The highway, lined with thick green kudzu, flew past as Will sped down the familiar highway I-10. The silence in the rental Chevy was surprisingly easy, and Hannibal seemed to be silently appreciating the scenery, too. The ride so far had been filled with similar silences punctuated by small talk, mostly about the Biloxi case and Jack. Will ran a hand through his curls, suddenly wishing that he had something interesting to discuss with his car mate; he was worried that he was an incredibly dull companion, and God forbid Hannibal felt as though accompanying Will was a chore. Hannibal glanced to Will, and as though he had read Will's mind, broke the silence.
"You are from a typically Francophone region of Louisiana," he remarked in his low, even voice. The corners of Will's mouth twitched. "You are no doubt familiar with the dialect?"
Will laughed once, pulling on the collar of his plaid shirt. Hannibal silently appreciated Will's endearingly nervous gestures.
"Yeah, familiar. My dad, he, uh, he spoke mostly Cad-Cajun in the house," Will replied, stifling his instinct. Cajun may as well have been a curse word in Will's childhood home; On est cadien, his father would say. Cajun was for a word for anglophones.
"So you are a native speaker," Hannibal inquired, shifting in the passenger's seat. Will felt his cheeks darken and he cleared his throat.
"Um, used to be, probably. I don't know, it's been years." Curiosity made Will glance over to Hannibal. "You speak French." It was more a statement than a question. Hannibal nodded, a small smile stretching his lips.
"Ce n'est pas du tout la même langue*," Hannibal added, with a vague, general knowledge of the Louisiana dialect. Will registered a change in his tone before he noticed the shift in his language.
"Yeah, well here we don't exactly speak le bon français*," Will replied, almost involuntarily in the Franglish that felt so familiar to his lips that it almost eclipsed his embarrassment. Hannibal raised his eyebrows, Will's effortlessly rolled r's echoing in his ears. Certainly, it wasn't the French Hannibal had learned in Paris.
"Tu dis des bêtises," Hannibal replied softly, "Tu parles superbement*." Will narrowed his eyes and glanced at the good doctor, whose disposition seemed more open, more accessible in the new register. For some reason, Will couldn't help but smile; he supposed that maybe, somewhere, deep in his mind, there was still some Cadien.
Notes:
*1: They are hardly the same language.
*2: Le bon français is a term that refers to European French, and has been widely regarded in Louisana history as superior to Lousianan dialects, despite the political incorrectness and cultural insensitivity of that assertion.
*3: Nonsense. You speak beautifully.
