(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]

"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."

[wgraham]

Will smiled at how easily Molly had accepted the request, how understanding she always was, how in tune they were. One of the reasons Will had never particularly like dating was that it had always been a lot of work, doing things that didn't interest him, having to sort out what the other person wanted when they insisted on being opaque about their desires. But Molly wasn't like that. She was upfront and authentic and genuine, unafraid to share her truth, conscious of her own feelings even as she was considerate of his. It made him relax, because he could just be without having to perform. She wasn't looking for an act, she wanted him as he was, raw and unpleasant as it sometimes could be.

"I'm looking forward to it too," he told her, his grin shifting to something a bit more sheepish. "Actually, I was thinking, depending on how things go tonight, there are things we could do that wouldn't risk prolonged eye contact," he said, and he was prepared to tell her, but only if she wanted to know.

"In the meantime," he offered, allowing her to help him stand, "Eating would be good. And I'm looking forward to your interrogation, if I'm honest," he said, squeezing her hand and guiding her toward the hamburger stand.

[thewinterlady]

Molly swallowed hard at the idea of other 'things' they could do. In truth she'd been thinking about them pretty much constantly since they left the bed together at Kagura. It was one thing to picture them in the quiet of her own mind, it was another to know Will was thinking about them and seemed more than happy to tell her about them.

She pushed the thought aside and leant into him as they walked on towards the various food vendors. "Interrogation might be a little heavy. I was going to start small. Like, how old are you?" She said, smiling at him.

[wgraham]

Will sighed, but he was still smiling when he said, "I was wondering when you were going to ask me that." They took a few more steps, then joined the line for the hamburger stall, a couple in front of them, and then small family at the head of the queue.

"I'm thirty-four," he told her. There was a large part of him that didn't think the nine years between them was going to be a deal breaker, but there was also just enough doubt to cause a thread of worry to run through him.

[thewinterlady]

Will set his shoulders like she was about to reject him out of hand and he was stealing himself against it. Of course she wasn't about to, not even close. That didn't mean she wasn't going to tease him a little bit.

"Oh. Oh no." Molly said and then shook her head, lifting her chin dramatically and pulling away so there was a distance between them. "I'm sorry, Will...I have a five year limit. I just can't."

[wgraham]

At first Will thought she was joking, then he let the feeling settle and a spike of panic rose in him as he second-guessed what he was reading on her face.

"Are you being serious?" he asked her carefully, taking a step toward her so he could lower his voice, but he didn't touch her, in case she really didn't want him near her. It was a strangely conflicted feeling, not knowing how she felt, how uncertain it made him feel for the first time since the moment they met.

[thewinterlady]

"Am I..?" She looked back at Will and saw the uncertainty there, immediately regretting her joke. She crossed back towards him and kissed him softly. "Will...god, no. I'm not serious. I don't care about your age." She flushed, but kept looking at him as long as she could, determined to reassure him. "If anything it makes me feel more secure about everything." She smiled a little. "Have you met most twenty five year old boys? No thanks."

[wgraham]

Will laughed, relieved and amused by her comments. He'd been twenty-five, obviously, but he'd never acted like the other boys his age. He was always too awkward, too abnormal, to be compared to anyone his own age. Still, he understood what she meant, and he was glad that she didn't really take issue with their age difference.

"I'm sorry," he told her, his voice still low. The family at the head of the line finished paying, and the couple in front of them moved up to the window. "Sometimes I build things up in my head too much," he said, reaching down to hold her hand again. "That said, if you have any deal breakers, you should probably tell me what they are," he went on, not trying to give her an ultimatum but wanting to get the rest of the potentially scary things out of the way as soon as possible.

[thewinterlady]

Molly sighed, relieved when he reached for her again, folding her hand into his as he spoke.

It was a legitimate concern. Plenty of people must have hard limits but Molly didn't have the experience to really know what hers might be beyond requiring her potential partner being a decent human being. That was enough for her.

"I can't think of anything right now, but I'm new to this whole thing." She said with a half smile. "What about you? Do you have any rules I should know about?"

[wgraham]

Before Molly, Will would probably have had a list of things that would eliminate a potential girlfriend, but when he actually tried to consider it now, he couldn't come up with anything. They'd already talked about how they felt about having children, Will knew she wasn't religious, so they didn't clash there, and she knew the things he'd done, or at least the ideas of them, and hadn't turned away from him. He couldn't think of anything else that would make him change his mind about wanting to be with her.

"I can't think of anything either," he answered honestly, meeting her eyes. They still had the soulgaze to come, and there could be something one or the other uncovered there that might throw a wrench into the works, but Will didn't feel worried about it. He knew some of the things she'd done, and he figured there was more to it than she'd said aloud, but Will had started to realize that there was surprisingly little a person could do that he couldn't forgive or look past. If nothing else his continued friendship with Hannibal was a testament to that. And there was no way Molly was anywhere near as deceptive, manipulative, monstrous, or cruel as Will knew Hannibal could be.

In line, the couple ahead of them moved away, and they approached the counter to order their food. Will followed Molly's lead, and a few moments later they were carrying a little bag back toward the bench they'd vacated a few minutes before.

[thewinterlady]

The food smells amazing as they sit and Molly grabbed the bag, handing out the food. She pulled out a french fry, steam rising in the cold air as she bit into it, smiling at Will as he set about opening his wrappers. The moment was perfect and Molly enjoyed it's simplicity. Sitting in the cold, eating hot food, pressed close together. The food itself was glorious. Not that the restaurant wouldn't have been, but there was something more honest about this.

They ate in silence for a while before Molly sighed happily. "I have more questions if you don't mind talking and eating?"

[wgraham]

Will realizes, as he and Molly begin to eat, that this is the first meal he's shared with someone since he came here. He's had drinks with people a couple of times, but this is the first time he's eaten in someone else's presence. It doesn't feel strange aside from the fact that he doesn't have to worry about Molly's motives like he used to the people he typically shared a table with before.

"I don't mind at all," he responds to her query. "You can ask me anything."

[thewinterlady]

"Okay." Molly said and then took a bite of her burger while she thought what she wanted to ask next. "Tell me a memory that makes you happy?" She asked and the idea firmed up in her head as she said it. Molly had seen him pleased and feeling content, but she wanted to feel what a truly happy moment felt like for Will too. It was a little selfish but, she felt like she could afford to be a little greedy. "I mean really happy, deep down in your soul, dance in the moonlight naked kind of happy. And don't just say me, despite how tempting it is." She added cheekily, waving a fry at him.

[wgraham]

It was an extremely difficult question, and Will floundered a bit, even just processing it. He wasn't sure he'd ever felt that happy in his life. Meeting Molly had made him feel amazing, content and longing for more, but he imagines what she's asking, a moment of pure joy, and he can't come up with anything at all.

And then he thought about his dogs. It sounded stupid even in his own head, but all he could picture was coming home from a long day, opening the door of his farmhouse, and being greeted by his dogs, each of them happy to see him.

"Coming home to my dogs," he said, knowing he wasn't going to find anything that better answered her question. "I had six of them, before I came here. All strays. They were my family." He looked up into her eyes, smiling a little, hoping he didn't sound ridiculous. "You make me happy now, Molly," he said. "And imagine some day I'll get to come home to you, and I'll feel that way again."

[thewinterlady]

Molly closed her eyes when he started talking and opened her senses, searching for the feeling he described. It was a quiet happiness, but a genuine one, pure and unadulterated. She could imagine him like that, animals he loved and that loved him in return just being content together in a shared space. No pressure from social expectations. Just pure and genuine happiness to be around eachother.

She let it wash over her and saw him smiling when she opened her eyes again. He had a beautiful smile and Molly returned it, adding a blush to it as he talked about coming home to her. Molly could see it too. A bunch of animals in a shared space, their shared space, a family space, full of life.

"I've never had a pet." Molly said. "Too many Jawas in the house as it was. But I always wanted one. Something that was just mine and wanted to be just mine, you know?"