(no subject)

[wgraham]

Will wasn't sure if he'd ever felt this way before in his life. He'd felt attraction toward people before, obviously, and he'd had girlfriends, though nothing serious, but he hadn't ever been so interested in being around someone as he was about being with Molly.

When they'd made this date, three days ago, the time and space had felt appropriate. It gave them both ample opportunity to sort out their feelings, make sure that they hadn't just gotten caught up in the moment. Will was sure that wasn't the case, but it felt right, practical, to be sure.

He hadn't been able to stop thinking about Molly. Every waking moment of the last three days she'd been on his mind. He'd dreamed about her every night, and two nights ago he'd woken up in the middle of one of those dreams, so riled up by what had been in his head that all he'd had to do was press his palm over himself to finish the job. That hadn't happened to him in a very long time.

Two hours before he was meant to meet her, he'd showered, cleaned up his beard, gotten dressed. He tried to not feel anxious but he couldn't help it, pacing his apartment, checking his watch over and over. He knew it would only take ninety seconds to get to her place, and he waited as patiently as he could, finally giving up with five minutes to spare and taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

He stared at his watch on her doorstep, watching the second hand go around three times until it read exactly seven PM. Then he tugged down his jacket, took a deep breath, and knocked on her door.

Comments

[thewinterlady]

"It can be." Molly admitted and she wasn't ashamed of the fact. "It's both easier and harder these days with the other magic I carry too." She smiled at Will and ran her thumb over his.. "I...went through a rough patch for a while. It was after a big battle with one of the vampire courts and I thought Harry was dead. Me and some of the others Harry was close with formed kind of a protective patrol around Chicago in his absence. Harry's Faerie godmother promised to look after me and she taught me a hell of a lot - some of it good, some of it not so good - and I was strong but I was beat up. I did a lot of things that were close to the bone, but what I didn't know was that everything I was doing was shaping me to become a vessel for Faerie magic. She manipulated me into a situation where I wouldn't have a choice and here I am." Molly wasn't bitter about it anymore. There wasn't any point to that, not here. All the damage had been done. Now she just had to live with it. "It's called a Mantle - that's just a fancy name for power - and it made me one of the queens of Winter Court. I am the Winter Lady." She made a face. "That means nothing here when I can't even get to the NeverNever, but it does mean I have to carry it around. It shores up my defences and makes me better with types of magic I might not normally use, but it's insidious. The more I use it actively, the stronger it gets and the more I want to use it." She shrugged. "Double edged blade."

Taking a sip of her beer, she wondered something, deciding just to ask. "How are you taking all this so well?" It wasn't surprise, it was curiosity. She didn't think he was going to run screaming but anyone would be wondering if she was insane by now.

[wgraham]

It was a lot of information and Will started to have trouble tracking it, the more words Molly used that weren't in his natural vocabulary. He filed all of it away, knowing he'd either try to make sense of it, or he'd as Molly to clarify. At the moment he was mostly interested in how it all affected her here, if it made parts of her life difficult or put her in any particular danger.

Truthfully, he was a little overwhelmed, not so much by learning about Molly's power and all the things that fed into it over the years, but by trying to figure out what it all meant. But he wasn't afraid, and none if it made him want to be with her any less. The question she was asking him was, at least in part, a gauge, to see how he was taking all this new knowledge. He took a deep breath through his nose, and gave her a look that was nearly serious aside from the hint of a smile playing around his eyes.

"Well, I figure if I marry you, I'll get to be a king," he answered, and he knew it didn't work that way and that talking about marriage with a woman after less than half of a date was completely crazy, but he hoped Molly would take it as the lighthearted joke he'd intended.

[thewinterlady]

The joke made Molly grin and blush, laughing into her drink. "Oh so you're interested in me for my magic Faerie money? I get it." She said, happy beyond words that he wasn't completely overwhelmed by the information. "I'm sorry, Will. You're going to be really disappointed when it all turns back into coal on our wedding night."

She couldn't stop smiling. Just being around Will was more than enough to do that, but knowing that he accepted her, was interested despite her strangeness...it was heady. Molly knew he wouldn't understand it all, not yet, but that was fine with her as long as he was willing to accept it as part of her. And Will was clearly okay with that if he was joking about marrying her. A warm shiver went through her as she thought that. It was way, way too soon to be thinking about things like that, Molly knew, but the idea of waking up with him every morning, going to bed with him every night, was something she wanted very much.

She twisted her fingers through his and was about to lean over to tell him what she was thinking about, when the woman at the next table cleared her throat loudly and then when Molly was looking at her whispered to her friends about inappropriate displays of affection. They all laughed and Molly turned back to Will, suddenly aware of how wrong this place was for them. Still, she would stick it out, if that's what he wanted.

She smiled and tried to shake off the snide comments. "So I've overwhelmed you with my life. Do you want a turn? Tell me about yourself, Will Graham."

[wgraham]

Will smiled at the way Molly took his joke and ran with it, and he knew the mention of the wedding night was just tied into that, but he couldn't help thinking of what that might be like. He was probably getting ahead of himself, since they hadn't even slept together yet, and marriage, if it was something they ended up doing, was a long way off. Still, the mental images weren't unpleasant, if a little distracting.

The way she looked at him, Will wondered if she was thinking about similar things. They both knew they were joking, but it was clear they both liked each other very much already, had a connection that was impossible to deny. Looking at her face now, learning all these things about her and learning her more deeply, he felt like he could fall in love with her. He was hesitant to try to label things when they were soon new and intense, but he couldn't say the beginnings of that weren't already there, stirring in his heart.

She changed the angle of their hands then, threaded her fingers through his, and he could feel tension in her arm, like she was going to lean closer to him. He took a soft breath in anticipation, but then Molly sat back, a woman the next table over giving her a reproving look. He personally didn't care about her opinion of them, but he could tell it set Molly on edge, and Will felt irritation building inside him again. It was moments like this that he hated his empathy, because he felt Molly's embarrassment and disappointment inside him like it was his own. But, at the same time, his own feelings bled in, and he had to fight not to say something to the woman, not wanting to make a scene.

Instead, he squeezed Molly's hand in comfort and understanding. He hated being out in public like this, because people tended to always be so nosy and rude and inconsiderate. But he was here to be with Molly, to do this date thing the right way, so he took a breath and tried to calm himself.

"My life isn't nearly as exciting as yours," he told her with a soft smile, squeezing her hand again. "I was born and grew up in Louisiana. My mother left my father and I when I was really young, and my dad moved us around a lot. He worked on the ship yards as a mechanic mostly. I went to college in New Orleans and got a job with the police department and eventually became a homicide detective."

He took another breath, remembering that time of his life, how hard he'd worked back then to fit in and not get noticed. "I wasn't good in the field, bad under pressure, so I moved to Washington D.C. and went back to school to get a graduate degree in forensic science. Then I started working for the FBI, first in the crime lab and then eventually at Quantico, the FBI academy, as a teacher." She knew a lot of this already, but it was easier for him to go through it by rote, rather than landing on any particular details. "I did some field work again right before I came here. An agent asked me to consult on a serial murder case. They were having a hard time finding motive, and figured my 'gift' could help."

This was all very close to home for him still, a lot of things from the last few months cutting deep and holding on. Eventually, he'd have to tell Molly about Hannibal, but he had no idea how to even go about explaining that, who he was, what he'd done, the fact that he was here in Darrow. Just the idea of that made his anxiety flare inside him, and he looked down at the table top, at their joined hands, drawing strength from Molly's touch.

[thewinterlady]

His life did sound exciting to Molly. She'd always loved Karin's stories from before she'd gotten involved with Harry and magic and everything that went with it. And helping Harry with his investigations was always a thrill. Will helped people, even if it was after the fact. He provided closure and justice for the victims and that was honourable, if nothing else. And on top of that, he had to deal with the way his gifted mind worked. It must have been nearly impossible, but he'd done it anyway.

When he started talking about the consulting work for the FBI, the tone of his feelings changed. There was something slightly bitter colouring his words, maybe a little remorse too and Molly frowned. She would ask him about that, but not tonight. If he'd wanted to tell her, he would have. And it probably wasn't restaurant conversation.

In fact, she was starting to wonder if anything they were saying was truly appropriate here. Not that she cared - she just wanted them to be free to say these things without any holding back. They'd both been waiting for this, built it up in their minds and maybe it had been too much. She watched him now, anxious and holding on to her and all she wanted to do was slide into his lap and fold herself into him.

She made a decision and took a breath.

"Will...Can I ask you something?" She said, leaning towards him and not caring about the women still tutting her ear. "Would you be offended if I said that I really wanted to get out of here? Don't get me wrong, it's lovely and I really appreciate the gesture, but...I'd really rather be eating a burger and walking along the boardwalk alone with you." Even though they could stay here and still enjoy themselves just because they were together, Molly really wanted to just get out of this stuffy, oppressively rigid environment and finally relax and be close to Will the way she wanted. And she thought, hoped, that Will wanted the same.

[wgraham]

When Molly spoke, Will raised his eyes to hers again, and it sounded like she was nervous about her question. Considering everything they'd talked about so far, Will wondered what she could possible want to know that caused her trepidation, but then when she asked him if they could leave the restaurant he felt a sensation of relief so strong he breathed an abrupt laugh.

"God no. Not offended in the slightest," Will replied, feeling something warm and light inside himself for the first time since they walked into this place. He squeezed her hand once more and then moved to get his wallet out of his pocket, taking out enough cash to pay for their drinks and dinner, even though they had yet to see their food. Tossing the money on the table, he turned to see the women at the table beside theirs staring at him and Molly with wide eyes and shocked expressions. He nodded at them, his expression mostly benign (though if there was a hint of a glare there, it was because he couldn't help it), then reached for Molly's hand, pulling her close enough that he could press a warm kiss to her lips. It wasn't much more than chaste, but it was worth the startled gasps and aghast murmurs they left behind as they exited the restaurant.

Outside, Will waited for Molly to pull her jacket back on, then he took her hand again. He felt giddy, like a weight had been lifted off him, and he tugged her gently around the side of the building, away from the restaurant windows and the street. Then he took her in his arms, his eyes locked on hers for a long moment before he swept in and kissed her again, this time with much less restraint and much more passion.

[thewinterlady]

The kiss in the restaurant had been a great big middle finger to the whole place and Molly laughed as they exited the restaurant, Will leading the way with purpose and determination. He wanted out as much as she did and the relief made her giddy. There was a whirlwind of motion as they left, shrugging into coats and then Molly found herself in a quiet alley with Will looking at her.

Molly didn't think she'd ever get tired of the way the world went away when he looked at her. Everything went still and quiet and it was just the two of them, pressed close, sharing space and breath. It was tempting to let the look they shared go on but Will saved her from having to wrench her eyes away by leaning in to kiss her, his mouth hot and hungry on hers. Molly pressed back, matching his passion, hands in his hair as she opened under him, tongue pressing against the seam of his lips and tasting the beer on them.

The wall of the restaurant was cold when they backed up against it, but Molly didn't care. She'd been without this for too long already.She pawed at his jacket and slipped her hands in underneath, running them over the smooth material of his shirt, making a quiet noise at the heat of him under her fingers.

[wgraham]

It was brazen and a little tawdry, making out in an alleyway, but there was an element of romance to it as well, and it felt so good to have Molly in his arms that Will didn't care if anyone saw them or judged them. He pressed her shoulders carefully to the wall of the restaurant, needing the support to kiss her as deeply as he needed to, and while they only touched where their mouths met and hands landed, it was clear the fire from Kagura was still burning brightly in both of them.

A moment later, when Will drew back, they were both breathing hard, hearts beating in rapid unison. Molly's lips were dark pink and bee-stung, her eyes dark and full of desire, and Will had to fight the urge to just dive back in and keep kissing her. It wasn't fair to either of them to take things too far in a location like this, and though Will was perfectly happy to scrap the fancy restaurant portion of their date, he wasn't going to rush past this part of it. He'd never had a hurried fumble in an alley, but as satisfying as being able to touch Molly now would be, she deserved better, especially this time, the first time.

He'd lost his own virginity in high school, too bound up by his awkwardness and social anxiety to know how to deal with himself, desperate to fit in. So when a girl showed interest in him, he let himself be dragged away by it, dutifully accompanying her to parties and sporting events, taking her to prom. On the outside he'd been placid, telegraphing emotions that he didn't feel, hiding his roiling anxiety behind an exterior of carefully maintained stoicism. It was the time in his life he'd been the most included, but he'd felt like a shell, empty and hollow. Sex had been the pinnacle and also the culmination of the ill fated relationship; he'd performed just fine, but while his body had been present in the act, his soul had not, and even his girlfriend had been able to see it.

Being with Molly wasn't going to serve as a way for him to reclaim that moment, but being able to be part of the experience for her, making it important and meaningful, would be more than a little gratifying. So he wouldn't hurry it along; they had time, there was no reason to rush.

"Are you still hungry?" he asked her, and he'd meant for food, but the instant he said it he realized the duality of the meaning and smiled at her heatedly. "Do you want to eat?" he amended, lifting his hand to brush his fingers along her cheek.

[thewinterlady]

Molly could have stayed like this, just trading kisses and quiet noises, close and warm together in the chilly night forever. The way Will quieted the background noise of the city for her was something Molly was immediately greedy for, not to mention the way his kisses stoked the heat rising inside her.

She wanted to touch him and have him touch her in turn, to come apart in his hands. But this wasn't the time or the place for that and when they parted she could tell it was mutual.

She smiled at Wills question and then had huff a laugh at his correction. "Yes to both, but maybe option two is easier to accomplish right now." She said turning her head to kiss his knuckle. "We could go to the boardwalk?" She suggested, finding the idea of sitting together, close enough to share warmth while they talked and ate, very appealing.

[wgraham]

Will nodded, but he didn't move back from here for several more seconds, just standing close, feeling the heat of her body, her breath on his face. "Okay," he finally said, licking his lower lip and then taking a step away, reaching down to take her hand once more.

"I haven't been to the boardwalk yet," he told her as he lead her back to the street and then walked along it, heading toward the beach. He tucked his free hand in his pocket, the cold night air chilling his fingers. His other hand was warm in Molly's, and the feeling radiated up his arm. He knew it was a bit of a walk, so he thought maybe they could return to the conversation they'd been having before they left the restaurant.

"Did you have any questions you wanted to ask me?" he questioned, turning his head toward her to see her face.

[thewinterlady]

Molly almost whined when he moved away, but she caught the noise and made it something more like a laugh, taking his hand and threading their fingers together. It was comforting to be able to press close like this and just move together through the night, neither of them worried about propriety or social conventions.

"I have lots of questions." Molly said, smiling at him. "I think i'll be asking them for a while." She admitted. "But how have you never been to the boardwalk? How long have you been here?"

[wgraham]

"Nearly three months," Will replied, tugging her gently toward him so the were walking a little nearer to each other. "I arrived on September 15. But I ended up in the hospital pretty much immediately," he told her. "I had encephalitis when I got here, and it had been undiagnosed for several months. I was in pretty bad shape for a while."

He paused, thinking about how long ago that felt now, even though it was only a couple of months ago. All the hallucinations and nightmares and lost time felt like a distorted memory.

"After that I..." Will shook his head. "I ended up in some nightmare version of this city. For three weeks." He stopped, swallowing back the impending panic that rose in him when he thought about his time there, what he'd done. "It was unpleasant," he said, the tone of his voice matching the way it made him feel. "And that's putting it mildly. I had to do things there, horrible things, to survive. I don't know how real any of it was, but everything I did felt that way."

He squeezed Molly's hand again, needing her as a touchstone now, keeping him grounded so he wouldn't lose himself to terrible memories. "I haven't been much of anywhere here, because of all of that. And my tendency to avoid crowds. The fact that I went to Kagura, I really feel like something made me go there." He turned to her, giving her as bright as smile as he could with the unease that had risen inside him. "I don't know what it was, but I'm so glad I went."

[thewinterlady]

Three months was a very short time for so much to have happened to one person and Molly listened with growing horror. The encephalitis would have been enough to floor anyone, but Will had gotten up, recovered and whole again only to be knocked down again. Molly had heard of the nightmare realm that a few people had gotten caught up in, but she'd only heard of it in passing. Now, feeling how real it still was for him, she was grateful she hadn't been pulled in too.

None of that made the impact of the way Will was feeling any less for her. His cut off words when he called the experience 'unpleasant' covered panic and anxiety so thick Molly could taste it on the back of her tongue. He was squeezing her hand and she squeezed back, trying to offer as much support as she could.

He started to ease back from those feelings when he mentioned Kagura, the memories causing a wave of comfort in Molly that she wished she could give to Will. She settled for words instead.

"That place you went to...the shadow place...what you did there was what you had to do. I know what that's like. And I'm so sorry you have those memories now." She confessed. There was no sense in telling him it wasn't real - he knew that already and it wouldn't make any difference. Some things are written so large on your mind that you can never really let them go completely. But you could, if you were determined enough, bury them under the weight of good memories, and that was something Molly knew she wanted to be part of.

Molly watched his profile as they walked and tried a small smile. "But I am so, so glad you decided to go to Kagura. I've been here for a year and that one decision to go there too was the best one I've ever made."

[wgraham]

Will felt so comforted by the sound of Molly's voice telling him she understood, the physical connection of their fingers woven together, the more etherial one that orbited and tied them, it all proved to hold Will up in a moment where he would otherwise have very easily have let himself collapse. The air grew colder the closer they got to the pier, but the space around them was buzzing, alight with the energy that flowed between them.

"I dreamed about you," Will said after a moment of silence. "Every night since the night I met you." He took a breath, looking at her face in profile, her golden hair sweeping along her cheek and winding down past her shoulders. "One of those dreams, I heard your name, like an echo. I was working, alone, but I kept hearing your name. Like I was saying it, but it was coming from somewhere else."

It had been an almost eerie dream to wake up from, the sound of her name in his head like it was coming from the past and the future all at once. But it had only cemented for Will what he was already starting to feel for her, attachment and longing.

"You're the best thing I've ever had in my life," Will told her, his voice shaking a little at the admission. "I know I should be careful, patient, but there's so much of you in my head already, under my skin. And I know, very soon, you'll know everything about me." He took another breath. "I want you to know. I want you to know me."

[thewinterlady]

"Will..." His name sounded loud in her ears in the wake of his statement. The weight of what he'd said should be crushing, should be impossible for her to bear after such a short time, but it wasn't. That in and of itself should have worried her, instead it just made her feel lighter.

She pressed closer to him and nodded. "I want that too. And it goes both ways." She said, looking in the eye as he watched her. "I've never wanted to let anyone close before. Not as close as I want you to get." She smiled at him. "You made a hole in my walls the first second you looked me in the eye, you know that? No one's ever done that. You're inside my defences and I don't know how you did it. I'm glad that you are though."

[wgraham]

"I felt that too," Will told her, and they'd just reached the boardwalk, so he quickly steered them to a bench and pulled Molly down gently to sit beside him.

"I didn't know what it was at first," he further explained. "But I could feel something around you, between us. I could taste it." He paused, licking his lips at the memory of how it had felt, how it still resonated between them. "I don't know how, Molly, but I've always been able to feel that part of you. It's not overwhelming, but it's there whenever we're close."

He took a deep breath, looking into her eyes. "I know there's more," he said softly. "I can tell by the way you look away from me, every few seconds." He paused, hoping she wouldn't be upset by his saying this, mentioning what he'd noticed. "Eye contact has always been hard for me, and I notice when other people avoid it too. But it doesn't feel like you're anxious, like you don't trust me. There's something else. And it's okay if you don't want to tell me, but I want you to know that, whatever it is, I'll understand."

[thewinterlady]

Molly smiled ruefully, getting comfortable on the bench, turning slightly to face him, body curved into his.

"I figured you'd notice that." She said and tried to work out a way to tell him about Soulgazes. "I do trust you. I trusted you pretty much straight away. It's got nothing to do with anxiety either, you're right." She clarified, just to make sure he knew it wasn't him. "The reason I look away is so that I don't pull you into a Soulgaze with me. You've heard the expression 'Eyes are the window to the soul'? That's what a Soulgaze is. If I look at someone for too long I can see everything about them. Everything. All their best parts, everything they are unconsciously, everything they've ever done...I see it all. And it works both ways. The person I'm Soulgazing with sees all of me too. Everything, Will. All the good but all the bad as well." She held his eyes for a moment so that he understand how serious she was about this. "And you never forget. Everything you see in a Soulgaze stays with you forever, just like the first time you saw it, just as fresh and it never dulls. Not ever."

Taking his hand in hers and pulling it into her lap, she looked down, splaying her fingers over his, fingertip to fingertip. "I've wanted to do it with you since we fist met, but I would never make that decision for you. I've got some memories, some parts of me that you would..." she swallowed and looked at him. "It's not a choice you should take lightly, if you ever consider it an option." And Molly meant that with everything she was. Part of her desperately wanted to share this with him, but she wouldn't sugar coat it for him. Will deserved to know what he was getting into.

[wgraham]

It wasn't exactly what Will had expected to hear, but it wasn't too far off. He'd had a feeling it was about connecting, something stronger than what they'd already shared. As deeply as they'd touched each other mentally and emotionally, this was so much more profound, seeing every single thing in vivid, raw detail. He had to make himself take a breath, realizing that he'd stopped breathing as his mind ran with the idea, with what could happen if they ventured into the territory Molly described.

He was already shaking his head, but it wasn't because he'd made a decision either way. "Molly," he said, his tone even but a little weary. "You know what I do," he went on, keeping his voice low. "You can't imagine the things I've seen, the things I've... I take on the mind of killers, I think like they do, I see what they've done, I imagine myself doing those things. Horrible, violent things." He exhaled shakily, his anxiety kicking up and causing his heart to race. "And I've done things, I..."

He had to stop and close his eyes, tipping his head down. He opened his eyes again a moment later, but his gaze remained on their hands, overlapped in Molly's lap. "In the nightmare city, I murdered people," he admitted, his voice a broken, harsh whisper. "Five people. And it, it wasn't clean, it was..." He was losing himself, memories washing over him, infiltrating his mind, his breathing heavy and shaking. "I have so much blood on my hands. And I know it wasn't real, it couldn't have been, but I remember. What it looked like, what it felt like..." He finally looked up, almost meeting Molly's gaze but afraid to do so, not because he was worried about her seeing into him, but because he was terrified of what she would think of him now, with his admission laid bare. "You don't want to know how it felt. How it made me feel."

[thewinterlady]

"I already know how it feels." Molly said simply. And she did too. She'd done a lot in her time after a Chichen Itza when Harry had been dead, for all intents and purposes. She'd taken on the Ragged Lady persona, shared it with Lea to keep the city safe and the things she'd done then...they were a stain on her soul. But she'd share that with Will if he wanted her to.

Even if she hadn't been able to pick up on his emotions, the rapid pulse under her fingers would have told her how he was feeling. She might not fully understand how he did what he did, but she could see what it did to him even thinking about it. He didn't have to do the work he did, but he did it anyway because it saved lives. He took on other peoples horror and used it for good and that, more than anything else, reassured her that her instincts about him were right.

She ducked into his line of sight and held his eyes for as long as she could. "A Soulgaze is about your soul, not your actions. The things you do affect your soul, yes, but they aren't what makes you you. You might have dark aspects in there, but they're not all there is. I can see that even without seeing into your soul." She smiled gently at him, expression kind but determined. "What you've done, what you've had to do inside your mind, in that other place doesn't scare me, Will. I'm not going anywhere." She said, meaning it wholeheartedly.

[wgraham]

Molly's voice and her words were calming, and even as part of him continued to panic, the forefront of his mind relaxed, allowing him to breathe more easily. He still wasn't entirely sure that Molly knew what she was in for if she saw into his soul, even knowing that she'd killed before herself. He didn't know the details, of course, only the implication of the act, but he did know something inside him was perverted, and not just by Hannibal's manipulations. When he'd killed those people in the shadow city he'd grown more and more delirious with the power it made him feel, the pleasure that came with it. When he'd squeezed the life out of Marissa Schuur, he'd relished in the way she looked when she was dying, and could remember vividly the way it looked when the light went out in her eyes. It should have sickened him, thinking about it now, but it didn't. He couldn't say he felt the same satisfaction as he had then, but he didn't feel any remorse either.

"I've... Enjoyed killing," he finally said, and even before the nightmare world, he'd done so, when he shot and killed Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Hobbs had been a bad person, a murderer, and his death was justified, but Will hadn't expected to feel so pleased by taking someone's life. "I think, in that place, it was feeding off of that, my fears of..." He stopped and shook his head. He didn't know how to explain what he was afraid of, that he was terrified that he was a murderer, that he was just like Hannibal.

He took a breath. "I don't want to keep it from you," he told her, emotion rising in him again. "But I don't want you to go in blindly. There is a darkness in me." He closed his eyes, moved his hand so he was holding hers again, needing a touchstone as he opened his eyes again. "I trust you," he said, his voice a low whisper as he held her gaze, not with the intention of connecting them right now, but so she'd know he was serious about what he was saying. "I want you to see me."

[thewinterlady]

Molly couldn't stand to hear the pain in his voice. He wanted her to understand so badly and she wanted to be understood in turn, but it was still hard to know the idea caused him so much anxiety.

It was surprising to hear that he'd enjoyed killing and Molly frowned a little as she worked through what he'd said and how he felt when he said it. She had killed and she had thought it justified when she'd done it, but she couldn't say she'd enjoyed it. It was what she'd had to do - it was war. But when Will had killed he's been stuck in an altered reality...who knew if that had affected him and the way he thought and felt at the time. Considering they were living in a domed city that they'd been pulled to by some strange force, the idea that Wills thoughts and actions and his feelings too, had been manipulated wasn't a far fetched one. His empathetic mind wouldn't let him forget those feelings though and he had to live with the knowledge that at one time, in one place, he'd enjoyed taking a life.

The one firm idea in her mind was that Will was not evil. Molly had come up against true evil before and that was not Will. He clearly had his dark side, perhaps darker than most, but it didn't change the fact that he wasn't inherently that evil. Molly was as sure of that as she was of anything.

"I can see you without the Soulgaze, Will." She said shifting closer, tugging him in to kiss him gently, one soft kiss after another until she pulled back and let their foreheads press together. "I don't need it to get to know you and I don't need it to trust you, either." Molly kissed him again and smiled. "The slow way is fine with me."

[wgraham]

Everything about Molly calmed Will, from the instant they met, and even after this, making an admission he'd not made to anyone but Hannibal, revealing the dark truth about him, she took it, consumed it, and made him feel at ease. It was like she could digest the broken parts of him and see through to the good, almost the opposite of the way Hannibal saw destruction and ignored his desire to move beyond it. Molly's kisses and her words soothed him utterly, and he felt the anxiety that had risen high in his throat ebb away.

"I want do the Soulgaze when we're both conscious of it, prepared for it," he told her, voicing a different worry now. "I don't know how easy it is for you to break eye contact when you're distracted," he explained, trying to be compassionate about the way he described his thoughts, not wanting her to think he didn't trust her to be able to control her powers. He took a breath. "When we sleep together," he said, his voice low and heated with the idea, "I know I'll want to look at you, see you. I won't want to look away. I don't want to put you in a bad position, and I don't know if that will make things more difficult."

[thewinterlady]

Wills voice was low and intense and Molly felt the low hum of the tension that seemed to always run between them pitch up a fraction. She wanted it, wanted to sleep with Will, have him inside her and wrapped around her as they moved together. The more she thought about it, the more she wasn't sure she would be able to look away. The idea of not seeing him was unthinkable. Having to tear her eyes away when all she'd want to do would be to look at him, see the expression on his face, feel him inside her mind as well as on her skin. She wasn't a hundred percent sure that she could do it.

It would be easy to prevent the Soulgaze if her life were at stake, if she was concentrating on saving someone else. She'd done it more than once. She'd even Soulgazed to win a fight. Her control wasn't something she doubted in a life or death situation, or even in every day life. But with Will...

"I've never been in that situation, so honestly I don't know." Molly said. He knew she was a virgin and he'd never looked at her any differently because of it. If anything, he'd taken more care with her physically because of it. And now he was taking care of her magically. Molly felt warm from his concern and warmer still from the idea of them together. "I do want it, but it's not essential." She smiled and shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe if I was blindfolded..."

[wgraham]

Will knew she was teasing, and he smiled back at her, reaching up to tuck a lock her hair behind her ear. If it was a matter of just avoiding eye contact during sex, Will knew he could do that. In fact, that's how he'd typically done it before, tucking his head against a woman's shoulder or using a position that didn't require them to be face to face. But he didn't want to avoid it with Molly, he wanted to be able to see her face and kiss her, watch pleasure bloom across her features, see how she was feeling by looking in her eyes. But he also didn't want to put her in danger of seeing the broken, ugly parts of him during a moment like that, didn't want to see every bit of her the first time he felt her that way. It seemed like an intimacy that was better experienced separately, an emotional moment that deserved its own time and reverence.

"I think we should wait," Will told her, holding both if her hands in his own, squeezing her fingers. "I don't think we should have sex until we have a chance to share a Soulgaze for the first time." He licked his lips, and he hoped see could hear in his voice how much this meant to him, that he wanted to protect her and he wanted to make sex with her as amazing as possible, not wanting either of them to have to hold back. He didn't want to wait, but he would, it if made things better for her, for both of them, later.

[thewinterlady]

"Okay." Molly said and smiled. It made sense. There were already very few barriers between them but this one was important. If they were going to start something together, something that might last, Molly didn't want to have to avoid anything with Will. "I'd really like that. I don't want this to be casual between us either." She said honestly. The look on his face told her he was thinking the same thing and she felt reassured beyond measure.

Molly looked at their hands and then back up at Will, searching his eyes for a second. "Just so you know...I'm really, really looking forward to the actual sex stuff." She said, hoping to break the serious tension that threatened to devour them both. She was on the first date she'd ever seriously been on in her life and she wanted them to relax and enjoy it for the experience it was. Plus she liked it when Will smiled. He was a serious man, she knew that, but there was a light to him that she'd seen in glimpses and she wanted more, wanted to be the one that made him smile and laugh.

She gave him a cheeky grin and then stood, pulling him up with her. "Plus I'm still hungry and there's a burger stall behind you that smells amazing now that I've noticed it. Also, I have about a million questions that I haven't asked yet and I think you're going to need your strength for the onslaught."