AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi hello howdy! I am SO so sorry for the year-long wait between chapters yet again. It really is true what they say about how the hits keep coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming...or however that Smash Mouth song goes. Anyway, you can thank my friend Kabooti for bullying me mercilessly about how long it's been since I last updated this fic till I finally started working on this chapter again. Everyone say thanks, Kabooti!
Shoutout also goes to apeurodo on AO3 for leaving such a lovely comment on the last chapter that I felt motivated enough to finally write the last couple of paragraphs of this chapter; Jayse and Zee for always poking me about my writing; and my best friend for always encouraging my progress, no matter how small. To my faithful readers who have stuck around this long (*checks my calendar to see that this fic is almost 4 years old already wtf*), I hope this humble offering even marginally makes up for the long wait.
~ CHAPTER XVIII: MADAME CRYSTELLE BALL ~
"I am Madame Chrystelle Ball," the fortune teller said. "Welcome. I look forward to reading your fortunes and unveiling your futures."
She stuck out her hand, although it was an awkward stretch for the men to reach her from where they stood behind the round cloth-covered chairs in front of the fortune telling table. Hannibal politely met her halfway and shook her hand, but Will did not. Instead, he pulled his glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on, blatantly ignoring her expectant eyes. Will's snub did not go unnoticed. Chrystelle, as she called herself, looked briefly amused before her face settled back into a benign smile.
She motioned to the chairs in front of the table. "Have a seat, s'il vous plaît."
Once they were seated, Chrystelle clasped her hands together over the table. She observed them for a moment, her eyes skimming over the cheap stuffed dog in Hannibal's lap, the gaudy badge pinned to Hannibal's three-piece suit, and Will's old dark-wash jeans and rumpled button-down shirt. Then she said, "As you may have seen on the sign by the doorway outside, individual readings are five dollars a person, while a couples' reading saves you money at seven dollars altogether."
"We're not a couple." The words were out of Will's mouth immediately, almost before he could fully process what she'd said. Excuse me? What the fuck?
"A joint reading, then," Chrystelle said, clearly unfazed. Her smile didn't falter for even a moment.
Irritation swept through him. First the damn homophobic hotel clerk, and now this? Will understood that he and Hannibal didn't exactly look as though they were colleagues, given how dissimilarly they dressed, but to jump right over the possibility of them being friends to them being a couple? It was a stretch that Will hadn't imagined that multiple people would make, especially within two days of each other. He frowned and looked at Hannibal, who immediately met his gaze over the rims of his glasses. The faint crinkling around the corners of Hannibal's eyes and the slight tilt to his lips betrayed his clear amusement. Will supposed that such an obvious mistake by someone who was supposed to be good at reading people could be kind of funny — that is, IF he wasn't already irritated that he had agreed to do this at all.
Will sighed, leaned back in his seat, and waved dismissively in Hannibal's direction. "You're the one who wanted to come here, so pick whatever you want."
Hannibal turned back to the fortune teller and said, "A joint reading, please."
Ugh. Of course.
Will took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, briefly closing his eyes. Just a few minutes, he told himself silently. A few minutes, and this questionable experience would be over. He could find the patience for that, right?
"Excellent choice." Chrystelle picked up the nearest deck of cards and began to shuffle it. The deck was much bigger than a typical deck of playing cards, and the cards were stiffer, too. The backs of the cards were black with an elaborate gold filigree-like design, and when Will caught a glimpse of the card faces, he had to admit that the artwork on them was very well-done. No cheap Tarot cards for this woman, apparently. Another begrudging point in her favor.
Then the fortune teller spoke, and Will immediately took the point away.
"The joint reading comes with both a three-card spread and a crystal ball reading. You are in good hands, as I'm particularly well-known for my crystal ball readings." Chrystelle winked as the cards formed a bridge between her hands.
One of Will's eyebrows twitched. If it hadn't already been glaringly obvious that this woman operated her business under an unoriginal, cheesy pseudonym, her joke certainly would have driven the point home. It was tempting to roll his eyes, but it was better that he didn't; as Chrystelle shuffled the cards, she kept her sharp eyes trained on them. He swore that almost a minute had passed without her blinking. It was borderline creepy, and Will dealt with dead bodies and murderers for a living.
"D'accord, why don't we start off with introductions?" Chrystelle asked as she passed the cards back and forth between her hands, her eyes still focused on them.
"If you can see the future, don't you already know what our names are?"
...okay, so just because Will wasn't going to roll his eyes didn't mean that he couldn't call her out on her bullshit. There was only so much self-control he had.
Chrystelle smiled patronizingly, and Will was reminded suddenly and violently of Freddie Lounds. They didn't look much alike, but there was something intangible about the woman in front of him that led his mind to connect the two.
He disliked her immensely.
"Reading fortunes is different than being able to recite facts about a person," Chrystelle said smoothly. "While the names we give the world around us are important, they are not something that I can pluck from the ether."
What bullshit.
Will crossed his arms. There was no way he was giving this lady his surname, so just his given name would have to do: "Will."
Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw Hannibal move slightly, but he refused to glance over at him. So he was strangely relieved when Hannibal followed his lead and only gave his given name: "Hannibal."
Chrystelle raised an eyebrow at Hannibal, still smiling benignly and shuffling the tarot cards. "Ah, c'est vrai? Like the Roman general?"
"The Carthaginian general, actually. He went to war against the Romans, not for them."
Will coughed into his fist to hide his laugh.
Seemingly unbothered, Chrystelle turned her serene smile on Will. "And what about you? Is Will short for William?"
"No. Just Will."
"Well, Just Will, it is very nice to meet you."
Will bit back a sarcastic retort, something like, I can't say the same, or shame it isn't mutual. Instead, he said nothing.
Silence fell over the three of them except for the sound of the Tarot cards being shuffled. Then Chrystelle straightened out the deck, her demeanor turning more serious.
"Okay, d'accord, are you ready for the first part of your reading?"
Both men nodded.
"Before we begin, I will need your help to shuffle the cards." Chrystelle split the deck and passed each of them half. "Tarot cards work best when the person whose fortune is about to be told places their energy into the cards before the reading."
Will reluctantly took the cards that the fortune teller held out. As he gave them a perfunctory shuffle, Chrystelle kept speaking:
"There are two main types of Tarot cards, the Major and Minor arcana. The Minor arcana are split up into four suits: cups, wands, pentacles, and swords. You can think of them as equivalent to a regular deck of cards, where the Major arcana are the face cards — the King, the Queen, et cetera, comme ça — and the Minor arcana are the numbers, complete with the four different suits."
Will subtly checked his half of the Tarot cards as he shuffled them to see if Crystelle had included both kinds of cards, or if this deck was cut to only have a specific kind. So far so good; he caught glimpses of both Major and Minor arcana, and the ratio between them seemed good, too. She hadn't taken the easy way out there, at least. Of course, that was the bare minimum for any decent fortune teller, but Will wasn't expecting much in that regard.
"Tarot has a long, storied history," Chrystelle continued. "It is an art form that has been around for hundreds of years, first surfacing in rudimentary form as early as the fourteenth century..."
Will glanced at Hannibal out of the corner of his eye. The doctor seemed to be listening intently to the fortune teller's words. All the more power to him, but Will wasn't here for a history lesson. He focused instead on what he could deduce from the fortune teller's body language. Was she using her storytelling moment to mask anything? It didn't seem like it. Her hands were folded neatly on the table in front of her, and there didn't seem to be any place where she could hide extra cards or pull any kind of funny business to make for a "better" card reading. She was observing them rather closely, however, so he wanted to put a quick end to that. He finished shuffling and placed his half of the cards on the table, and Hannibal followed suit.
Chrystelle thanked them both, put the stacks together, and did one quick bridge to overlap the cards into one cohesive deck. Then she spread the Tarot cards out into a large fan in one smooth movement, clasping them in both hands. But instead of holding them out for the men to take, she held the cards close to her breast and leaned across the table.
"Remember," she said, looking at them both very seriously, "this is a joint reading, so what we discover here will apply to both of you or your relationship. While there may be some things that seem to only apply to one of you individually, no man is an island and those things will also affect you as a unit, so keep your mind open."
That was exactly the kind of disclaimer that Will would expect a fraud to use to cover her ass when aspects of her fortune inevitably didn't line up with their lived experiences. At least there were no surprises so far.
Chrystelle held out the fan of cards. "Will, you pick first, s'il vous plaît. Please do not look at the card yet, just place it face down on the table."
Will studied the cards and how she was holding them. Nothing stood out as unusual, but he was sure that there were cards that she would rather him pick than others. Like a street magician doing a card trick, there were plenty of ways to manipulate a person into picking the card you wanted them to pick without them knowing. He wasn't exactly sure how that would work with Tarot cards versus a typical deck of playing cards, but there had to be ways. Will reached out and carefully maneuvered the second-to-last card on the far right out of the spread and placed it on the table in front of him.
If Chrystelle had any feelings about the card that he picked, it was impossible to tell. She merely thanked him and then turned the fan of cards towards Hannibal.
"Hannibal, please pick a card and do not look at it yet, just place it on the table face down."
After a moment's contemplation, Hannibal stretched out to pull a card from the side of the fan that was closer to Will and placed it on the table next to Will's card. Will wondered if he was thinking the same thing about subtle manipulation and thus picked a card farther away from himself, rather than one of the cards actually in front of him.
Again, if Chrystelle had a problem with this, it was hard to tell. Her face stayed serious but unreadable as she moved the fan of cards so that it was now equally facing both of them.
"Bon, merci. Now, please pick one together. Remember, do not look at it yet."
Will met Hannibal's eyes. Hannibal's expression was hard to read, but he must have gotten what Will was transmitting, because he turned slightly away from the fortune teller, leaned his body towards Will, and said quietly, "How do you want to do this?"
Will dipped his head closer to Hannibal and murmured, "We picked from the right-hand side for the first two, so maybe something in the middle or on the left? Unless you think we should choose from the right again. If we shuffled them properly and she didn't mess with the cards, then statistically, it shouldn't matter where we pull them from, right?"
"Unless, as you said, she skewed the cards."
"What are you thinking?"
Hannibal was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I am inclined to agree with you. Whether or not the cards are skewed, picking from the middle seems to be a safe bet."
"The middle it is."
They straightened back up. Will felt an instant spike of irritation as soon as he saw the fortune teller's face. The way that she was watching them like a hawk about to swoop down on unsuspecting prey was exactly the reason why he didn't want her overhearing their conversation about which card to pick. She was already doing her darndest to make extrapolations based on their behavior and body language — never mind the fact that she was dead wrong in all her conclusions so far — so Will certainly didn't want to give her anything else to work off of for their "fortunes."
Unfortunately, now came the most awkward part: trying to choose a card together without one or the other of them leading the way, and knowing that the fortune teller would be watching them the whole time. Will did his best to tune her out, but it was difficult when she was right across from them and her intense focus was broadcasting to him so loudly. Will hated people like that. Why couldn't people keep their emotions and motivations in their own damn heads and leave him to his own? At least he never had to worry about that with Hannibal.
Hannibal reached out for the fan of cards, so Will forcefully switched his attention away from the fortune teller and did the same. Their hands met over the same couple of cards in the middle, and Will was relieved to find that picking a card together was easier than he had anticipated. They both ended up touching one card in particular, their fingers overlapping, so all Will had to do was help Hannibal tug it out of the fan and then sit back and let Hannibal set it on the table next to the other two cards.
It was a small mercy that Chrystelle kept whatever thoughts she may have had about their selection process to herself. Instead, she thanked them and straightened out the cards so that they lay directly between Will and Hannibal on the table.
"Très bien. Now, before we begin, let me explain how a Tarot reading works." Chrystelle gestured to the three cards spread out on the table. "These three cards that you just picked together represent your past, your present, and your future respectively. However, and I cannot stress this enough," she leaned in, her eyes boring into them, "these cards are not prescriptive. They can give you the tools to analyze your past, interpret your present, and plan for your future, but they do not control your Fate, they merely help you illuminate your life. Try not to come to any hasty conclusions, and let yourself sit with the reading you receive before making any big life-changing decisions. Fortune telling is a delicate, nuanced art that is meant to enhance your life, not restrict it. It is not the same thing as Fate, though again, it may help illuminate it for you. Understood?"
Chrystelle was clearly so serious about what she was saying that, for the first time since entering the fortune telling tent, Will didn't have it in him to be snarky, even if his skepticism was still in full force. He was beginning to think that she might actually believe what she was saying, which would separate her at least from frauds who knew that what they were doing was fraudulent. He wasn't sure what was worse, someone knowingly manipulating people, or someone with genuinely good intentions leading other clueless people astray out of belief in the fraudulent thing they were peddling. Regardless, under Chrystelle's intense gaze, Will and Hannibal both murmured their understanding of her expressed caveats.
"Oui, bon. The first card overturned will represent your past, the second your present, and the third your future," Chrystelle said, tapping each card with a fingertip as she mentioned it. "I will interpret each card on its own before flipping over the next one, and then we will look at the big picture when they have all been turned over. Are you ready?"
Again, the men gave their assent. With a small flourish, Chrystelle flipped over the first card. Despite himself, Will found himself leaning forward slightly to see what it was.
Lying there, face up on the table, was The Devil.