Hannibal lay on the hard wooden floor of his room. He had tried to fit under the bed, but couldn't, so settled for being as quiet and still as possible. He physically ached and mentally he felt bruised, like someone had opened his skull and rammed their fingers deep inside his brain. Those fingers made lazy circles in the soup of his thoughts, and for a long time he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or not.
Little flashes of words distracted him from the pain that pulsed through him. English in Face's slightly slanted handwriting, the faded-to-sepia curves of French, and the heavier brushstrokes from that German book way back at Mr. Jones's study flickered in front of him. Hannibal wanted to reach out and see if he could touch them, see if he could catch them in his hands and mold them together into a ball between his palms, but was afraid to move.
The words were enticing though, and he wanted to know more about them: what they felt like in his throat, what they tasted like. Then he realized he didn't need to capture them and swallow them for their taste! He could do the reverse; say them out loud and know their flavor going out!
Hannibal tried. The words were slimy things, always wiggling incorrectly off his tongue. With whispered practice, he managed one or two, and smiled triumphantly to himself.
Mouthing the words made him happy, but didn't help abate the physical pain. He dipped his fingers underneath him and grimaced at the warm wet they encountered; would he ever stop bleeding? Experimentally he shifted his legs and the skin on his thighs was pulled painfully. The blood that had dried and glued him to the floorboards hurt as it came undone.
This would never do. John Hannibal Smith, former Colonel of the United States Army, shouldn't be lying in a sticky pool of his own blood on floor of a rental in a fucking no-name town in god-forsaken Massachusetts! He was a leader of men! He was the man with the plan, and with the words that danced in front of him, he was given the promise of so much more!
He twisted his tongue around the alien lettering again, and was pleased it was easier each time.
He would reclaim his authority! He would get up, and bolstered by the words, he would show them—
—oh. But Face still had the book. Face still held the power; Face was still its chosen.
Hannibal bit his fist to muffle the sudden cry of fright. Face had been selected, Face was its consort. He retained the book, and the book retained him. There was nothing he could do to usurp the order that had been established.
But that didn't mean others couldn't realize his authority, couldn't grovel to his natural dominance. He'd yield to Face because the book demanded it—it was right, it was always right, he deserved the pain and humiliation Face had blessed him with—but that wouldn't stop him from making others recognize loud and clear his command.
Hannibal grinned to himself. It was his innate, automatic grin of self-assurance. There were people outside this house, in this town, that he couldn't wait to meet. He'd share the words with them, and they would submit to him.