you." 

“But you don’t even know the solar system!”

“Of course, I don’t. Try to keep up, John. Do you know how many planet system there are in the universe? Why would I remember this one, when it only has one measly planet inhabited by a subpar species of questionable intelligence..." 

"Sherlock!" 

"I was talking about the dolphins, of course." 

John latches to exasperation, because if he has to think deeper than how obnoxious his flatmate is, his mind will explode.

"But you’re here. You’re living here," he points out. 

"Yes, well, I’ve made a point of living at least once in every planet where there’s life.” 

"Sherlock, you’ve been living on this measly planet for ten years,” he challenges his, with disbelief.  

Sherlock shifts on his feet, and looks away, a slight blush on his otherwise otherworldly pale cheeks. 

“Well, yes, you’re here.” 

Emotional baggage

 400 parole 

HARRY POTTER 

Emotional baggage

Hogwarts was a weird and odd place even if you were used to it. 

The people that inhabited the castle were even weirder and odder, but Luna Lovegood was a whole another thing.  

“You know Harry, I’m sorry for your breakup with Ginny, but you two weren’t right together” the girl, sitting at the Gryfindor table - because what were Houses, after the war? -, said. 

Ginny raised her head and nodded silently from across the table. Harry hadn’t talk to her for a long time after she dumped him because she wasn’t “strong enough for his emotional baggage” (her words, Harry would have never believed she would admit she wasn’t strong enough ever in her life) and only recently they had returned to a tentatively friendship. 

“So I was thinking…" Luna went on, not acknoledging the fact that this was a conversation Harry didn't want to have - not right now, not in front of the whole Gryffindor table that was currently hosting students from the four houses, and that would spread whatever rumor to the whole school in a matter of hours, "you should date Professor Snape.” 

Harry chocked on his meal. “What the fuck, Luna?” ” He gasped, trying to regain his breath. 

Half of the Griffindor table - the students that had heard her - interrupted what they were doing to look at them. Nobody laughed. 

Harry felt like he was the butt of a not particularly great joke. 

“I’m serious, Harry," She went on, "You both have an emotional baggage,” that word again, Harry hated it “that you two can understand and handle better than anyone else. It would be a perfect balance.”

“Yes, sure," Harry rolled his eyes, "There's just the not insignificant detail that he hates me,” he replied sarcastically. And why were they even talking about it? Why was he even going along to this insanity? 

“Oh, everyone knows there’s a thin line between love and hate," Luna chirped, "A thin and blurred one."

Harry wanted to bang his head against the table. And why wasn’t any of his housemates laughing, telling her how crazy it was? 

“Besides you are of age and in a few months he won’t be your teacher anymore.”

“Luna,” he shook his head, "That's never going to happen." 

Luna looked at him, as if she knew better.  “If you say so.”

Lost along the way

 MERLIN 

Cow-T, w6, m1 - sacrificio
792 parole 

In the end, Merlin stopped waiting. 

It took him centuries, centuries spent in the same damn place, always hovering near the lake, every mornin waking up and strolling through the forest, every morning with his heart beating faster for an instant, his throath closing around the idea that today could be the day, that Arthur could be back, only for all his hopes to plummet to his stomach, the lake quiet and unmoved, not even a ripple on the surface. 

Merlin waited and waited and waited. By the end of Gwen's reign he decided to move, let the figure of the grat warlock Emrys - Merlin - be cloacked by mistery. It was a more selfish reason - it was that Merlin was alone. Gaius long gone, the Knights valiantly perished in battle, or in their homes with their families, or lost to the foolish that was questing for the Graal.  

Guinevere, grey and old and wrinkled, had smiled at Merlin, had cupped his young face - not older than the day Arthur died - with her hand and had asked him if she had done enough. Merlin had smiled back, motioning to the window. Camelot was flourishing, thriving. The fortified citadel was at its apex, and it was all Guinevere's merit. 

"Yes, Gwen, you have been amazing." 

The next day he had taken his few possession and throw them in a sack. He didn't stay for her funeral. 

Still, even leaving, he could never strain too far from Camelot, from Avalon, from the lake. The profecy said Arthur would come back when Albion would be in need of him again and Merlin would be there to welcome him. 

But Arthur never came back. Not when plague was sweeping away the population and Merlin, elbwos deep in potions and medicaments, sleeping two hours per night, had worked to save as many people as possible, not when pointless war after pointless war had been drafting the youngster to die for a country that starved them, not when a new continent was discovered and his fellow countrymen - Englishmen they called themselves, people who had forgot all about Albion and Camelot, about greatness and honour - his fellow contrymen had started colonizing, buy and selling people, killing entire populations without a second thought. 

Yet Arthur hadn't come back from the dead to reign them in. Hadn't come with all his scorn and his pride and his disgust to guide his subjects to the right path. 

Merlin, still had waited. 

Wars and pandemics and death, civilization brought at his finest while new methods of torture were brought forth. The industrial revolution, Merlin had seen the birth of pollution, had lived throught the shift from drinking water from a well to check if the water was clean enough from chemicals. And yet he waited. 

He saw young people beeing drafted again for a war that dependend on the girldle of an Archiduke in Sarajevo and he saw them never return. He wavered. 

All his life he had sacrificed to the wait, all those years spent on the altar of Arthur's return, his blind faith pledged to the man he was supposed to protect and failed. 

The war won, Albion - not Albion, not any more, and not until Arthur came back - England prospered. Merlin sat back, maybe it wasn't that bad, not as bad as it had looked. Maybe it didn't warrant Arthur return. 

But then, there was another war, another generation of children sent to die in a foreign country and then there were two bombs - two mushrooms in the newspapers and a death tool that made Merlin sick and that was it. 

If Arthur hadn't come back for this - hadn't come back in time to prevent this - he would never come back at all. Merlin had to think so, because otherwise it would mean that something worse was yet to come, and he would lose what little was left of his sanity. 

So he sacrificed this instead. He let go of the lake, he let go of his wait, he let go of his celibacy. Married a widow of war, two small children that called him their father even if they were old enough to remember he really wasn't, and he lived a happy life. Later, when she had grown old and he hadn't, despite the years passing, he could have stayed - he could have stayed forever, watching his granchildren grow and get old and become grandparents to other children and still he could be there and alive. But it wasn't his life, so one day, he left a flower on his wife grave and he simply disappeared. 

Another thing sacrificed to his immortality, another thing sacrificed to Arthur. 

Spoils left behind

HANNIBAL 

Cow-T, w6, m1 - sacrificio
602 parole

If he wants to catch the Cheesapeak's Ripper - if he wants to catch Hannibal - he has to sacrifice something to him, Will knows. 

He doesn't tell Jack - it's enough to have been considered crazy, it's enough to have been considered a murderer, a serial killer. So maybe he didn't kill all those people, knowingly or not, and maybe he really was framed, but the idea that Jack would believe the evidence without even questioning it... Will is not stupid, he knows he has been framed very well, he knows he would have believed that lie too if he were to see it from an external viewpoint - damn, he had believed it, would still be believing it, if his encephalitis hadn't been treated, if his mind hadn't become clear enough to realize Hannibal's machinations. 

Still. 

Beverly gave him the benefit of the doubt - though she thought him guilty too. 

(Beverly's dead - another one of your sins.) 

Maybe putting together Beverly's death and the fact that Will had asked her to investigate Lecter should be enough to convince Jack. But Will doesn't want to convince him - Will wants Hannibal, wants the truth, wants the Cheesapeak's Ripper, the Copycat Killer, the monster hidden behind the suits and the politeness and the refinement. What Will doesn't want is another round of fighting to be believed. He already went throught that. 

So his plan has to be his and his alone. 

He already took the right step - he's been released from the psychiatric ward simply because he sent Matthew Brown to kill Lecter, he's been cleared from all accuses, he's been found innocent, because he has proved Lecter that he's capable of Becoming whatever Lecter wants him to become. He made a pledge to renounce his soul, now he just has to go on with it. 

He wonders - briefly - if killing to capture Hannibal and if, eventually, killing Hannibal won't make him a worse monster than the one he's hunting. 

Becoming a killer in the intention to stop one. 

But this part of himself Will has already lost - he doesn't care. The line in the sand, oh, he's following it, but he has already crossed it. 

He will kill Hannibal, and he won't do it for justice - he won't do it for his victims, he won't do it for the people he had killed, manipulated and ruined. He will do it just for himself. 

Maybe he will also do it for Hannibal - after all, he was the one who wanted to see what would happen, that wanted to see him changed. 

Innocence, his clean hands, the rest of his mental sanity - the small hold he has on being a good person even while thinking like a killer - well, these are small sacrifices to make on the altar of revenge. 

(Later, when he has a gun to Hannibal's head and he doesn't shoot, he'll wonder, why he didn't pull the trigger - he'll tell himself it's because he didn't want to use a gun, too impersonal, too clinic. He'll want to use his hands, he'll want to feel the blood and later to dispose of the body. He won't admitt even to himself that, painful as it was the sacrifice Hannibal forced him to make, now that he has left behind unsteady, mentally ill, shaky, Will Graham - now that he has Become something fiercer and prouder and unhinged, now he wants - he needs - a partner.) 

Oppure

 HANNIBAL 

Cow-T, w6, m1 - sacrificio
941 parole

Alla fine dei conti si riduce tutto alla lama del coltello per linoleum che Hannibal gli preme contro il palmo della mano, costringendo le sue dita a chiudersi attorno al manico. 

Will lo guarda con gli occhi spiritati, lo sguardo stralunato e confuso. Non capisce. 

"Puoi provare ad uccidermi, Will," Hannibal gli dice, facendo un passo indietro. Ha uno sguardo ferale sul viso, la sua bocca è aperta in un ghigno che mette in mostra i denti più che in un sorriso, anche se Will è certo che l'intenzione di Hannibal sia quella di apparire serafico come al solito. 

Disegnami un orologio, Will. Come ti fa sentire, Will? 

Will guarda gli occhi scuri di Hannibal e vi legge sfida. 

Non ha bisogno di far dondolare il pendolo tra loro - non ha bisogno di un momento di concentrazione, di cancellare sé stesso, per capire Hannibal - lo vede nei segni della collutazione che a Jack non ha riservato questo onore. No, Jack è uno stupido poliziotto, un maiale come tanti, ma ha osato cercare di fermarlo e dunque doveva morire. Hannibal lo avrebbe sgozzato, esattamente come un maiale, se soltanto Jack non fosse stato pronto a difendersi. E anche così, nonostante sia ancora vivo - ancora vivo per il momento - Jack ha un buco nel collo e una arteria che spruzza sangue a ritmo con il battito del suo cuore e Will non crede possa resistere molto. 

Deve essere veloce ad uccidere Hannibal - Hannibal che gli sta dando l'opportunità di difendersi... No. Hannibal che gli sta dando una scelta. 

Will sente la risata farsi strada nel suo petto, risalirgli lungo la gola e rischiare di spezzargli i denti, uscendo. 

Hannibal gli sta chiedendo di scegliere. 

Lo può immaginare come andrebbe: Will che si spinge verso di lui, il coltello testo tra loro, Hannibal che lo afferra, la lotta sul pavimento - sul pavimento, petto contro petto, le gambe intrecciate a cercare di avere ognuno il vantaggio sull'altro, e non sembra che stiano cercando di uccidersi nella sua immaginazione, no, affatto. Poi il coltello che affonda nello stomaco di Hannibal, taglia le pelle, la carne, le viscere. Hannibal che estrae la lama, il sangue che cola e cola e cola, e gliela pianta nel collo, forse nel petto, forse nell'addome, disegnandogli un sorriso. 

Oppure. 

Oppure Will potrebbe piantare il coltello nella gola di Jack - finire il lavoro, diventare quello che Hannibal ha sempre voluto, esprimere tutto il suo potenziale. 

Significherebbe sacrificare tutta la sua vita - sacrificare la sua casa a Wolf's Trap e il branco di cani randagi e abbandonati che ha adottato, sacrificare la sua carriera da insegnante, la possibilità di scrivere articoli di approfondimento sul decadimento dei cadaveri in base alle punture di api - se lo è perso quel caso, ma Zeller si era offerto di fargli leggere i fascicoli in segno di scuse per averlo creduto un serial killer. Will non avrebbe dovuto trovarlo divertente, ma cazzo, ultimamente la sua vita sembra una barzelletta fin troppo spesso. 

Will osserva il coltello tra le sue mani. 

"Un po' più in fretta, Will. La polizia sta arrivando, l'avrà chiamata Alana, e io non intendo essere qui quando lo faranno. In un modo o nell'altro." 

Come se Hannibal credesse davvero che Will abbia una qualche chance di ucciderlo. 

Forse ce l'ha - dopotutto ci è già andato così vicino. 

Ma è una chance che Will non ha intenzione di cogliere. 

"Dov'è Jack?" 

"Non può aiutarti." 

"Non voglio il suo aiuto." 

"Adesso?" Hannibal solleva le sopracciglia. Il sangue gli incrosta la camicia, gli decora il viso. Fa brillare i suoi occhi di rosso. 

"è tardi?" 

"Non hai ucciso Freddie Launz, non hai..." 

"Ho ucciso Randall Tier. E so dove Jack ha nascosto Freddie. Hannibal..." Il suo nome è una preghiera tra le sue labbra, Will vorrebbe inginocchiarsi, "Hannibal non posso ucciderti. Non..." scuote la testa, gli mancano le parole.

Hannibal sospira - un respiro profondo, quasi si stesse permettendo di sciogliersi, di liberarsi di parte della tensione. "Jack è nella cella dei vini, dubito tu riesca ad entrare. Si dissanguerà da solo."

Will si lecca le labbra. Hannibal gli sta offrendo una via d'uscita e forse dovrebbe prenderla, ma invece Will si avvicina alla porta. "Jack?" chiama, il coltello ancora stretto tra le mani. Dall'altra parte della porta sente un grugnito di assenso. "Sono da solo, riesci ad aprire la porta?" 

Per un istante, Will pensa che non lo farà. Forse è troppo debole, forse la porta non è abbastanza spessa per tenere fuori la quieta conversazione tra Will e Hannibal. Quasi lo spera. Poi la serratura scatta. 

Will trattiene il fiato, si rigira il coltello nella mano. 

La maniglia si abbassa lentamente e la porta si apre di pochi millimetri, ma abbastanza perché Will possa poi spalancarla. Esita soltanto un istante. Sta pensando di uccidere Jack. 

Lui non voleva questo. Lui voleva che il mondo sapesse, voleva che il mondo vedesse Hannibal per quello che era, esattamente come lo vedeva lui. 

Non voleva che Hannibal fosse catturato, non voleva che fosse costretto a combattere nella sua cucina, che rischiasse di venire arrestato. Voleva che fuggisse, Will lo aveva avvisato apposta. 

"Perché non sei scappato?" Will chiede, la mano ancora sulla maniglia. Jack emette un mugolio di allarme - tradimento, incredulità - ma Will lo ignora. 

"Non potevo andarmene senza di te," Hannibal non si è mosso, e Will non ha bisogno di guardarlo in faccia per sapere che la sua espressione è incuriosita. Perché Will è imprevedibile. 

Will apre la porta. Sta sacrificando Jack, Alana, la sua rabbia per la morte di Abigail, la sua vita intera, la sua tranquillità. 

Per Hannibal non può che non valerne la pena. Non saprebbe come vivere altrimenti.