Chapter Text
“Which do you think will win?”
One page whispers against the other, turned with slender fingers. “Hmm?”
The eldest Lecter turns to his sister, spilled across the mossy velvet of the Grecian couch, one foot drifting to and fro across the floor. Her gown, diaphanous layers of gauzy white, shifts in countertime around her ankle, her feet bare, and golden curls topple loose over her pale shoulders from where they’re pinned in an intentionally haphazard knot.
She turns another page, and with a twitch of annoyance at being watched, raises her eyes to meet her brother’s impassive gaze.
“Well?”
“Well,” he agrees.
“I wasn’t listening.”
“I’m aware.” He shifts a shoulder, and turns back towards the window. “I asked who you believe will win.”
“Win what, Hannibal?”
Chin raising, hands folded behind his back, he rises forward a little onto his toes, as though it may provide him a better look over the expansive gardens. “There has been, for the better part of an hour, a war waged within our garden.”
“A war?”
“Yes,” he murmurs, the arch of a brow lifting the tone of his voice just as curiously. “Between the dog, and the swans.”
“Let’s return to your claim that you’ve been standing there for an hour.”
“The better part of one.”
“Hannibal.”
“Tedium draws me to observation,” he murmurs. “Contemplation.”
“Manipulation,” Mischa adds calmly, tilts her head when Hannibal narrows his eyes at her. “You wouldn’t deny it, Hannibal, you’re proud of that one. And in truth you do it well.”
“There is little to manipulate when watching a dog chase a bird.”
“You underestimate swans,” Mischa points out, another page turned without a word read. She tilts her head back with a sigh and a long arch of her neck, pale and pretty, before a hand comes up against it and fingers press to her pulse, head turned to rest her chin against her wrist. “They are as strong as they are graceful. The hound will chase and bray but it will hardly come out the victor.”
“Come and look.”
Mischa rolls her dark eyes to the ceiling and moves only when her brother’s gaze draws her to stand. She sets the book away, uncaring that the pages flex and fold where it falls from the plush pillow to the seat, and coils a hand in her hair as she moves closer, stands shoulder to shoulder with Hannibal to look out over the garden.
Beneath them, the distant dark shape of a long-furred dog vanishes into the fishpond, the enormous round centerpiece to the long walkways alongside which countless flowers stand as if at attention. Mischa hums as the dog emerges again, paws kicking in a wild paddle after the swans that calmly glide away.
“If the swans fly away, is it a loss for them, or the hound?”
“Why should they fly?”
“Would you not, pursued by a creature such as that?”
“No,” she muses, smile widening. “And certainly not from my own home.”
“The hound would argue that it’s equally his home,” Hannibal suggests, observing as it continues in gleeful circles as the swans keep their steady distance. “It does live here, after all.”
“Not properly.”
“Properly?”
“No,” Mischa snorts, one arm folded across the empire waistline of her dress, highly seamed beneath her breasts. Her other hand twines through a long curl. “A garden is no place for hounds to live, and entirely the correct place for swans. He has no grounds on which to pursue them.”
Hannibal tilts his head aside, and leans a little lower towards his sister, voice falling to a rumbling murmur. “But you see there, as they circle, does it not appear as though the swans are, in fact, chasing the dog?”
“And the dog too foolhardy to notice,” Mischa smiles.
“Enamored with the chase.” Hannibal sighs, and his posture sags, for just a moment, before it returns, a practiced straightening of his shoulders, a deliberate arch of his neck as he lifts his chin. Poised and powerful and the perfect facsimile of a proper upper-class gentleman.
“You’re maudlin today.”
“I’m bored,” Hannibal answers, and releases the breath in a long, deep wave that almost moves him to step forward to keep balance. “I am bored, Mischa, with the balls, with the pretty dresses and pretty eyes and pretty hands and pretty words.”
A smirk, deliberately and masterfully masked by a bare lifting of her eyebrows, and his sister turns to him.
“My brother, a swan in a too-small lake?”
“I am painted a swan and find my own life exciting only through another’s eyes. The fashionable novels draw us in such splendor, in such glorious debauchery, I almost envy us.”
“Quite the dilemma."
“I have become the dog,” he laments, and Mischa’s smile pulls forth one from him as well, though he doesn’t turn to see it. Long enough siblings, now, to know each other well. Close enough as siblings, now, as they had not been in youth, to speak no words to be understood.
“Then grow enamored of a chase again.”
Hannibal hums, jaw brushing against the high collar that presses beneath it, and lifts a hand to smooth out his cravat, spanning it down the length of his soft velveteen riding coat, shining crimson. He had not bothered to change after his morning ride, as much to force his sister’s nose to wrinkle at the scent of horses as out of world-weary despair.
“Therein lies the true problem at hand,” Hannibal responds. “What am I to chase? Anything that might remotely compel me to the coursing flings itself into my jaws without so much as a bay or bark."
“Brother,” Mischa exclaims mildly, with a lilting laugh that follows and a hand against his arm. “Are you so certain you might have all within your jaws that is available to you?”
“The women of court, the women who do court, the men who keep them and on their own court in kind,” Hannibal rattles off with a flicker of displeasure between his brows. “If there’s no interest in the hunt, no challenge to it, then what is a hound - or a swan - to do?”
A pause between them, as the dog emerges from the pond and shakes itself vigorously.
Hannibal’s smile widens as his eyes narrow.
“What do you do, sweet Mischa, when you’ve no choice but to proceed as chosen for you by another’s desires?”
Her eyes narrow, as haughty in her carriage as Hannibal is in his, yet entirely her own whirlwind. She will not be a pretty wife for a pretty man. She will not be a trophy. He, instead, will be hers.
“I remind that as dogs bite, so do swans,” she replies, smoothing her hands down her dress and pushing up on her toes to stretch the muscles in her legs, long and beautiful and hidden. As her mind, from all but her family and Alana. Like her heart, Hannibal thinks, from all entirely.
In the garden, the dog gives chase again, a new target found and new joy within that. Yet it barely makes several yards before it stops, at attention as on a hunt, and turns, tail flying, to bound back towards another thing entirely.
“Purposeless,” Hannibal notes, finds his sister shaking her head, stepping just close enough to the window to feel the cool air beyond it against her skin. The dog comes to a stop before a man who bends to greet it, hands up in the wet fur with no fear of the mess and smell. He gestures to the lake and back, and though he crouches with his back towards the window, the smile is obvious in the way it unfurls his muscles, relaxes them in his own joy.
“Purposeful, and obedient,” Mischa points out, turning her head to glance at her brother, coy, proud. “A target to chase inevitably, and always return to. Never stale with riches and unripe with presumption.”
“And does not belong in the garden, yet resides there despite,” Hannibal finishes, tone and chin lifting in sudden curiosity. “They should not mix.”
“Man and dog?”
“Dog and swan.”
Hannibal watches as the hound splays its paws against the sun-warmed bricks, frozen for an instant before hurtling its body backwards, away from the man who stands and despite the dirtiness that Hannibal knows, with a wrinkle of his nose, must cling to him, he dusts his hands against his trousers. Dark curls, unkempt from work, shine like rosewood in the sun, his skin like ivory even though his hands have known work. Both brother and sister draw a breath as he turns, hands on his hips, to survey the garden.
“What a strange place the garden would become, were they to find kinship together.”
“It could not be so,” Hannibal answers softly. “One will always pursue the other, as invariably, our own futures push us forward to seek new prospects.” He glances to his sister, and just as soon turns back to watch the young man in the garden who stoops to remove a weed. “Are you looking at a new life, then, far below, lying with dogs?”
“You think so little of me, brother,” she sighs, tilts her head to regard their gardener with narrowed eyes of new appreciation. “You think I would sink, and not that he would rise. Swans will always have their wings. And dogs can be carried in flight, if for a brief moment.”
A tug pulls at Hannibal then, turning to watch as the man runs a hand through his hair, pushing it from his eyes. He finds them, there, in the window, and with a crooked smile raises a hand to wave. Mischa waves back, delicate fingers curling into her palm one after the other, suddenly coy, suddenly small, lip between her teeth and eyes narrowed until the young man looks away, ducks his head, and raises his eyes, next, to Hannibal, who does not wave.
But on him his eyes linger longer.
“Do not, Mischa.”
“Why?” She asks, amusement curling her lips as she watches Hannibal, sees the way his eyes stay on the young man who makes his way further across the garden, checking beneath his feet and around where he can see, keeping their grounds immaculate, alone, as his father had done for their family for many years before retirement. “He is a stable man, reliable, trustworthy and hardy.”
“And poor.”
“And you care as little for propriety as our parents care much for it,” she rebutts. “Do you think he will not have me?”
“Of course he would,” answers Hannibal, his tone overflowing graciousness, syrupy and cloying. “What man would not consider himself blessed by the stars themselves to share his company with Mischa Lecter -”
“Enough.” Her voice is curt, but she fights down a smile despite it. Hannibal considers the man, who again looks toward them in the window, less in greeting now than in self-awareness, pinking his cheeks dark enough that it can be seen from their sitting room.
“You’re making him uncomfortable.”
“I am not,” Mischa huffs, catching a fingertip between her teeth, arms folded, before she reluctantly turns away. “You think he’d say no.”
“I think he would be overwhelmed by the suggestion, and find reasons to let that sway him into chasing other birds.”
“Other birds?”
“Older birds,” Hannibal murmurs, eyes narrowing in pleasure as he follows his sister away from the window. “Were I a wagering man -”
“Aren’t you?”
“Were I now,” Hannibal amends, “I would put fair money on this particular hound preferring a very particular swan.”
“You assign such proclivities to such innocence, Hannibal,” she sighs, but her smile is wider, eyes just the same, awake from her own tedium and stupor their life brings, with the hint of a challenge and bet between them. “And you would put fair money on this?”
“Fair money on an unfair game, Mischa. One cannot assign proclivities to a person, they can merely read them.” Hannibal turns his eyes up as he ducks his chin, smug, clever, a match for Mischa as she is for him, and they have so missed sparring. “He is particular.”
“Are you preparing to chase, brother, or to be chased?”
“I did not name his particularity.”
“You did not have to.”
Hannibal’s smile is warm, smooth like butter in the sun, and he takes a seat where Mischa had reclined before, careful to take up her book and flatten the pages before setting it aside. He drapes one arm over the back of the couch, fingers toying with the design embroidered there.
“My mind against your wiles, sister, it is a chase I almost fear to start.”
“Do you fear for the money?”
“I fear for the hound.”
“Do not,” she insists, biting her bottom lip into a shade of rosy pink as she drapes herself between her brother’s legs. She stretches, curls spilling gold like sunlit water over her shoulders, and folds her hands on Hannibal’s chest, chin resting against them. “Though they are hardly as elegant as the swans - lacking the animal means to carry themselves with such refinement - hounds are sturdy things on their own. You think he will falter in a chase? I think not.”
Hannibal watches as Mischa toys with a button on his waistcoat, before he turns his attention towards the window again. Beyond the drapery there is only sky, deep boundless blue.
What else is there to do, really? In all likelihood, Hannibal imagines, their new gardener will be pleased to entertain the attentions of them both. Although, Hannibal considers, his is the harder hunt, should he have misjudged the lasting look that lingered on him from the garden beneath.
“Let us suppose that you, sweet sister, are victorious,” Hannibal considers, brow raising. “Will you marry him?”
She laughs, a snorting and inelegant sound, entirely genuine. “Of course not.”
“Then by what measure do we judge your success?”
“If he agrees to it,” she grins, teeth white against her lower lip again. “And you?”
“If he agrees to my bed.” Hannibal can’t resist a purr in his voice, nor the stretch that pulls feline through his spine, pleased even at the thought of it - not only for the victory, but for the challenge.
Mischa leans a little closer, pushing up with her toes against the floor, and settles again. “Will you bed him, if he does?”
Hannibal’s lips part, briefly, and close again, and there is answer enough in his eyes for her to grin, shake her head as though displeasure takes her, as though disappointment does.
“And the money?”
“Our usual wager,” Hannibal tells her, “unless you had your eye on a cravat you sought to claim as your own?”
“Or you a dress.” Mischa’s brow rises and she sighs, resting more of her weight against him. “The usual, then. A gentleman’s agreement.” She holds her hand out to him, delicate, and Hannibal takes it, to press a kiss against her knuckles.
“To your happy marriage,” he says, eyes narrowed and bright. Mischa curls her fingers with him just briefly and pulls her hand free.
“And to your delightful debauchery.”
A brief kiss, then, to his cheek and Mischa unfurls herself to stand, reaching for her book. She holds it to her chest as she walks silent over the plush carpet to the door, knowing Hannibal watches her in his periphery before tilting his head back over the back of the couch.
“Where are you going?” He asks.
“I find myself in need or the sun against my skin and grass soft against my feet,” Mischa replies, leaning in the doorway before pushing herself to straighten and, with a smile, takes her leave.
He listens, as her bare feet tap a fading rhythm against the tile floors, to the stairs and down them at a skip. It has been too long since either of them have felt the inspiration to do more than dally - Mischa in her lessons of music and needlework, Hannibal at his drawing desk or haunting the library in search of something he hasn’t yet read three times over. The Lecters in their finery, their visitors who come for tea and leave again - the servants and the caretakers, passing through like ghosts about their business for whom no one has any mind or particular interest. The house runs as a well-oiled machine, carrying on ceaselessly from day to day, and every bit as tedious.
Hannibal stretches with a hum, arms draping above his head and long legs pointing down to his toes, still in the jockey boots from his morning ride. He considers watching his sister ply herself in the garden, but decides instead that he will ready himself for when she’s finished, and heaves himself from the couch to return to his bedroom and a fresh change of clothes.
In the garden, the sun is glinting bright off every shimmering undulation of water in the pond and every flower that spreads itself wide to greet the day. It’s nearly too bright to read, but Mischa has no intention to do more than prop her book open and pretend it’s of more interest than it really is. The clamoring bark of a dog tugs at her attention and she smiles, bright as the blooms around her, to make her way towards it.
In a wide swath of grass, trimmed to uniformity to allow no disturbances of picnic blankets that could be spread across it, she sees the mottled animal, fur now dry and soft, racing fast enough that his body nearly outspeeds his paws. It grabs up a stick, tossing its head, and bounds back towards the young man who, laughing, crouches to tug it free from the dog’s happy jaws.
He is, in truth, not at all an ugly man, or even plain. Wild curls and a wide smile, eyes that narrow with it and pull dimples to his cheeks. There is a whisper of stubble across his jaw and top lip and it suits him, does not make him look unkempt or scruffy. He has been here, Mischa knows, most of his life, if not all of it. His father had worked the grounds, kept the hounds, for as long as Mischa has been alive, and longer still before, as Hannibal remembers him, as a child. His mother had left, or died - gone, is all Mischa knows, from kitchen gossip and overhearing quiet talks of her own parents - and so the old gardener had taken his son with him to teach him and mind him both.
Will had started working when his father took ill, and when his back no longer allowed him to move as he once had. The Lecters had been all too happy to keep on another Graham, and while Will now worked and his father did not, neither wanted for anything beyond their class.
Will is at an age directly between Mischa’s seventeen and Hannibal’s twenty-three, tall and strong, and contented to work long hours, never once complaining. In a husband, Mischa supposes no girl could want more, or should. A handsome and hardworking man that any girl would fancy. Surely he knows that, at least, and her own courtship of his affections will not be a long one.
A mere yes, and she can watch her brother brood himself into silence for several weeks, moping and prideful despite the hurt against it. It would amuse her greatly to see it, too long since Hannibal had been shown he is a man like any other, despite assurances from partners both male and female that he is more akin to an entity.
Mischa settles, a strategic bend to her back and tilt to her chin, showing her neck, the way her dress curves over her breasts and down against her legs, toes just peeking out from beneath it. She sits and she watches, as the dog races away again, tongue lolling and mouth open in a grin, happy enough, it seems, to do little more than chase and return.
The stick is tossed and brought back several more times, the young man finally breaking into a sputter of laughter, exhausted, on the last throw, and catching the dog against his chest when it lopes back to him.
“Enough,” Will laughs. “You win.”
“What is its name?”
Mischa’s voice rings out light and airy, unafraid to be the first to speak between them. Will blinks towards her, and straightens from where he had crouched in the grass, quick fingers moving to try and tidy himself at least a little.
“Miss Lecter.”
“That’s its name?”
Will grins, broad-toothed and bright, and ducks his head to watch the dog circle around his legs and finally drop to lie in the cool grass at his feet. “No,” he answers back. “His name is Winston.”
“That’s a funny name for a dog.” Fingers spreading through the grass, Mischa reclines onto a hand, book open against the soft swell of her stomach.
“Is it?” Will asks, stepping closer, a stride, two, if only so they needn’t raise their voice so much.
“It’s a better name for a person than a dog,” she teases, her smile only appearing in the rise of her lower eyelids, the warmth of her cheeks.
“Perhaps,” he agrees. “What would you call him, instead?”
Mischa’s lips part and she finds herself laughing, captivated by the blue eyes and wide smile and the ease with which he carries himself. She can see how he closes his body off, how he stoops his shoulders enough to defer to her as the daughter of the master of the house, but it hardly comes off tacky or rude.
“Miss Lecter seems fitting,” she finally says, watches the way Will’s eyes widen, terrified he had offended, the way his cheeks darken and skin warms over the bridge of his nose.
“I’m -”
“It’s so formal,” she laughs, fingers carressing the spine of her book as she speaks, an indirect directing, of sorts, for eyes to follow, and Will’s do before he schools his expression and lifts his eyes to hers.
“Formal?”
“Miss Lecter,” she repeats, smile wide, but brows almost drawn, innocent, little, though she is truly anything but in mind. “Can I call you Will?”
“Of course.”
“Then you can call me Mischa.”
Will looks away, towards the house that stands imposing over the grounds he keeps, embarrassed by the informality of it, but nothing if not acquiescing. “Miss Mischa,” he offers, eyes darting to hers just in time to see her arch a brow. “Mischa.”
She sits forward, tucking her feet beside herself and smoothing her skirt, entirely pleased by his yielding to her. He is an agreeable sort, not only in countenance but equally in seeking her favor, even if it is only in negotiating a name.
For now.
Leaning on a delicate hand that curls into the grass, she tilts herself toward him just a little, just enough that the swell of breasts shines like ivory in the sun, as white as the dress that drapes loose along her graceful frame. But no sooner has she arched herself into what she’s certain is precisely the right angle, head tilted so that a loose curl falls across her collarbone, than she feels an imposition in the air, as if a storm approached to mask the sun that illuminates her.
She does not need to look to know it’s him.
“Hello, Hannibal,” she chimes, and Will attempts to step away, back to his work, before the eldest Lecter’s voice stops him.
“Your music teacher would be most displeased to know you’re out here reading torrid novels, rather than at the harpsichord.”
Mischa blinks, eyes wide, innocent, and seems to almost shrink into herself for a moment, voice little when she asks, “Moi?”
Hannibal shakes his head, eyes narrowed in pleasure at her little games before replying in kind, French quick on his tongue as he repeats the veiled instruction to go inside, adds that their mother seeks her - entirely untrue, though hard to argue - and waits. Mischa watches him a moment more before turning her head towards Will again and smiling bright, pushing herself to stand and stretching on her toes as she does.
“I’m sorry my lessons call me away. Perhaps tomorrow we will have more time, Will.”
The young man’s brows rise, before he nods, a quick thing, summons a smile and allows his eyes to follow Mischa as she walks past him, meeting Hannibal’s as he does and he quickly turns his head aside, down, submissive and quiet, apologetic.
Winston meanders back to Will again, up to Hannibal to sniff against him and Will draws his lips back in a hiss as he stands to set his feet against Hannibal’s knee, but the older Lecter doesn’t seem to mind, dropping a hand for the dog to sniff.
“A clever boy,” Hannibal says, cupping the dog’s muzzle in his palm. “Did you train him yourself?”
Will seems to pull himself up taller than he did before, no longer the slight bowing of shoulders as he did to acquiesce to Mischa’s demure size, but attentive, now, to the Lecter heir. His throat jerks in a swallow beneath the loose collar of his shirt, an informal thing, easy to work in, and in no way neat enough for this conversation after nearly a day’s work.
“I’ve had him since I was a child,” Will answers, and Hannibal watches as the younger man folds his hands behind his back for want of knowing what to do with them. “I suppose he’s trained me as much as I’ve trained him.”
Hannibal’s smile gathers beneath his eyes.
He does not bother to lessen his own height, the length of his strides, lean legs clad in snug trousers, polished boots glinting. He is well aware of his own imposing carriage, immaculately kept, each hair swept into place, face smooth, cravat puffed. It is an advantage, he anticipates, rather than a hinderance.
“Are you in need of training, still?” Hannibal wonders, as he bends at the waist and reaches to the grass, eyes up along the length of Will’s body. He grasps the stick that was left at the gardener’s feet, lingering only a beat longer than necessary, before stepping away again. Only when he hears Will exhale his relief does he throw the stick down the length of lawn.
Winston takes off running again, delighted to have a new person to play with, and Will watches him go, so he does not have to watch Hannibal so close to him, having moved a step when he had thrown the stick, not stepped back.
“I -” Will swallows, draws his brows and raises them, unsure how to even answer without appearing rude or speaking out of line. “I would hope he keeps me toeing the line,” Will ventures, at length, “but I am always looking to improve if there is something you would like me to do better. Differently.”
Eyes quick to slip to Winston again when the dog returns the stick, victorious, and sets it at Hannibal’s feet, just against his polished boots before it rolls off to the grass again, leaving a smear of drool where Winston had proudly held the stick aloft.
“I find little amiss,” Hannibal tells him, amused at the deference, hiding his disgust with the mess at his feet. He watches the dog sit, tail slipping over the grass in his joy before he whines, a demanding thing, and paws at the stick for Hannibal to throw it again. He bends, reluctantly, and takes it up again. “I have seen you work the property, attentive to the plants and animals both - you have quite a skill, Will, do not think it goes ignored.”
He tosses the stick again, curls his hand into a fist and keeps the displeasure from his expression at the slickness in his palm. Slobber he can wash away. The way Will regards him is worth the patience until he does.
“Thank you.” The words are softly spoken, with but tangible relief. Unexpected praise, but enough that the misgiving as to Hannibal’s visit to the garden seems to fade, and Will’s shoulders loosen.
“Although, there is something,” Hannibal murmurs, turning towards Will. He begins to walk towards the house with long, ambling steps, pleased when Will keeps attentively at his heel.
More pleased still when he rests a hand on the younger man’s shoulder and he does not withdraw, providing the added benefit of removing at least a little saliva from Hannibal’s palm.
“Sir?”
“Hannibal,” he corrects him mildly, and Will’s brows knit with a quick glance to the house. “I wondered, Will, if there were any chance I might have fresh-cut flowers in my room. I know you spend a great deal of time tending them, and so if it’s an imposition on your hard work -”
“None.” Will’s smile widens, bright as the sun off the pond’s glassine surface. “I keep a small bed of cutting flowers just for it, and if I were to take a few of the less prominently positioned roses -” He catches himself, quieting his enthusiasm. “If you’d like, I could do it now.”
Hannibal smiles, a thing that doesn’t quite reach his eyes just to see if Will notices, but he seems contented to hold his own for the time being. Then, Hannibal’s expression warms further, genuine, and he watches how Will registers the change, entirely subtle and almost impossible to see, but he sees it.
His cheeks warm and he swallows. Hannibal wishes he could reach out and let his fingers feel the shift in temperature over Will’s skin, like clouds passing over the sun.
“I would hate to intrude on your time.”
“Not at all,” Will laughs, a soft thing, turns to look towards the roses he has in mind for Hannibal’s room, mind working quickly already with how to position them and how many to cut, where to set them in the room. He has been within the house before, it is not forbidden to him, but he has little to do inside when his work is here. A brief flicker of his tongue against his lips and Will turns his eyes to Hannibal again, as the other inclines his head, grateful.
“I trust you will find the room, or shall I wait with you?”
“I wouldn’t want to keep you,” Will allows, running a hand back through his hair, almost shy. “I’m sure you’re very busy.”
Reading the same books.
Drawing the same views.
Seducing the same upper-class sons and daughters that he’s already had more times over than he cares to recall.
Hannibal hums, but allows the artifice. “Later then. As you insist on not keeping me, I insist on not rushing your work. This evening, perhaps, to enjoy them after supper.”
Will’s smile comes quick again and he nods, keeps his head ducked as he drops his hand for Winston to nuzzle against. He clicks his fingers and sends the dog on its way before looking up at Hannibal again.
“I will make sure I have them ready for you, sir.”
“Hannibal.”
Will swallows, presses his lips together before parting them.
“Hannibal.” Tone softer, words warm, and Will waits for Hannibal to nod, a small thing, before he turns to go. Waiting for permission, polite and beautiful and able to carry himself well despite the lingering smell of animals and earth around him. Hannibal works his bottom lip between his teeth and releases it with a hum.
Yes. This one will certainly be worth the chase.