Chapter Text
Droplets clung to his eyebrows like morning dew. He didn’t know if it was water or sweat. Inside the airplane’s claustrophobic toilet, under the glare of the halogen lights, everything looked altered, unreal. He rubbed his chin, feeling nascent stubble. He’d have to shave closer next time. The scent of blood spread out from his sinuses into his nose, faded when he sniffed firmly and blinked a few times.
Tap tap tap.
Three little knocks rapped fast against the door.
Will stood up straight to check that his uniform remained mostly unrumpled. No vomit on anything this time. He smoothed down his dark blue tie, tucked in his shirt, buttoned up his waistcoat, brought his glasses to his face. The mirror cut his body off at the nose and thighs, and he was glad. He didn’t like to make eye contact with anybody, and in times like these, least of all with himself. His mouth widened into a grotesque grin, then another, then relaxed into an awkward, but passably natural smile. He popped a mint onto his tongue. Right.
Beverly gave him a look when he stepped out. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah,’ he deployed the smile in her general direction on his way to the food cart. ‘I’m never good at keeping my pantry fresh. Probably ate something weird.’
‘Ew. Maybe you should’ve taken more time off,’ she came to his side to count the sandwiches. ‘You’ve earned it.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘The dogs’d like to see you, I bet.’
Will paused, then finished setting down the last bottle of still water. ‘Yeah.’
His little pack was happily being led by another man in his absence. Jim Gallagher, his neighbour, a guy with a big farm, a rat problem and two old hounds who could barely drag themselves in and out of the house anymore. Will only had to pay for their food. It wasn’t meant to be this way, but over time, he’d taken to picking up so many shifts that… maybe it would be kinder to give them away altogether. But they were always so happy to see him. They made the nightmares less daunting.
‘Hey,’ Beverly murmured, putting a hand on Will’s arm. He couldn’t help bristling. ‘Me and Jimmy can handle Economy today. You do Business.’
‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ he started, but she’d already snaked around him to motion to the other end of the cabin, where Jimmy and Brian were carrying on one of their hushed quarrels. With a dismissive wave, Jimmy strode over, and soon he and Beverly were wheeling the cart down the aisle.
Gingerly, smile firmly in place, Will stepped into the bubble of Business class to take food and drink orders. The area wasn’t that full, and at a glance, Will knew them.
He was Fred Jackson, dyed black hair and crimson signet ring, mopping beaded sweat off his top lip, desperately trying to repress the shakes of his early onset Parkinson’s. Green curry.
He was the girl at the man’s side, Marie King, easily young enough to be his daughter, betrayed by her doleful blue eyes and the familiar way her fingers kneaded his knee. She needed the money. A dying relative. Green curry, too. No. Just the soup.
He was the investment bankers, Patrick, Paul and Preston; thinking and moving as one, aching for a smoke and the jet of the hotel hot tub on their shoulders. Caesar salad. Caesar salad. Caesar salad. No dressing.
And then, there was the man he didn’t know.
He was near a window, an empty seat by his side. His face was turned away, and Will could only see his strong jawline and hair neatly parted on the side. Matching plaid trousers and waistcoat with a paisley tie, unnaturally well-tailored, clinging to his body with no extraneous wrinkles. Suit jacket hung on the coat hook near his head. Sat perfectly still, radiating a quiet serenity that rang through Will’s forehead. His migraine throbbed.
‘Would you like something to eat, sir?’
Will’s gaze shifted down to avoid direct eye contact, but he noted the man’s face – striking, sharp features, with an air that was oddly alien and, above all, impenetrable. He wouldn’t have forgotten a face like this if he’d seen it before, would he? But he couldn’t remember seeing him board the plane, couldn’t remember showing him to his seat. Couldn’t remember his name. And yet, there was a familiarity.
The man smiled curtly, unzipping his bag.
‘I’ve brought the essentials,’ he produced a high-end thermos jar and a spoon, ‘though I would appreciate having this heated, if you could.’
‘Sure thing,’ Will reached for the jar, mulling over the man’s accent. Clearly foreign, but frustratingly hard to place. He’d have to ask Bev. The feeling of skin on skin shocked him out of his thoughts, and he realised he’d grazed the man’s hand with his own. With a murmured apology, he stalked back to the flight attendants’ area.
Business meals were a couple of steps above the usual fare and required some actual cooking skill, which tended to be fairly therapeutic. Today, though, with Will’s insides migrating all around his body, the scent of simmering food and the wet texture of fresh salad ingredients on his hands were almost enough to send him hurtling back to the toilet. The thermos was his last task. Then he could sit down, and possibly never stand up again. He swapped out the pot of curry for the jar on the electric hob and set about delivering the courses, hoping he’d avoid getting into the passengers’ heads. He didn’t want to handle that. Not now. Not with –
The smell.
With most of Business fed, Will returned to the container simmering on the stove. It looked delicious and smelled even better: a rich, meaty broth bubbling with peppers, onions and spices he wasn’t sure he could recognise. The mixture would still have made him a little queasy if it wasn’t for a particular scent piercing through the nausea, straight into his temporal lobe, a scent that reminded him of late nights in the French Quarter and lives cut short. The soup was almost boiling now. Stove off, jar swaddled in a napkin.
The man looked pleased to see Will return.
‘Careful, it’s hot,’ he said, passing the bundle.
‘Thank you.’
He placed the soup on his fold-out table and extracted a small Tupperware box of cornbread. It was only when the man attempted to make eye contact that Will realised he’d been dumbly standing in the aisle, staring. He pulled out his well-worn, standard issue smile. Ignore the dread of starting a conversation, the dryness at the back of the throat.
‘Sorry, sir, I was wondering… is that turtle soup?’
The man nodded and used his spoon to fish out a morsel of meat. ‘With fresh spinach, a poached egg, and a snifter of sherry,’ he dunked his spoon fully and took a small sip. ‘Amongst other ingredients. I’m surprised you recognised it.’
‘I’m familiar with it. Worked in New Orleans for a good couple of years before this.’ Will’s face softened with nostalgia, a rare display of feeling. ‘I didn’t think I’d see it in a plane, of all places. I guess it took me by surprise.’
‘This recipe travels well. I haven’t had airplane food in decades. I take great care with what I put in my body, you see.’
‘The health codes are pretty tough nowadays, I don’t think you’ve got anything to be afraid of.’
Will eyed the swirly vapour coming off the soup, curling around the man’s face. Where had he seen that face?
‘Oh, that isn’t my main concern. It’s the,’ he paused to think, holding the spoon to his full lips, ‘quality of the ingredients. Their unknown origin. You wouldn’t let a stranger into your home, so why allow strange food into your body?’
‘No, that makes sense. Yeah.’
Will knew he ought to go back to his area and sit down. Get some rest after puking his guts out. But talking to someone he couldn’t instantly read was rare, disconcerting and liberating all at once. Before he could politely excuse himself, the man spoke again.
‘You worked in New Orleans, you said?’
Noises of those nights filled his ears before he could block them out. Sirens. Gunfire. He nodded.
‘Yeah. Couple of years.’ Pause. ‘Law enforcement.’
‘Ah, then you would know all about not letting strangers into one’s home.’
The man was smiling now. Will reciprocated. ‘It got covered in the first week of training.’
‘And now you work here. Quite a change, I imagine.’ He looked down at the empty seat beside him. ‘Would you sit with me?’
‘I don’t think my colleagues would be happy about me doing that,’ Will said, making no moves to leave.
‘Business class is mostly empty. You have finished your duties, for now. And you look tired. Would anyone really mind if you took a break?’
‘Well…’
Half of him screamed for some time alone, but the other couldn’t deny that the plush Business seats and a few minutes with this opaque man seemed extremely inviting. He glanced back at the hard foldable chairs reserved for flight crew.
‘Please, Will. Rest.’
Hearing his name briefly froze him before he realised Bev had announced their names at the beginning of the flight, as she always did. It was unusual to have a passenger actually pay attention – and to be addressed so familiarly by a stranger felt bizarre. The perks of the service industry.
Will sat down, his muscles groaning almost audibly.
‘I would like the opinion of an expert,’ Will heard. He could see the man’s hands tearing off a piece of cornbread, then present it to him. ‘Tell me how it compares to your experience.’
‘Thanks.’
Will’s stomach feebly protested, but he shrugged it off as he popped the piece into his mouth. He blinked.
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t know if you were going for authentic, because I’m not sure I’ve had…’ Will chewed thoughtfully. ‘There’s tomatoes in this, right?’
A nod. ‘Sun-dried tomatoes, goat’s cheese and thyme. Unsatisfying?’
‘No, no, God, it’s amazing,’ he said earnestly, rolling the flavour around his mouth. ‘Best thing I’ve had in a while. I don’t know if I’ve had anything like it, though. So I can’t say how it compares.’
‘I am prone to embellishments. I’m glad you enjoyed it, although I’m sorry it didn’t conjure up memories of New Orleans.’
Will snorted. ‘That’s not a bad thing.’
The man silently spooned a few helpings of soup into his mouth. ‘You don’t like to remember?’
‘It’s all in the past,’ Will’s eyes were heavy. Maybe sitting in such a comfortable seat wasn’t a great idea. ‘I don’t think there’s much of a point in remembering. I’m here now.’
‘That you are.’
Although the cabin was filled with the hum of human noise, Will found it surprisingly easy to concentrate on the immediate. The aeroplane’s engine, the taste of cornbread and mint, the scent of expensive aftershave and homebrewed turtle soup. It was easy to forget the nightmares, the screaming.
‘I killed someone,’ Will heard himself murmur, ‘in New Orleans. When I was a cop.’
His neighbour didn’t say anything. The soup was nearly finished.
‘I wasn’t out of line. I was in the right. Even made the papers as some sort of…’ he trailed off, not knowing what to say. Hero? Even thinking it felt bitter. He looked at his shoes; worn and dusty, outside the apartment, his heartbeat hammering in his ears. The gun weighed ten tons in his hands, metal slick with sweat. She was screaming. The door solid against his shoulder: once, twice, down.
Gunfire. Once, twice, down. Once, twice. Once, twice.
‘Did you want to escape from it all?’
He blinked. His body was rigid, the sweat cold on his forehead. The cornbread in his stomach wasn’t settling, the flavour still in his mouth. Shit.
‘That’s why you travel so much.’
He walked past the mother, exsanguinated, and the father, riddled with bullets, crouching near the daughter. She was young, just a teenager, throat slashed wide open. Her mouth opened and closed spastically as she tried to force out words, but all that came was a sick, wet gurgle and a thick strand of red, cloudy spit. Instinctively, seeking to comfort, his hand cupped her face, he gently wiped the saliva from her lips with his thumb. Two dead. Three soon. A hand on his shoulder as the blood seeped into the floorboards.
‘Will.’
He looked at his hands – but instead of calloused, bloodstained paws, he saw the present. Trim, clean fingernails, white shirt cuffs. Will was on flight 6163 to JFK International, sitting in Business Class. It was 7:32PM. The hand on his shoulder was real, and Will gruffly shrugged it off before he realised he’d just dismissed a passenger who was very reasonably worried about this sudden short-circuit. Shit.
‘Sorry,’ Will said, sweeping his gaze to just under the man’s eyes. This, he hoped, would be close enough to qualify as sincere visual contact. ‘I don’t like being touched.’
‘I apologise.’ Will’s peripheral vision told him the man’s eyes were dark, the mind behind them shrouded in mystery. ‘You had me concerned when you disassociated. I assume that is what happened, at any rate.’
Will glanced back at his hands, slowly clenching his fists, rotating them to look at his palms.
‘You checked the time. Your observed your hands. They’re grounding mechanisms,’ the man’s voice seemed clearer than before, penetrating. The rest of the cabin was silent.
‘Yeah,’ Will closed his fists, put them down on his knees. ‘It happens. The, er, absences. Sorry.’ His laugh was throaty, cynical. ‘I’m not too good with people.’
‘If that is so, you have picked an odd occupation.’
The passenger had resumed his meal. Will noticed the jar of turtle soup was gone now, the bread finished. The man was now slowly making his way through a small but stout rectangle of dark chocolate, breaking off minute pieces and letting them melt in his mouth. Will had been out for a solid 15, 20 minutes. It had seemed like seconds, but time was malleable inside the labyrinth of his synapses.
‘I would wager that a flight attendant must engage in a great amount of interpersonal communication.’
‘You’d be right. But it’s superficial.’ Will’s hands met and folded into each other, resting on his lap. ‘I see a lot of people every day. Hundreds, sometimes thousands. But I don’t really meet them. I don’t talk to them, not usually. I just have to… smile, do what I’m expected to do. I’m expected to put up a front, no one wants us to be, er, genuine. It’s like acting.’
The man split a chunk off his chocolate and offered it up. Will took it and put it on his tongue, hoping to wash away the taste of Louisiana. It was as bitter as he’d predicted, with a heavy texture that coated his entire mouth. His words stuck to the roof of his mouth.
‘It’s easy to do as one pleases from behind the safety of a mask.’
‘It’s easier,’ Will paused to lick the melted chocolate from his back teeth. ‘I don’t get to know them, or see things through their eyes. It’s like… diluted interaction, you know? Instead of meeting five people but having to be inside their heads and guess what they want from me, I greet a thousand and I barely even get their names. And the rest of the time, I travel. I go everywhere, anonymously.’
The man finished his dessert, biting into the final piece with a little crunch. ‘It sounds exhausting.’
‘It works for me. Keeps me busy.’ Beat. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t usually sit with passengers and blab about my life. Or disassociate next to them. Or whatever.’ Will laughed again, higher-pitched. ‘I guess it helps that you’re a good listener. And that you’ve been feeding me great, decidedly non-airline food.’
‘It’s been my pleasure, Will. One doesn’t often meet such interesting people.’
Will smiled. ‘I’m not that interesting.’
‘I disagree.’
This time, the pause came from the man rather than him. Not struggling to properly formulate a sentence, like Will frequently did, but seeking the right moment, or the right tone. Finally:
‘I’ve killed someone too.’
The seatbelt sign turned on with a little ‘ping,’ and Will vaguely heard Brian’s voice on the loudspeakers, telling passengers that the plane would soon be landing in New York. Faint clicking noises as their neighbours fastened themselves in. The man was gazing at him intently now, open without being exposed.
‘You don’t have to be alone,’ he said.
Will opened his mouth, thought better of it. Tried again. A loud ‘psst!’ made him turn his head to see Beverly standing over him, eyes wide.
‘You’re wanted up front,’ she said in an urgent stage whisper, before beating a speedy retreat towards the service area. Will nodded at the man beside him.
‘I’m wanted up front. Apparently.’ Will awkwardly tapped his palms on his knees, aware that he had to gracefully remove himself from the situation. ‘Thanks for the great food. And thanks for…’
The man listened carefully. Will squirmed. ‘For not freaking out, I guess. I wouldn’t have blamed you for thinking I’m a creep.’ He stood, embarrassed, and made to leave. ‘Thanks.’
‘Will.’
He hesitated, but turned around. The man was extending an open hand and smiling amiably.
‘It was a pleasure speaking with you. I travel often. Perhaps we will meet again.’ Will’s hand met his own and they shook, the man’s grip almost too firm. ‘I’m Hannibal Lecter.’
‘Hannibal Lecter,’ Will repeated. ‘Goodbye.’
The ghost of his hand in Will’s lingered, as physical contact usually did, like a sticky coat. Hannibal Lecter. Even the name was somehow familiar. Everything about him felt familiar, but he couldn’t remember. Beverly was staring at him, pushing down the empty seat next to her.
‘What was that about?’ she said, making no effort to keep her voice down. Will sat and buckled his seatbelt. Across the aisle, he could see Brian and Jimmy at their end of the plane, similarly strapped in. Jimmy gave him a mock-jaunty wave, clearly itching to get to the hotel and out of his work clothes.
‘Just talking with a passenger. He asked me to sit with him.’
‘Will Graham? Talking to a passenger? Conversing? Chatting, even?’
Will heard the grin in her voice, and it made him smile too, even though his stomach was complaining and his head was pounding. He’d told him. He’d said it.
‘You’re the one who always wants me to socialise. Aren’t you proud?’
‘So proud. Soon you’ll be all independent, living on your own, going to college…’ she laughed, and gave him a tiny nudge with her knee. ‘It’s good seeing you make friends that aren’t on four legs. Just don’t space out again when you’ve got some tightass from the airline on your flight, okay? I don’t want you to get fired.’
‘I know. Sorry. I guess you guys picked up the dinner trays for me while I was, uh, spacing out?’
‘Yup. I mean, it was only like five trays plus dessert, so whatever. Just get me a beer when we touch down.’ Will thanked his stars Bev was part of his tiny pool of friends. Another nudge. ‘So?’
‘So… he’s European. His English was perfect, very formal, but the accent…’ Will shrugged. ‘Slavic, maybe.’
‘A Slavic guy travelling Business from Mexico to New York?’ Beverly said, amused. ‘Sounds shady. What’s his story? What does he do?’
Will didn’t know. He’d never asked. The chocolate still clung to his teeth. What did he know about Hannibal?
‘He… something that lets him buy bespoke suits and expensive plane tickets,’ he replied lamely, shrugging.
‘Seriously? It never came up?’ her incredulity was palpable, ‘you were there like, an hour? Maybe more?’
‘We talked about other stuff. He’s a great cook. He had turtle soup with him.’
‘Oh my God. He sounds weirder with every word you say, Graham.’
Will smiled. ‘Why do you think we got on so well?’
Beverly laughed brightly, one of the few he knew did so with him rather than at him, and the pit of his fragile stomach shifted upwards as the plane started its descent towards the airport. Will looked down at the veins in his wrists. They were a sickly green hue, like the rivers back when he was a kid. He would stand waist-deep in the water next to his father, silently waiting for something to take the bait at the end of their lines. Fishing was one of the few things they could do together, one of the few things the old man would sober up for. Squinting at the setting sun, his dad’s hand covering his own too tightly, reeling in a catfish too big for his pole, he wondered how many licks of the belt he’d get when the line inevitably snapped. He clenched his fists, forcing the veins outwards. The plane skipped a couple of times on the tarmac, then smoothly glided towards the terminal.
Will unbuckled his belt, hands trembling. He did not see Hannibal exiting the plane.