#v: dr. Bloom: turnabout is fair play. (Main)

[godblooded]

@cmndrhill asked : “ call me, even if it's the middle of the night. “ @ doc bloom

the phone lights up on her dashboard. the text comes through and that mechanical tone reads it back to her as the road sweeps by softly beneath her. it is the middle of the night. it is the long, dark teatime of her soul — every minute is. the good doctor says a calm no when siri asks if she wants to reply and sighs. leather gloves grip the wheel and then idly rub a thumb across the surface. when the car whines to a stop beneath a heel, she sits back in the seat.

what the fuck is she doing…? she has to be awake in five hours. insomnia seizes her violently by the throat, steers her body to wrought iron cemetery gates.

she gives another sigh and drops back into her seat, heavy as the boulder preventing christ’s resurrection. when she bites down the next thing gurgling in her throat emerges with a growl, a sound like a yell that has her only scarcely missing the horn when she strikes it.

she keeps doing this to herself. but she misses abigail so much.

her knuckle splits beneath her tooth when she starts crying. the tang of metal between her teeth is the most she’s been able to taste for days ; oh what it feels like to be so empty and so full at the same time.

[godblooded]

" the fbi can't be trusted. "

she knows it sounds absurd, but eleanor knows better than to assume alana is simply being insane. this isn't a paranoid delusion-- this isn't a secret hush-hush concept, not some hallucination, not something otherworldly or MKUltra at all. where the good doctor sustained all those injuries isn't a mystery to anyone.

her head drops. and she's glancing into brown eyes softly. brow furrows so tight, and a swallow is obstructed entirely by the name threatening to claw up from her throat. she hasn't let it out for months, and she's realizing she should. not telling eleanor something so enormous, not making it clear--

she has to softly squeeze the arms of the chair she's sitting in to keep the fresh sting of tears at bay. they shine regardless, unshed, screening the periwinkle cold of her irises. she doesn't blink for fear such an emotional betrayal will escape. she cannot cry. she doesn't deserve to.

" have you ever heard the name abigail hobbs? "

@godblooded sent: “ the trap is set and it waits for its prey. “ doc bloom for O’Hara

Eleanor's teeth worried at her lower lip. "I don't want to insult your intelligence in the least, but are you sure you know what you're doing? From what you've said, this man is the most cunning person you have ever met. How can you be certain you can entrap him so easily?"

She wouldn't be as concerned if the madman that is Hannibal Lecter had only been after her. But he has made subtle threats towards her son as well, which simply cannot be tolerated. It is those maternal instincts that drive her fear regarding something going wrong with Alana's plan.

"It isn't that I'm not willing to put my life in your hands, Alana darling, but Arthur's is also at stake. So are you entirely confident we shouldn't be calling your former contacts at the FBI after all?"

[godblooded]

@pessimistics (x)

“ i’m tellin’ you it was my best idea for you for all hallow’s eve. i, myself, don’t have a costume and not a trick r’ treater on the block would brave dr. bloom’s hidden driveway. ”

okay, so maybe she doesn’t love that. she used to like halloween. she used to love halloween. she used to love bright-eyed little dinosaurs and princesses, princes and power rangers. she was always known as the one on the block who willingly gave out full candy bars. which is, of course, the gold standard when it comes to candy.

you tend not to be the most popular person to visit when your reputation is survived a cannibal-murderer, might’ve committed murder yourself. she’s become the whispered pariah that parents warn their kids away from; she’s become the neighborhood bogeyman. 

the plastic bag crunches when she smacks it into rustin’s chest with little tenderness, smiling with a quirk at the right side of her mouth. she’s impossible to say no to. and she leans forward, pointing to the corduroy jacket slung over the chair a few paces from them. it’s even the same shade of tan.

“ you do. ”

[godblooded]

@pessimistics​ did not ask but shall receive because alana’s made of love. 

“ look. i made an obnoxius amount of creme brulee. will you help me with that dilemma? there’s no way i can even think about the vanilla bean-- i’ve already made eight ramekins worth. i-- uh-- bake when i’m particularly stressed. ”

she’s sure that’s incredibly fucking charming if you have a sweet tooth to rival winnie the pooh.

but she swears he weighs one hundred lbs absolutely saturated as the drowned cat he sometimes resembles.  

[godblooded]

when next alana arrives home, she’ll find a slender, lengthy black box tied with a pale blue ribbon propped up beside her front door.  the packaging is far more nondescript than what lies within -- a bottle of rare champagne, made and sold strictly in italy.  alongside it is a sleek black cane (oil - black ebony, polished and sturdy, with garnet accents) that feels... slightly heavier than normal.  a discreetly hidden button detaches the wooden portion to reveal a sharp blade, just longer than a dagger, connected to the handle.  the attached note reads:  ' to celebrate and protect you and yours.  -  l.k. '

the trepidation that’s beat-beat-beating in her chest is constant-- thump, thump, thump, thump. for a moment, she’s overtaken by a wave-- a wave of fear. the box is elegant, something beautifully crafted and thought about, wrapped in the trappings of equivalent beauty. she reminds herself over and over and over again that hannibal is locked in a cage for the rest of his natural life, never to be heard or seen again by the outside world unless fredrick chilton chooses to let it in. that’s where he is. he’s not here. she repeats it to herself under her breath over and over. hannibal is incarcerated. hannibal is incarcerated. hannibal is incarcerated. 

she says this sentence a hundred times a day. 

she opens the door and kicks it to hold it open with her foot, taking the enormous present in with her as she drags it. the door sways, creaks, squeals, and clicks shut as she tugs the buttercup yellow front door closed. 

she only knows one other man with impeccable taste.

the pack spills down the stairs to the tune of a thousand little clicks and crashes. wood is stricken continuously by those paws, eager to greet their mother with great zeal. the pups always receive her with a warmth that makes her glow, and she immediately greets each and every. she gives hugs and kisses and takes it as a good sign guinefort doesn’t stray to the box lugged onto the table. okay. she floats over to open it. she knows she’s stalling. 

her throat feels like it’s going to swell shut. she has to take a minute to realize she hasn’t been poisoned as she undoes the ribbon, slowly pulling the lid off. 

what gleams back at her is stunning. it’s sleek, something that perfectly suits her repertoire of frightfully dangerous-looking outfits designed to intimidate with flourishing ease. this certainly lends to such a thing. when she discovers the button, the ah! she lets out is inadvertent, but a delighted smile crosses her face. she admires it, holds it up to the light. 

no. this isn’t hannibal’s work. hannibal never recognized how deadly she could be. he didn’t want to consider it of her. why would he...? what attracted him to her most had been the dove’s coo of a voice and the kittenish sweetness of her face. when she reads the note from @enviral​, she touches it with fingertips so careful they might not even imprint the very invisible skin none can perceive. they might not even leave evidence she was there. a red-lipped smile crosses her face. 

“ yeah, “

she breathes out in a soft sigh, her eyes crinkling at their creases. her smile spreads further and sue her if her heart makes precisely one little leap, 

“ me and mine. ”

[godblooded]

the dark plays shadows in the good doctor’s mind. they’re always strange things, and then they morph into the unspeakable. 

because @failedcrown​ is dead and it has been three weeks. alana’s resignation comes signed, sealed, delivered, and without batting an eyelash. she doesn’t care, and she doesn’t even breathe. it’s something that she cannot handle, and the blow to her heart isn’t something she can take. so she shuts down, closes up, and prepares for the sun to set. she silences herself. the first week is out and her cell phone doesn’t buzz. no texts come through. 

it’s the first week when the hallucinations begin. it’s swift and twinkling in the background where she can’t catch the corner of her eye. she sees a hard jaw and a soft face and she turns her head to look, but everything vanishes. maeve vanishes. 

the second week comes on. she knows georgetown will take her back in an instant. she knows the bureau would gladly force a rope into her mouth, pull and pull and pull until she bleeds, the same indignity she’s felt before. the second week is full of light and shadow, and she starts talking to the dead. it feels easier, better-- crude flirtations with a ghost. i’m not really here. i’m just in your brain. but it feels better to just say ‘fuck it’, doesn’t it, sometimes, doc?

the third week creeps in like the sun disappearing behind the world itself, as though the earth has rolled it over, never to return. the sun leaves because the good doctor is incapable of keeping it. she keeps talking to a ghost, swearing and mumbling to herself, nothing but gossamer thought so thin it’s easily sliced through. 

the third week goes over worse than the second one. it goes over so badly that the doctor’s bloodshot-blue eyes take in an eyepatch-- an eyepatch?-- and a full-bodied visual hallucination. alana drags a hand over her eyes and shuts them tight, groaning in exhaustion. it’s been two and a half days since she slept. it’s become impossible to sleep. 

but this apparition is here, one-eyed and different, and alana lazily assures herself-- her damaged brain insisting-- that her thoughts have changed the hero to look how she pleases. to alter something to falsify life, living, being alive. not having fucking left her, alone and confused and unwilling to continue in a world without.

“ i wish i could just ask you to let the dogs out for the morning, but even if you do, i’m still the one doing the work. go away. i won’t ask politely. ”

she shuffles by the image into the kitchen, cane clicking, an obvious issue very present: she’s so tired even her body feels like it’s falling apart. more than usual. it’s rare to see her this slow before the moon makes itself known.

[godblooded]

@afraidofchange​

“ it ‘ s awfully presumptuous of you to assume i was staring. so instead i will tell you , straightforward , that i was staring. you have stunning eyes — i believe they would be considered cornflower blue. “ 

the good doctor glances upward and a smile plays , mona lisa and enigmatic , dancing across those soft pink lips. it is barely capable of being read , but , then again , so is she. many try and it is seldom they succeed. 

alice is , she thinks , impressive to even have caught on. she is not normally so … obvious , and she is especially less obvious when it ‘ s someone she knows personally and therefore the possibility of a … what , a ‘ situation ‘ exists ? who knows what she would refer to it as — after will. but she resigns herself often quietly to the presence of company and its occasionally pleasant togetherness. 

“ full disclosure , i am about to step outside and smoke a pretty decent amount of cannabis. you can follow if you like — participation not necessary — but i would be grateful for the help wrangling the pups. “ 

that is a lie and alice knows it , too. alana ‘ s dogs are so well - behaved they make the von trapp children seem rowdy. 

[godblooded]

@vorcotec

"Stop pretending to be okay." not yelling but very calmly stated for dr. bloom OR stark, depending on who wants to answer.

she wishes so badly to make it go away. but it doesn ‘ t and , to be frank , it just hasn ‘ t , and to be even franker ? it just fucking won ‘ t. the images will haunt her until the very day she dies and she feels as though they ‘ re the suffering she must always bear. she did not begin wanting to bear it alone — no , not ever , but she has been forced to understand she has to. tossed out into open water in the dead of a horrific thunderstorm , kicked straight through the bureau ‘ s front door , cast out by will and jack alike who , in their own respects , cannot and will not deal with their own healing or hurting processes.

and alana is the casualty. she cannot even begin to force the thought that she deserves anything less than the sight before her — she had frozen making dr . jane andrews tea , and her gaze had snapped up toward the empty hallway in the hallows of this darkened evening. the shadows grew longer and a phantom light had seemed to cast them all their own , rebellious of the night shutting out their own light. night ghasts don ‘ t adhere to the rules.

the teacup shatters. her eyes widen ; they turn a blue so pure that it is winter - time in the chicago of her youth. her hands shake looking down at the pieces of porcelain and , for no good reason , her mind awaits it. of course it does not regather — she does not know why she seems insistent this broken thing will put itself back together. her hands shake. she ‘ d apologized and apologized and then the words come from the scientist ‘ s mouth —

“ okay. “

it comes through a tight throat. the fluorescent lights are buzzing , humming , screaming from above her. the marshmallow macaroon tea scents airy and light from where it ‘ s soaked into her carpet. she can ‘ t move , still standing there , and now looking up , up , to the image of a young woman tattered into unrecognizable shreds that disappears half down the corridor.

she cannot repeat ‘ okay ‘ .

[godblooded]

@zloslwy​ 

“ — what is the correct pronunciation for your first name , mr. stillinski? “

 stiles is a name she is aware he goes by, but she frankly doesn’t want to incur on the possibility of that intimacy. names are sacred things — inscribed on skin , scratched into trophies , bestowed upon just birth. so she asks him , because she wants to know. oh , and , also , because she still resents that both her brothers have cool names and so does he and there’s real truth to ‘ the middle child gets the lazy name ‘. edward josiah, isaiah ezekial — ..... alana marie bloom. 

when she talks to him , at least , the rest of the bureau envies him. there’s no flat judgment to her tone or simple apathy , less detachment. she respects him. he’s young , and he’s smart , and between them there is a mutual understanding neither speaks of. if she had to define it it’s we’ve seen some shit. 

she’ll actually respect him thanks to that. otherwise , working with dr. bloom in a profiling capacity is a little more like being a benign tumor on someone who has deliberately ignored you for years. she’s... what is it usually called... a little rough around the edges. 

“ — i would prefer not to butcher it. “

[godblooded]

@blessedxsilence (x)

“perhaps you shouldn’t have brought it, special agent starling,” alana snipes back just as gently, but both eyebrows are up, “i seem to remember it being your idea.”

[godblooded]

“because you need a strong enough point of impact. i have met few in the world capable enough to forge a path forward with the force to first gather the proper amount of momentum.”

your cane rests leisurely against the chair. fiddle fiddle faddle, it never seems to stop. and eyes flick to the motion tissaia makes— the one where her hands settle and stay silent. hands have sounds they make, ones people don’t particularly realize they’re making. people rarely even realize they’re making sound. your head tilts the same way hers had, but it is a subtle mirror image so brief one would only notice it looking you right in those bright-dark eyes.

“echoes. echoes are sound left long after a voice. echo was punished to become nothing but an afterthought. and that’s all ripples are. afterthoughts. forgotten easily once they disappear. vanishing unless it’s a shout— a scream, the kind that stays sitting in your throat. nothing continues endlessly forward. not even trajectory.”

               “it doesn’t?”

it does. of course it does. impact is followed by progression and it comes in ripples, growing larger, wider, mightier. stating that it doesn’t progress, willing it so, cannot alter the inevitability of cause and effect. tissaia’s gaze moves down then up above arched brows conveying a dubiosity dr bloom will not hear lurking under her tone. force of habit? or genuine desire to reserve judgment in order to hear more and to understand - and the odds aren’t in her favour. not when her interlocutor is someone recomposed from fragments of a shattered persona, from shards of a woman whose entire existence ought to have been obliterated in a flurry of glass. reborn anew, she is whole now, in spite of the cane. she is perhaps more whole than she ever was - than she ever could have been.

“why?” her face cants in ponderous tilt,  expression restored to cautious neutrality and fingers neatly woven on her lap.

@theyeardecembered  /  ctnd.

[godblooded]

"Give me a hand---?" Liv gestures at the black silk tie draped around her neck, only half-tied. She brushes a flyaway strand of hair out of her eyes, tilting her head towards Alana. "You are the tie expert, after all. And I have a meeting in twenty minutes." fake married af

“that’s because you know exactly one knot, and it’s the same knot.”

eyebrows raise and a soft smile touches the doctor’s lips. a smile that means she wants to live in this moment, she wants to exist in this here and now. she wants to imagine they can’t be anyone else but who they are in this moment. (even if it’s not alana bloom or olivia benson.)

but hands tie expertly to make a very neat, impressive Windsor knot. her fingers are small and nimble and quick as they make a perfect shape. she neatly pushes the knot up the other’s neck and her eyes follow it as it moves. (there’s something so powerful to such a delicate aspect. how easy would it be to choke someone with a necktie? —she actually knows that and has horribly seen it firsthand.)

those blue eyes flick up to meet such warm brown. “i assume a drug kingpin doesn’t exactly know how or isn’t expected to tie their own tie. their wife just does it for them. i also bring you your slippers and make you a martini, dry, vermouth when you come in.”

[godblooded]

you can stay for as long as you need - pretend this one is from margot verger @reconstructs for dr bloom

“ fuck. ”

the good doctor swears standing just to the open mouth of the barn. margot’s jade eyes touch alana’s own sapphire baby blues and she finds cause to look away so swiftly it’s accidental. their lives have twined and intertwined before they’ve ever even met. alana feels that weight on her own shoulders. will and hannibal’s sins cruelly forcing hands down until she drowns in the river styx they’ve pushed her into. i wish i had known you before right now, goes unspoken. alana’s heart is ever and always stuck in her throat. i want to hurt your brother is her next thought, enough to feel like her mind’s on fire.

dr. lecter got further inside you than any of us. she feels her eyes start to glaze for a moment. the rain slams torrentially, and alana’s car, woefully far from about a thousand clicks of her cane. if she could jam her fingers into those serpentine nostrils his nose would tear away like a fleshy halloween prosthetic. like meat. she shakes away her train of thought.

“ i don’t want to be any trouble, miss verger. you’ve already shown me a warm welcome, i don’t want to overstay it. ”

especially with mason’s offer breathing still down her neck. you’re a ticket to dr. lecter, dr. bloom. don’t you want to make him pay for what he’s done? he ate you up. don’t you want to make him choke on you? as hannibal’s psychiatrist while incarcerated, to alana that would be an unspeakable breach of morality.

as someone who wants for his suffering, the desire to tell mason she’ll go with it scratches unkindly at mind, scrapes like a furious dog trying to get in. she wishes he could hurt.

“ did it just decide to start pouring? ”

she’s gripping her cane a little. that feeling like all those little needles stabbing into that vulnerable flesh, broken, bloody body laying on hannibal’s front walk. the one she’d stood on bearing gifts and wine, beer, latkes freshly fried, a smile often affixed on her face. the same place she’d lived, the same place she’d died.

she shudders at the thought, steels herself — tries to — not to look like a grown adult terrified to step into a flash thunderstorm. she looks only like a child playing at some kind of thing, clinging to one safe thought.

[godblooded]

"are you OK?" written on a note for alana because someone should check up on the doctor (-:

‘are you okay.’ the good doctor leans against the counter with both hands flat to either side of her, staring at the note. her eyes stay stuck to it, and her mind churns answers. no. i haven’t been okay in years. no. i don’t know who i am. no. whose body is this? no. he crawled further inside you—

she shakes her head, tapping neat red nails against with a click. habitual. no. she’s not okay. no, she’s not okay. it crowds her mouth like stuffing it with a gag when she attempts to even consider such an honesty. why would she say it?

she’s not okay. she’s not okay.

she’s had a migraine for days, sleep an unknown to her almost completely. teaching feels like pulling herself out of herself to stand in front of the room, unreal. she thinks the only time she’s truly awake is when the pack congregates around her feet, runs barking and yapping across the greenery of her yard. in those moments she’s alive, or some semblance of it. caring for others is how she’s always survived.

“ of course i am. ”

comes her response. of course she’s okay.

[godblooded]

Her kindness invites him, captivates him, like he is an apparition drawn in by the way she can see him —  unspoken at first, a passing glance in a shared room or a tendency to linger where she may be standing. His friends like her! If they like her, he must like her, too. Vought staff bustle in and out and the clicks of their shoes are not unlike the clicks of her own. One afternoon, close enough to reach out an arm, Noir guides his gloves to her face with a hesitation meant as request;  can I? And she doesn’t push his hands away, so he finds what he can’t. He can imagine that her face is smooth, or cold, things he can’t tell;  but like terrain the face moves up and down, and that much is allowed through a suit. Noir leans in close to her, framing her head with his hands like he is viewing a painting.  —  for Alana!!

it should startle or surprise her, but somehow it doesn’t. the good doctor is absolutely invented of warmth. let her tell you a secret, a secret she doesn’t tell anyone: she misses the person she used to be. she misses her tenderness -- her softness, the thing she cast so far because it did not serve her. she misses feeling patient and peaceful, thoughtful and curious -- she misses acknowledging the kindness she feels so naturally.

her momma taught it to her, her daddy imparted it upon her. she inherited it from both and honed it just the same. it serves her here, because @toonsupe​ is the type of person she wants to be tender toward. it reminds her of herself before she was what she is now -- not a who, a what. for ages physician, heal thyself has been a useless statement, but perhaps the point is she was never meant for utter solitude. ( humans are social creatures by nature she remembers hannibal’s voice against her own will, but for once in her life she’s too docile to give in. )

he’ll find the fracture of a scar at her left temple, buried beneath her hairline just where a divot is hidden. it’s a thin but present line. if one looks hard, long enough, it’s very easy to see where that skull had split open. the hard, heavy jut of her jaw is squared, masculine as the bright red suit she sports. her cheekbones curve in downward arcs toward prettily heart-shaped lips, and the smile they break into softens her periwinkle gaze to a baby blue. sometimes it’s the long cold winter of her own heart, and sometimes they’re a bright shade in their chill. she has her appreciation for that chill the same as a spring thaw should be treasured. she refuses to deal in absolutes. 

love comes easy to her when she remembers what it feels like. she doesn’t believe in being trepidatious about such a word; alana loves so easily, she wishes only she could still do so freely. sometimes it peeks out of her without warning. she’s who she used to be, here and there, and she can’t help but wonder if she’s not still in there. it’s a hopeful thought, but it’s a thought nonetheless. 

her smile dots dimples at either corner of scarlet lips. she very very gently touches fingertips to the back of his hands to place his palms just there where he can feel. she nods, once, and then twice, so he can feel it and know, before she speaks, 

“ yes. of course. thank you for asking. it’s sweet of you. ”

[godblooded]

just wait– everything’s going to get worse. / alana.

" such is the nature of life. what's that tired old phrase? --ah, yes. c'est la vie. "

your pronunciation is flawless. your every letter, word, bit of punctuation is distinct. punctuated, one might say. you roll your eyes her way with what could be seen as a boredom. your smile is wolffish on your mouth, a slash of blood that begs to be a focal point. @deamazed remains a central interest, caught in the blue of her gaze.

" everything's out the window, anyway. "