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Lumen Obscura	By : PinkSiamese Category: -Misc TV Shows > Crossovers Views: 1077 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Hannibal or Dexter in any of their incarnations (TV shows, movies, books). I am making no money off this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
Lumen’s smile finishes; it slides her mouth open, reaches its apex, and all Will thinks of is a snare set in the trees, the deep woods: here, where an animal will think it’s safe, it is a place missing the skin-trace, any warning scent of the hunter.
Heat flares in him; it rises to his cheeks. It buries him. Will makes himself look into her eyes and it’s like looking into the night sky of a lonely place; it soothes him, calms the wildness inside. “That’s good.” He wants to smile, feels it curve his mouth. “I hope.”
Lumen’s hand is hot, her fingertips cool. Her grip is stronger than it looks. “I’m not scared of you,” she says, “if that’s what you mean.”
“It is.” His voice breaks down. He looks away from her eyes. “It is, actually.”
“Now I wouldn’t believe everything you hear about Mr. Graham, here,” says Jack, his voice is boisterous, big-hearted. The labor in it to misdirect, to lay a track for the conversation, is sharp in Will’s ears.
“I rarely do.” Lumen lets go of Will’s hand.
There’s a rush of noise, the sound of voices, silverware simmering, the faint music underneath all of it, its plucked Arabian strings set adrift on empty space; it crests, fills Will’s head until there’s a buzzing, then a hard rush of blood, a low thud that pulses up against the inside of his skull.
He puts his hand on his thigh, where his palm burns in the shape of hers.
Will takes a slow, deep breath. Lets it out. He wants to close his eyes but fights the urge. The noise prickles along the inside of his skin, climbs tingling rungs up his spine. It subsides, swoons into the background.
“I’ve got to go,” she says.
Will feels the retreat in her voice like it’s a physical thing, like heat falling away with a removed coat.
“But it was nice meeting all of you.” Lumen glances at him, looks at him, holds it. She drifts back from the table’s edge.
Will wants to smile at her but he can’t; the urge is buried too deep. He wants to hold her gaze but it’s too heavy; there are other eyes, they are like flies that keep alighting on him and taking off and alighting again, crawling.
Bev turns, focuses her attention on Dexter. “So, how do you know each other?”
Dexter offers her a quirky little smile. “I used to be her landlord, actually. She was new to the area, I showed her around…” He shrugs. “We became friends.”
Will looks at Dexter, at the slight smugness in his mouth. He watches Dexter’s face and he glances at Debra, at the fleeting restlessness buried by the shift of her body, the slight chill in the way she looks at her brother’s face. You were more than that, though, weren’t you? Back then, when something happened that made it gauche for you to have a girlfriend, you thought you were hiding it from your sister but…no. A sibling’s gaze goes deep, the way a parent’s gaze goes deep.
Dexter returns Will’s look; the expression on Dexter’s face slides into a well-worn neutral groove, an affable mask bearing a benign smile. The smile changes, warms up, turns friendly.
“So…” Will dredges up a smile. “What happened? Why’d she leave Miami?”
“Why would you want to know that?”
“Well, uh.” Will leans back from the table. “Ouch. Sorry.” He scratches the back of his head. “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I’d known it would bother you.”
“It doesn’t. Bother me, that is.” Dexter relaxes into that affable smile. “She went back to Minneapolis to reunite with her boyfriend. Fiancé. Whatever he was to her then.” He shrugs, picks up his glass. “I’d say he’s not much to her now.” He takes a drink. “Since she’s back here by herself.”
“Oh.” Will nods. “I see.”
“I guess they were going to get married when she pulled a runaway bride act. Yes, Lumen and the fabulous Owen.” He looks into his glass. “I helped her out. Cut her a break.” He pauses, watches Will’s face. “She needed it.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“She was here maybe six months.” Dexter’s eyebrows lift; he shakes his head. “Then she went back.”
“Oh. Understandable, I guess.”
Dexter turns to Deb; they speak quietly for a moment in low tones. Dexter fishes his phone out of his blazer pocket. He holds it below table. Will studies Dexter’s faint reflection in the glass, the white glow of the phone’s screen lighting up his face, his hands.
It comes, the subtle rush of knowledge, solid. That feeling of knowing, of things just outside the range of his senses settling into place. He’s texting her, it’s something like ‘Will Graham is asking questions about you, why do you think he would do that?’
Dexter slips the phone back into his pocket. He looks at Debra, smiles a little. He props his elbows on the table, folds his hands.
Will closes his eyes, rubs them. You’re paranoid. He turns to the window, watches the lights glitter through the tinted glass. So what if I am? I may be looking for things that aren’t there, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Perhaps they’re just out of sight, beneath the surface somewhere. Hiding.
The server comes, clears the soup bowls away.
He has Lumen’s cell number buried away in an email somewhere. It’s been there for days. The memory of it rises up to the surface of his mind, it’s cold, hot, it turns to ice that burns into his blood
(do I dare disturb the universe in a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse do I dare to eat a peach to wear white flannel trousers to walk along the beach I have heard I have heard I have heard the mermaids sing—ENOUGH WILL GODDAMMIT STOP IT STOP)
The server returns to the table with the second course. It’s a small package of baked pastry, circular, not much bigger than a hockey puck. His face is hot. He smells the cinnamon it’s sprinkled with, the sugar, the ribbons of mint. His heart beats faster.
Bev picks up her fork. She uses the edge of the tines to cut into the flaky shell.
Will pulls his phone out of his pocket. He unlocks the screen, goes into his email. Flicks through it.
Bev takes a bite. “Mmmmm, yummy. For real, Graham, you’ve got to try this. It’s super delicious.”
“I don’t know.” Will finds the number, opens a text window. “It smells an awful lot like the first course, but with an added scintillating soupҫon of hot buttery pastry.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not bad.” Will glances at her, smiles a little. “It’s just…potentially misleading.”
Bev smiles, turns back to her food, and Will watches her for a handful of seconds. He remembers her expression, how the sharpness in his words lodged there. He wants to apologize.
Will holds his phone in his lap. He looks at the screen, presses his lips together. He tucks the corners of his mouth into a line.
* * *
“This is the pastilla, a small meat pie traditionally made with squab,” says Hannibal, “but here, chicken is used instead. There are onions, parsley, and other spices cooked into the juices of the meat; the juices themselves are like a gravy, thickened with egg.”
Lumen turns the small plate in a circle. “It looks delicious. It smells good, too. I love the crust. It’s so delicate, folded in layers.” She looks at him. “Like leaves.”
“It is warka dough; it is much like the phyllo of Greek cuisine, but a touch thinner.”
Lumen picks up her fork. She ponders the surface of the crust, where to cut. She carves out a small wedge, takes a bite. The crust is crisp; gravy spills onto the white plate and melts the powdered sugar dusted there.
“Does it make you uncomfortable to know that Jack’s team is in the next room?”
“No,” she says, lifting the fork to her mouth. “Should it?”
“What should be and what is may at times be very far from one another.” Hannibal picks up his fork. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.” He glances at her. “Afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.” She takes a sip of wine. “This is very good. Sweet, spicy, but savory too. It’s the kind of combination that shouldn’t work but somehow it does.”
“It would be natural for you to be uneasy in the presence of the FBI.”
Lumen puts her fork down, pulls her purse into her lap. “The FBI has no reason to suspect me of any wrongdoing.”
“True.”
“Paranoia never did me any good.” She laughs. “Well, indirectly maybe.” She takes out her phone, puts it on the table. “If I hadn’t gotten all paranoid in the first place I wouldn’t be here.”
He watches her. “Expecting a call?”
“No.” Lumen shrugs, sees the indicator light flashing and picks it up. “Just…it can’t hurt to be available. You never know what might happen.”
“Indeed, I suppose not.”
“It’s been on silent.” She unlocks the screen. “It’s probably nothing.”
There are emails, Facebook notifications. Lumen clears them from the screen, notices the text icon. She taps it, turns the phone sideways.
Will Graham is asking questions about you.
“Is something wrong?”
Lumen looks up. “No. Why?”
“The look on your face,” says Hannibal, taking a bite. “For just a moment it was as though a shadow passed over you.”
What kind of questions?
“You know,” says Lumen, looking up from the screen, “I saw a guy who looked like Will Graham on my way back from Minneapolis.” She shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know if it was him or not. I guess I’ll never know.” She pauses, tilts her head. “I recognized him from Freddie Lounds’s Tattle Crime articles, the ones she’d posted about the Minnesota Shrike.” She gives him a small smile. “I looked them up because of you.”
“I would take what Ms. Lounds has to say about Mr. Graham with a grain of salt, if I were you.”
“Oh I did. A big one.”
He wanted to know why you left Miami the first time.
“I’m glad to know that you don’t believe everything you hear.” He smiles. “Not that I ever had a doubt.”
What did you say?
“I lost my shit. I called Dexter, told him that I might have seen Will Graham on the highway, who he was, that he might have been following me.”
“And are you sure he wasn’t?”
Lumen puts the phone down. She picks up her fork, cuts herself a bite of pastilla. She twirls it through a puddle of gravy. “Why would he?”
“I don’t know. I do know that Mr. Graham was in Minnesota that day, and that he was in the vicinity of Bloomington, and that it had to do with his work on the Minnesota Shrike case.” Hannibal watches her face. “Beyond that, I am afraid I don’t know. I could not begin to offer a guess as to what he may have been doing there.”
Lumen looks up, into his eyes. “Do you think he would do something like that?”
Hannibal holds her gaze. “Yes.”
She takes a bite. “Does he often pursue cases that are off the books?”
“Mr. Graham does precisely what he feels like doing.” Hannibal touches his napkin to the corners of his mouth. “He does no more than that, and no less.”
I told him that you went back to Owen. That you wanted to work things out.
“Mr. Graham has no reason to pursue me, now does he?” Good.
“Are you so sure about that?”
Lumen turns the phone face down. She folds her hands. “Unless Mr. Graham makes a hobby out of looking into Miami’s homicide statistics, and not only makes a hobby out of keeping up on them, but also bothers to dig deep into them, and not only enjoys digging deep but finds some way to connect five missing persons cases, which he would also have to be following, to the aforementioned homicide statistics…” Her smile twitches into mild condescension. “Here, in Miami, where the criminal element makes a sport out of killing each other, where one’s so-called friends in high places are so corrupt that a sudden disappearance would not fall outside the natural order of things…here, in Miami, where no one cares if a rich motivational speaker decides to leave the country and perhaps take a few of his cronies with him, after all he’s taking dirty laundry with him when he goes, right? There’s more than enough money, and enough international ties, to easily fake his own death, and the deaths of his comrades, if he wants to.”
“You have a lot of confidence.”
“These disappearances would have to stand out to Mr. Graham, and they wouldn’t.” She picks up her fork. “That’s because there would have to be something special about them.” She lifts her eyes to his. “You know and I know there’s no reason for anyone to connect those disappearances to me.”
“What of your scars? They are unusual, to say the least.”
Lumen picks up the phone.
Your Minnesota number is still active. Surprising.
Who is this?
Will Graham.
Who?
You can stalk me, but I can’t text you? Hypocrite.
Fuck you.
I see I have the right number.
“Your face, it is quite red,” says Hannibal. “Is everything all right?”
Lumen nods, her mouth tense. She glances at the phone, its dark screen. The light blinks. Her heart pounds; the pace of it quickens, floods her legs with trembling weakness.
“Yeah,” she sighs, rubs her heated face. “Everything’s fine. It’s my mom; she’s not being particularly nice.”
“I see.” Hannibal studies her face. “Should you call her?”
Lumen shakes her head, a hand on her collarbones. “No. It’s better that I don’t.”
“I take it she does not approve of your decision to return.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
* * *
[Lumen: What do you want?]
[Me: I want to talk to you. Not like this. Face-to-face. That’s all. Just talking.]
“Bev,” Will mutters. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
She turns. “What?”
“I said that I’m sorry I snapped at you.” Will glances at her. “Earlier.” He gives her a small smile. “I didn’t mean to.”
[Lumen: Why should I?]
“Oh. Oh, it’s okay.” Bev waves him off. “Don’t worry about it. I’d forgotten already.”
“It’s not, and I’m sorry.”
[Me: Aren’t you curious?]
Bev glances at the half-eaten pastilla on his plate. “You like it?”
“It’s good. Yeah.” He watches the screen. “Much better than the soup, even though the flavors are similar.”
She chuckles. “Weird, isn’t it?”
{Lumen: No.]
“A little.”
“At the risk of…well, speaking of you snapping at me.” Bev sighs, lowers her voice. “I’m gonna ask anyway. You okay?”
“As fine as I can be, sitting here, in this situation, which is a situation that I hate, making small talk with people I don’t know.”
“You’re not exactly making a lot of small talk.”
“I’m making enough.”
[Me: I don’t believe you.]
[Lumen: I don’t care if you believe me or not.]
[Me: Why did you follow me? If I asked you that question in person, would you answer to my face? Could you?]
[Lumen: Yes.]
“Hey, look. If you hate it so much…bail. It’s not like Jack is going to grab his chest and fall to the floor in shock if you do.”
“I know, but…”
“What?”
“I know that I am usually very disappointing, and it’s a burden I am more than capable of carrying due to the fact that most of the time I don’t care. But…it feels a little heavier tonight. I don’t want to add to it.”
“I don’t think you’re disappointing.”
“Of course you don’t.”
[Me: That’s what I want. Your answer, spoken aloud. To my face.]
[Me: Will you give it to me?]
[Lumen: Yes.]
[Me: When?]
[Me: Knowing that you’re in this restaurant is killing me.]
[Me: I want to leave.]
[Me: Take you with me.]
[Me: Go to the beach, maybe. Somewhere quiet.]
[Lumen: Me too.]
[Me: Let’s go, then. I’ll drive.]
[Lumen: I can’t just walk out.]
[Me: Why?]
[Lumen: Because it’s rude?]
[Me: Not because you’d rather spend time with your date?]
[Lumen: The date thing is complicated.]
[Me: You want to stay or you want to go. You just said you want to go. Doesn’t sound complicated to me.]
[Lumen: When you put it like that, no. But it’s not like that.]
[Me: How is it, then?]
[Lumen: It’s Hannibal. YOUR Hannibal. Not that there are so many Hannibals in this part of the world.]
[Me: Your date is Hannibal Lecter?]
[Lumen: YES. You should know he thinks you’re very interesting, Mr. Graham. He told me all about your obsession with twilight. In detail. He wouldn’t admit that it was you, but I guessed.]
[Lumen: Civil, nautical, astronomical? Is that you?]
[Lumen: Will?]
[Me: I’m leaving. I want you to follow me.]
[Lumen: I just told you that I can’t.]
[Me: No. You told me that you don’t want to, after telling me that you DO want to.]
[Me: I think that you do want to leave but you don’t want to be rude and you know you can’t do both.]
[Lumen: That is not what I said.]
[Me: Yes, it is.]
“Will?”
“What?”
“Are you done?”
“Done with what?”
“The pastilla.”
“Yeah. Yeah, take it. I’m done with it.”
[Me: You’re an adult. You can do whatever you want.]
[Lumen: I’m an adult who has to live in the adult world, which means there are things that I HAVE to do.]
[Me: So you HAVE to eat dinner with Hannibal Lecter?]
[Lumen: No, I don’t have to. But I agreed to.]
[Me: How romantic.]
[Lumen: Fuck you.]
[Me: You keep saying that.]
[Lumen: Quit provoking me and maybe I’ll quit saying it.]
[Lumen: No promises, though.]
[Me: I’m provoking you? How do you figure?]
[Lumen: You got my number via dubious means. What did you think would happen?]
[Me: You followed me to a crime scene. What did you think would happen?]
[Lumen: But I didn’t follow you here. I told you I would stop. I stopped.]
[Me: But you didn’t.]
[Lumen: I did!]
[Me: I know you’re staying at my hotel.]
[Lumen: Wow, okay. That didn’t take long.]
[Me: Guess not.]
[Lumen: So did you look for me the night I called, looking for you? Or did it take a whole day?]
[Me: It didn’t take a whole day.]
[Lumen: How clever of you. Were you ever going to tell me?]
[Me: Tell?]
[Lumen: That you know I’m staying there.]
[Me: You mean, like, slide you a note under the door?]
[Lumen: You could’ve knocked.]
[Me: Why would I do that?]
[Lumen: Because you’re curious? That’s your job, isn’t it? To be curious?]
[Me: You’re trying to make me curious?]
[Lumen: Maybe.]
[Lumen: Is it working?]
[Me: Why would you want to make me curious?]
[Lumen: Maybe I like the idea of you thinking about me.]
[Me: You didn’t like the idea of it down on the beach.]
[Lumen: True. But since then I’ve spent too much time alone with the idea.]
[Me: What idea is that?]
[Lumen: You.]
[Me: May I ask you something?]
[Lumen: Yes.]
[Me: Are you afraid of me?]
[Me: Of what I might do?]
[Me: To you?]
[Lumen: Yes.]
[Me: But you’re willing to go alone somewhere with me.]
[Lumen: Yes.]
[Me: Why?]
[Lumen: I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that morning on the road.]
[Me: I haven’t stopped thinking about you, either.]
[Lumen: Did you really think I was in trouble?]
[Me: Yes.]
[Lumen: Why?]
[Me: You were parked half on the shoulder and half in the breakdown lane, like maybe you’d lost control of your vehicle.]
[Lumen: Once I’m done writing this, I’m going to leave.]
[Me: Where do you want to meet?]
[Lumen: Outside.]
[Lumen: At the front door.]
[Lumen: Hurry.]
- 16
- 17
- 18
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Lumen Obscura