IC Contact [Asgard]

[infomodder]

Catch all IC contact post for Will Graham at asgardeventide
[ Text | Voice | Video | Action ]

[Note: Will is unlikely to use video unless there is a good need for it. He'd be more inclined to do text until he's made a substantial recovery and becomes more comfortable with voice.]

Comments

i am 110% okay with this breaking development

[infomodder]

Will doesn't have to stand, not just yet. All he has to do is tap the dog on his lap, and off she goes, running in between them and effectively standing in the way by standing on Albus' shoe. She's a tiny thing and couldn't scare or stop anyone at all, and she could at the moment just be doing it to try and get some love out of the stranger before he leaves. If asked, Will would shrug it off. Surely he doesn't train them to respond to every little move he makes, to react to his moods. Surely he doesn't put that much effort into stray dogs. This one's just a very sweet dog, it has nothing to do with him.

Fortunately, he doesn't take Albus for a man who's willing to kick a dog just to get his way.

"You don't need to do that, Albus. I know where I am. I know what it is Sigyn values. I know who I am, and I've done rather well at piecing together why I actually belong here and not in Hel."

Will's heard this same song and dance for far longer than he'd like. He's asked for help, assured there's something good in him and he seems to be genuinely caring, and then it's all pulled away. He gets sick, he keeps working. He gets sicker, he gets lied to, guilt is used to get him to continue, and it keeps going. But he could never say he was forced by anyone other than himself, even when his brain was burning and he was getting too deep into the whole understanding the complexities of something unwanted and disturbing.

Albus is not his boss. Albus is not here to fiddle with his glasses, though he's apparently here to ask for his help. Albus is also not here to evaluate whether or not Will is stable and, in the process, do everything he can to make sure he's the opposite of it. The methods, he knows, knows them well. Knows that they work. If Albus thinks he can't recognize that much, he's sorely underestimated Will Graham, which isn't new, either. He's being manipulated, Will would say, for lack of a better word. To call it that out loud may insult, and he doesn't want that. Not just yet.

He's not being fooled, not again.

"You were trying to propose something, weren't you? I interrupted it. I shouldn't have been so rude. Tell me what it is, exactly, you want from me."

Of course, one doesn't have to kick such a small dog to get it out of the way. They just have to step past it—what's it going to do, nip at an ankle?

smells like roast muggle

[palebee]

He doesn't hesitate, crouching low to rub Samantha's ears with a smile. It lingers as he glances back up to Will. This one might yet do.

"Good, because I rather doubt that I could repeat all that without a drink of water." Unfolding back up to his feet, Albus moves to pick up Samantha, still scratching her head in short, absent strokes. "Rude seems a bit too harsh a word for it, you hardly interjected."

He leans back against the door, as if never expecting to have left.

"I want for someone to keep an eye on Barty Crouch. To note who he meets with, to make a record of his various guises, to intervene directly should the threat to Merope appear immediate. He is a manipulator, a deceiver, and a man without a face well-known. I want you, Will, to help me change the only one of those that we might."

wizard nirvana needs to make that a top 50 hit

[infomodder]

Will knows full well that how a man treats his inferiors reflects a great deal on him, and that how a man treats an animal reflects even more so. Snapping at another person, always putting them down, bullying them? That's one thing, because they could find their voice and eventually turn the tables. Hurting an animal, conditioning it to accept the abuse as opposed to ever fight back? That's quite another thing.

Albus is free to think that Will's staring at the way he treats the dog because he's worried about it being hurt or so obsessed with them that he can't tear his eyes away. He's free to think he's just an awkward guy who doesn't like eye contact, which is partially true. He can't turn off the wheels of his mind any more than the last person who manipulated him, and he's analyzing Albus with every touch he gives the little dog.

You want me, or you need me? Do I interest you? Wind me up and watch me go, is that it?

No. Not yet. Not now.

"I'll do it." It's resolute, spoken with more confidence than he might have displayed earlier. No stammering, no hesitation. For the first time, he finally looks straight at Albus' eyes, something he might not understand for being so rare and so telling. Not just yet, anyway. "You're going to have to fill me in on some things, though. You're going to have to tell me who else from your world is here, and how they relate. You're going to have to tell me what kind of murderous the both of them are, past what's already been told. You and I are going to have to not be seen as overly friendly at the school. If I pass you in the hallway, you nod. I nod back. Maybe we say hi, but that's it. No small talk. No being seen outside of it together. This? Doesn't happen again. We'll have to find someone in your house or someone in mind to be friendly with, so that if we ever visit, it makes more sense we're seeing someone not each other."

He has to make sure boundaries are understood, because he can't afford to see too much, not with Abigail here, not with murderers running around.

"And I am going to do some things you may not understand because I've done this for a long, long time. I'm not going to consult you on my every move. You're not my superior. What I do, if you don't understand it, that's fine. Just know that I know what I'm doing. I've eaten death nearly half my life, Albus. You want me? Fine. But we're going to draw lines in the sand right now, and you're going to have to realize that I know exactly what you're doing, and I understand from personal experience that people can be manipulators for reasons that are not harmful."

He knows what Albus is doing.

If he doesn't accept that, if he denies it, he'll know a bit more about him than showering a dog with love could tell him.

kurt crowbane

[palebee]

“Thank you.” Albus meets his gaze. “I will provide you with the required information over the network, you will, of course, inform me of any insufficiencies.”

“Ignoring you outright would look suspicious in itself; I speak to near everyone that I might, as those involved know well. A cursory amount of small talk will be necessary in those instances that proximity cannot be avoided. You will exercise your experience and judgment in reacting to it, and I will not press any further interaction – for all intents and purposes, I will consider you boring.”

“You are familiar, I believe, with Miss Evelyn Carnahan? She rooms near to me in Odin. As to Hel, I am familiar with several here, and I will see to reinforcing those ties.”

He stoops, carefully setting Samantha back down and giving her a final quick scratch behind the ears.

“Means and ends, Mr. Graham. For what little it's worth, I have always found that the best lies hinge upon a grain or two of truth. I trust in your expertise. If you require anything more, do not hesitate to ask.”

and dave crowl on the drums

[infomodder]

The idea of small talk isn't something Will's ever really gotten used to, not at work. It always leads up to him being asked to do something he'd rather not, or asked questions he'd rather not answer, or being told something has come up in a case and—Doctor Lecter? What a surprise. Would you like to help us catch the Ripper?

The anchor that ended up ruining him entirely, hook, line, and sinker.

Will is not seeking a replacement paddle here in Asgard, nor does he need it. For the first time in a long time, he's seeing clearly. Perhaps his psychoanalysis has kicked into overdrive thanks to things that happened before he came and has no intention to ever tell anyone about, but he doesn't think he can be blamed for being a little paranoid. Still, he's not damaged enough to see anyone with the ability to manipulate as a serial killer who would be more than happy to share a meal with him that's not exactly what they say it is.

Albus is pretty lean, he notes. Probably doesn't indulge in gourmet meals featuring human organs. Probably.

"I don't think anyone could blame you for thinking of me as boring." Samantha bounds back up on the bed, and his hand goes through her fur like it belongs nowhere else. She also serves as a welcome, tangible reason to look away. Hopefully, Albus finds Will interesting only on a level of his work, not a level of winding him up and watching him go. He's not about to go through that again, or spend all his time fighting it. "So that works out really well, since basically everyone has mostly seen me as that guy who might like dogs a little too much." Yes, he knows people must think he's hoarding them. He'd rather be that crazy dog man than anything else. At least then his crazy would be contained to collecting dogs, not collecting memories of the criminally insane and keeping an encyclopedic account of methods he could use to disarm, injure, maim, kill, and then set up the body in a fashion that would make opera enthusiasts shake their heads at how over the top the entire thing is. "I'm familiar with Miss Carnahan, which works in our favor."

Too bad he won't be able to tell her any of this, even if he wanted to.

"I'll let you know. We're gonna have to save talk of lies and truth for later. I haven't had breakfast yet."

A breakfast he cooks himself that includes absolutely no meat whatsoever, naturally.

Re: and dave crowl on the drums

[palebee]

"I don't believe that anyone who could see you as boring, Mr. Graham, knows you very well at all. Of course -- it's nearly eight o'clock, I suppose that I should see to some breakfast myself. If you'd like, I've a rather good recipe for scramble." He offers. "In any event, I wish the three of you a more pleasant afternoon. We ought to get a deal of sun in later, despite the cold."

Albus moves to leave, tipping his head one last time to the larger dog.

[infomodder]

There's an odd, hardened look at the mention of Will not being boring at all. He's being told something he knows is true but something he would rather not be true. If he could have just gone on being the dog guy who had a weighty job back home, that would have been fine. People getting close is bad. People here getting close? Even worse. He doesn't know how to explain, exactly, what it is he does in a way that makes total sense. It hardly makes sense to him. He's hoping that he stays healthy, stays on his feet, and that no one ever finds out the last thing that happened to Will back home. He can't let anyone get close enough for that to come out, and so keeping people at a further distance it is.

Hopefully, Abigail doesn't press too much. Hopefully, Abigail's father never comes up in her conversations, because Will would rather not deal with that. Deal with the fact of the matter that she's going to have to put up with people who won't take kindly to it and that she's telling their secrets like she didn't with Lecter. Isn't that a selfish thought?

The offer seems to bother him as much as the mere mention of him being interesting, jaw clenching. It could very easily be taken as a man who enjoys his own cooking getting the idea that his toes are being stepped on. In reality...well, it's not something he ever plans on coming out, either. His eyes don't leave Albus, not needing to in order to figure out he's giving a moment's notice to the other dog in the room. It's not until a little tongue wets his palm that he realizes he's supposed to say something in return, because that's just good manners. That's polite. Even though certain people aren't around, he hasn't forgotten what exactly becomes of the rude.

It just doesn't always stop him.

"I'll pass on the recipe." He'll pass on anything that Albus thinks he needs for as long as he can. He might even pass on a glass of water, just to show that he doesn't need anything he can get himself. He's a grown man, no one needs to help him figure out how to make scrambled eggs. Granted, that's not what sharing recipes is about, but he has to put up those walls. "You too. Have a good one."

A good one way, way, way far away from Will Graham.

[palebee]

Cold. Uncommonly so, something to wrap his jaws around later; it gives him a problem, a puzzle, something to worm over in the days ahead. Picking apart that potential will be a far more delectable thing than any bit of egg and spice.

Albus doubts that he'll like the possibilities, no more than Graham plainly (dis)likes him. But they've already spoken of means and ends, and his ends are already well-decided -- Graham is sharp, he is a almost annoyingly perspicacious, and he has been set upon the proper path to make that of use. It's the measure of the man that blooms interesting now, and the means of handling him.

"For the best," He grants. "Until then, Mr. Graham."