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Title: A Feeling of Defeat
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Will Graham/Lee Fallon
Fandom: Hannibal/The Big C
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1drabble
Prompt: 23, Defeat
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Will Graham or Lee Fallon, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Lee sat in his car, feeling frozen behind the steering wheel.

He didn't want to go to the doctor today. When they had talked on the phone, he'd heard something in the man's voice that had made him shudder.

He'd heard a kind of defeat in that voice, in the words that had come out so slowly. He knew that the man was trying to sound encouraging, that he was working to keep his tone bright, to make Lee think that this was nothing out of the ordinary, coming in for a consultation.

But he was never called in out of the blue like this. He went for regular appointments, and for the clinical trials. He didn't just have spur-of-the-moment meetings.

So something was wrong. He didn't want to think about what it could be.

He felt paralyzed, as though he couldn't force himself to move. He didn't want to put on his seat belt, to start the car and drive to the doctor's office.

He didn't want to hear what would be said. He was sure that he knew the gist of it already -- that yet again, the trial wasn't working for him, that there was no point in going on, that he would have to turn to something else, find another way to try to beat this disease.

Lee took a deep breath, then another. He would have to force himself to put the car in gear and drive. He had to go to this meeting; he couldn't just sit here all day.

It didn't matter that what was going to be said was something that he didn't want to hear. He hadn't wanted to hear that he had cancer, either.

Still, it had been something he couldn't block out, couldn't ignore, couldn't deny. And whatever the doctor wanted to tell him now would be the same thing. He would just have to find another clinical trial, get into it, and hope that this time, it would work.

He had to do that. He didn't have just himself to think about now. He was married. He had a husband. He had think about how Will would feel about all of this.

Then why was there such a feeling of defeat within him?

Lee couldn't help but feel a portent of doom, and despite the warmth of the day, he shuddered again, as though a cold wind had swept through his body.

He didn't know why that feeling of defeat seemed to close around him, making him feel that he was walking into some sort of trap, something that would signal the beginning of the end for him. He felt as though he was taking those first inexorable steps towards the inevitable.

Taking another deep breath, he finally pulled on his seat belt and started the engine, then put the car into gear and stepped on the gas.

He would talk to the doctor, and then figure out where he went from here.

***