Chapter Text
Abigail sat in his desk chair, holding her arms and shifting uncomfortably. Her hair was mussed and her lovely lips parted. She looked him over curiously, speculatively, as he called the hospital to calmly explain her whereabouts.
She was still flushed from pain and orgasm both. All that lovely blood that he had worked so hard to keep inside her body and not on the tile floor of her kitchen was still pumping near the surface of her skin, having risen to and obeyed his touch again.
He allowed himself to savor the sight.
Abigail met his gaze and, beautifully, flushed further, running her hands through her hair to straighten it.
Hannibal Lecter took control in his life: a hard-learned lesson turned necessary game, to form and present the world like a meal to his taste, to himself. Surprises were rare, as they were in preparing meals.
One could only do so much with the ingredients one had.
And yet Abigail Hobbs continued to surprise him. He had not planned on fucking her, for instance; he was honest when he said he wanted to help and protect her. In fact felt a profound affection for her, that he had already dissected and pinned and labeled. To reclaim his power had been a difficult experience for him; it needn’t be for her. Their relationship could have easily remained chaste.
But Lecter was an opportunist above all. He could curb his hunger, but he would to indulge it when useful. This was one more way to bond her to him—if only through the effect on the brain of the hormones released during orgasm.
(This went both ways, he had been careful to note, and adjusted his calculations accordingly.)
That evening, Abigail had crawled over walls to get to him, to speak with him. The desperation in her voice broke as she was finally honest with him--honest with someone for the first time since he had met her.
She alone among his circle had already figured him out—one dark creature recognizing another. And already she was pushing him, while at the same time clinging to him. He had ended up taking her, tasting her, on the couch in his office. She had been and was pure and sharp and desperate, and too lovely in her torment and in her trembling.
At first, he mused, as he calmed the hospital administrator on the phone with his smooth low voice, he would be very careful with her. Given her own enthusiasm and predilections she had demonstrated (his back throbbed, as he shifted the phone in his hand) he probably wouldn’t have to be careful for very long.
She was much, much younger than he preferred. She had little of the dark lushness about her that he liked in women. Her body was still unfinished—a little too slim, too firm. Her eyes were wide and blue and startled, her appearance unstudied, her mouth thin and tense. What she had, though, was prettiness--and brilliance, and vulnerability. She was so bright and so lovely and so broken. A wounded animal who was only just realizing she had claws.
Her pain and bewilderment and anger shone even now as she sat before him; he could smell it, taste it in the air, bitter and bright. There was such power in her, all turned in to attack herself and lash out at others indiscriminately.
Delicious.
One could only do so much with what one had, but with the right ingredients one could do so much.
He hung up, delicately pacing the phone back in the receiver. He kneeled, putting himself at eye level with her as he placed a broad hand companionably on her knee.
“I am going to call Dr. Bloom now,” he said. “I will make arrangements for you to either stay at the office here, or at my home, for the night. Or I can return you to the hospital, but I would not recommend that option. You do not appear as if you have been occupied with anything wholesome.”
She grinned. “I look like I’ve been…fucking, you mean.” She peered at him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. He gave her none.
(Her shyness matched with her brazenness was rather charming. She made no secret of when she was testing you. Hannibal supposed Abigail was very able to manipulate those in her life previously; combined with her youth that fact explained her lack of subtlety.)
“Yes,” he said simply.
“I can go home with you?”
“You’ll sleep in your own bed, of course.” He didn’t want her to think that his interest in her was purely sexual; it would be counterproductive as well as untrue.
"After tonight.”
He licked his lips. It would not be unpleasant to have her curled around him, clinging to him, defenseless, dependent. Just once. For now. “We’ll see.”
He patted her knee and rose to call Alana Bloom. With Alana, he kept his tone warm, minimizing the authoritarian overtones he had used with the nurse, managing to sound gently put upon by her runaway patient while still being happy to help.
(His dear Alana was hardest to manipulate among his circle at the FBI. She respected him but was not intimidated by him. She did, however, lust after him, and would be soothed by perceived power over him—he would probably start pursuing her romantically soon. He liked her bright mind and kind heart, as well as her penchant for intense sensation and little broken things like Will and Abigail.)
Abigail had begun to shiver. Still talking Alana down, he retrieved his jacket from the couch (the spilled blood was already drying dark on the brilliant blue) to wrap it around Abigail’s small shoulders. The movement unstuck his shirt from where it was scabbing onto his skin.
Abigail smiled wanly at him as he settled his jacket on her. He leaned over to press his full lips to her forehead before informing Alana that he would have Abigail returned to the hospital first thing in the morning, good as new.
To keep himself free of further distraction, he suggested Alana call and appraise Will of the situation. This would occupy both of them with their unresolved and mutual attraction.
Abigail was more like Will than Alanna. She, like Will, lacked the polish and precision that education and privilege brought. They were both enormously powerful, but their unskilled, untapped power was turning in on them and hurting them. Pain lodged in their heads like hunting knives, drawing blood, leaving raw red wounds and scars.
Hannibal had once been this way. He remembered how much it hurt. He would always remember how much it hurt, how it felt to have others prey on him, eat him away without permission, to be forced to swallow too much of the world too soon. But you could control what you consumed. And Hannibal was an expert at control. There was no other way to live. He would show them both how to remove the knives from their hearts to carve their own paths. It would hurt--but everything hurt. And most things hurt deliciously.
He hung up the phone, the soft click and Abigail’s breathing the only sounds in the still room. He turned to the young woman with a smile. “Shall we go?”
Abigail half-grinned. “You were really good about managing not having to take me back to the hospital.”
“Not at all. Especially after all the trouble you took to get out in the first place. It is the best thing for you.”
Abigail just smiled.
She was rather touchingly excited to ride home with him in his fine car. She admired it shyly, running her hands on the exterior, the leather. On the drive he kept conversation light and casual, asking her about her interests. She said she liked music--he played for her some of his and explained the rudiments of what to listen for.
She only displayed discomfort before entering the house, slowing and stopping before the doorway. Hannibal could both smell and see her (admittedly, reasonable) trepidation. He opened the door and waited.
“Abigail,” he said, extending a hand. “I promise you that you are in complete control of whatever happens to you in this house—except in regards to one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I am making you, at the very least, a late night snack. A diet of only hospital food is not healthy for young women.” He smiled, openly. She blushed, an involuntary reaction, and averted her eyes, smiling.
But then she laughed, and walked in. “I like seeing you smile, Dr. Lecter,” she said, shyly. “Like, really smile. You never do around the rest of them, not really.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, closing the door behind them. “Here," he said, gesturing. "The kitchen is this way.”
“No, you don’t. Not really. You’re very...um. Closed. Very controlled.”
“It is understandable you would think that. You have only seen me in very serious circumstances.”
“Oh, I know. What I’m saying is, maybe—I can keep secrets too? You can smile around me. Let go a little bit. I mean if I can, you can too. I guess. You know.”
He rewarded her with another open smile. She was already trying to lower his defenses, even as she spoke the truth. At the same time, her face and voice were honest—she was reaching out to him, as he wanted—and asking him to reach back out to her, as she wanted.
“Just right straight ahead, yes,” he said, letting her lead. “And of course you may call me by my name, Hannibal. When we are alone. Do you think you can manage that?”
“Of course I can.”
“If you cannot, I’m afraid the repercussions will be severe.”
“Or they’ll just think I’m being like disrespectful or over-familiar, but yeah, I understand. Or do you mean severe because of you. Wow. Your house is beautiful.” It was not politeness, but genuine admiration.
“Thank you. It is a pleasure to have you as a guest.” He turned on the lowlights in the kitchen; all was glossy surface and warm yellow light, centered at the counters to enahnce a feeling of smallness and intimacy. He took his usual place at the counter, setting out the pans and the knives and the cutting board. With a small flush of pleasure he removed the meat—liver, a very specific liver—from the fridge.
She came to his side, slowly, attempting nonchalance. “Can I watch?” Abigail asked.
He looked at her sternly, pursing his lips, before picking her up by the waist and plunking her down on the counter next to the preparation space. She giggled, before stopping and going solemn. She obviously didn’t want him to see her as too young. The top of the counter was at his waist level—she was taller sitting on it.
“What are you going to make?” she said, swinging her feet before thinking better of it. “Liver, with olives, over polenta. Simple, but strong and filling for you.” He rolled up his sleeves, eschewing the apron (his clothes were already ruined.) Turning to the cabinets, he grabbed two glasses and poured them both a small amount of red wine. She almost was able to hide her hesitation as she accepted.
She watched for a moment in silence, as he chopped and prepared. He thought he would let her make the first move—she was unskilled, and it would be blunt.
“So what can you help me with, though?”
There it was.
She continued. “Can you really help me so I can sleep? So I’m not half-crazy all the time? What are you going to do?”
“But of course, I can help you,” he said. “I can help you with the dreams. I can teach you control. I can teach you discipline—“
“Discipline,” she blurted, instantly and obviously regretting it. His lips twitched.
“Of many kinds,” he amended. “And I can teach you to take joy where you can, and when.”
“Why would you do this? Like, what do you get out of this? I'll keep your secret anyways."
“That will have to be another one of your considerations.” He stopped, and looked up at her. Her lips were pursed into a pout; she was beginning to look troubled again. “Here is my advice. Do not worry about this tonight. Eat, and then sleep. Recover.”
She scowled. “I appreciate—I mean, thanks. But. You don’t have to be so careful with me. Everyone is so careful with me. They’re either afraid of me or they don’t know what else to do with me.”
“If you are referring to Special Agent Graham or Dr. Bloom, they are careful because they care about you.”
“Yeah?”
“As do I,” he said.
“Why?” she said. “Because you saved me?”
“Because I understand your plight,” he said. “And you deserve to be helped.”
Abigail said nothing for some moments, dropping her gaze to his hands as he prepared the food. She had a familiar way of letting her face go cold while she examined something. She watched him chop the liver on the cutting board, the swift tense stokes of his arms and hands with the long knife. He could see her shifting; tensing. Even under the blood of the liver he could smell the shift in tone in her skin. She reached out for his hand, tentative. He stopped his movements.
She took his hand with the knife; he let her. Her touch was cool as she gripped too tight. He could see her beating pulse in her pale neck. He swallowed.
“You know, I’m not actually very hungry,” she said. “Although I’m sure you’re an amazing cook.”
“I have some skill. But that is quite all right. Our first meal together will be later.”
She took the knife from his hand, still holding his hand in her left as she held up the knife. It was bloody from the liver. Not looking at him, her tongue darted out to lick some off. The taste seemed to set something off in her, and she grinned up at him.
“Abigail—“ “Are you going to try to salvage that shirt?”
“No. I’m afraid it’s quite ruined.”
Abigail, holding his gaze, began to cut through his shirt buttons. She started at his throat, actually pressing the cool wet blade momentarily to his skin before pulling it away and down. He felt the blade work, snicking the buttons off his shirt one by one. She ran her cool little fingers up his chest when she was done, curiosity and lust touchingly open on her face. “Abigail,” he said again, putting a bloody hand up to her cheek, leaning in to smell her, then to press his forehead against hers. “You shouldn’t.”
She responded by taking his bloody thumb in her teeth. She stared, blue-eyed and wanton, tonguing and sucking.
Hannibal could actually feel his eyes glitter red; his lip curl.
He felt an unexpected stab of hunger, for her sweetness (a different taste then Will—similar in some ways, but with a cold chill overtone that he lacked, a different sort of bitter honey taste). Her brittle little mind bright with pain, her pale tense body, so soft, so hot and tight. The way she had clenched around and clung to him.
If she was indeed anything like him—and she was, a little goddess in the raw, already manipulating and creating her own world around her and making others bow to it—it would not be good to have her be too comfortable with him yet.
He pushed what there was of the food preparations away, and let her pull him between her legs by his ruined shirt.
He pulled his hand from her mouth, tracing her lips with his thumb, before wrapping his hand around her neck, through her hair, pulling her head back even as he tilted his own back to contemplate her. She was his; if she didn't know now she would soon.
He pulled her to him to kiss her, roughly, her hum of surprise muffled by his lips and tongue. She responded, to his surprise and delight, by pulling him forward, pulling their hips together so she could press against him. One hand held onto his arm for support, one rested on his chest.
He pulled off her top layers more quickly this time but no less efficiently. He could smell her arousal, deep low red tones, urgent in the cool kitchen air already heavy with spice. He could also smell the brittle electric white of fear, but also delight at the fear. He dug his fingers deeper into her flesh; she should not be too comfortable with him yet.
(Flickering through his mind, unbidden imges—her tied with silk to the bedposts, coming over and over again until she was exhausted, weeping. Learning from him how to seduce others. Writhing underneath him on white sheets.)
He started pulling away; she protested. “Some advice: to seize power, over others, over yourself, you must have control;” he whispered in her ear as she pressed herself against him insistently. “You must learn to take control. You have to at least be able to feign wanting something less than the other.”
“I can learn that later,” she said, almost petulant, and kissed him artlessly, hungrily. Her hand reached down to his hardening cock. “You’re not so good at feigning right now,” she teased. Again, challenging him—and neither one was used to being challenged.
He smiled (snarled), showing his white, uneven teeth.
With a strange quick mix of iciness and tenderness, he pulled off her shoes and pants and panties, pushing her back prone against the cold counter, her nipples on her small breasts peaking.
He took her in. Lips parted, throat exposed, exposing the raw flesh of her scar. Legs open, the rawness and bruising between them already apparent. And of course her tender, bleeding little heart.
All his.
(He was amused at Will’s incessant protestations of responsibility for the girl—she belonged to Hannibal as much as Will belonged to Hannibal.)
With the same brutal efficiency, he pulled her hips closer. Her hands scrabbled to gain purchase on the slick counter to sit herself up. He pushed her back, looking down at her with hooded eyes and maddening smile, ascertaining she was already wet, although she cringed when his fingers entered her—she was still somewhat sore.
She was shifting her hips, all but begging him before he undid his trousers and angled her thighs—muscled, pale, so soft—to enter, quickly, almost all at once. Now was not the time for gentleness. She had specifically ruled out gentleness (although later, of course, he would indulge himself in coddling her.)
She cried out, gritting her teeth, as he began, and then settled into whimpers and gasps.
He was excellent at reading people—to tell the source of tears, to distinguish between cries from pain enjoyed and not enjoyed. She was enjoying herself. Besides—while it wasn’t a smile, exactly, if she wanted to see him without his usual control, than he would indulge her.
And so he let go by degrees.
He let her see his snarl, his bright black eyes gone red. He would cede her his control to make her feel like she had taken it, even as he claimed her.
Hannibal towered over her prone on the counter like a monster, like a beast, his muscles pulling and rolling as he fucked her. His hips snapped to meet hers and whenever he did she gasped or keened—trying to clutch at him, to claw at him, but he kept her pushed down and at a distance as he ravaged flesh and bone. She arched her back off the counter, gasping, her mouth open, her eyes closed, her hands wrapped around his wrists.
Lecter had meant to finish like this, but she was too raw and open and lovely to remain untasted. He leaned down to kiss her throat, snarling into her skin, nipping at her neck and ear. He soon pulled her up to meet him, losing his hands in her long hair and over the swells of hip and breast. He arched her slim spine against him, her breasts against his bare chest.
(His split-open little princess, butterflied beneath him, cracked apart and ready to make again—his.)
At that thought he could not help but half-moan, once, his breath growing ragged.
He enjoyed the sensation—rare, rarified—of being swept along by forces stronger than even his brilliant mind. Sensualist as he was, beyond the brute pleasure of impending orgasm he enjoyed the obliteration it brought, of identity and thought, in crashing red waves even as it sharpened his hunger into knives.
She buried her face in his neck as she clawed into his back again with her sharp little nails, as she cringes and cries into his ear, matching his quickening rhythm, pulling at his hair. He felt her teeth at his neck, as she pled senseless pleas, not even sure what she was asking for, the urgency of her begging and grasping maddening.
At the hoarse rawness of her last “Please,” he grabbed her face with both hands to bite at her lips, taste her tongue, in a last crushing kiss that muffled her moans as he came.
When he pulled back she was trembling, gasping. His lip quirked, and he rested his chin against her head as he pulled her closer, shushing her, kissing her head lightly even as he caught his breath.
He felt the exact moment when she disengaged and came back into her own; she composed herself quickly. She pulled back and smiled shyly.
“You are certain you are not hungry?” he said, smiling openly, tilting his head to meet her eyes.
“No,” she said, her voice still crackly. She laughed.
(Pity. He was looking forward to feeding her a proper meal.)
“I’m…I’m pretty tired, though,” she admitted, shaking her head. She looked up, not even trying to hide her scheming glint. “Can I sleep in your bed? Just like sleep.”
“My dear.” He kissed her lightly, on the corner of her mouth. “Of course. But just this once. After tonight, you have to sleep in your own bed.”
All tenderness and courtesy now, he bundled her into a hot bath, then pajamas, then his large, lush bed. He gave her her choice of sleep aid (orgasm: oral; she was strangely fascinated by his lips) before bringing up that this would be the last time for at least a very long while that they would share this type of intimacy, and that they would especially have to be circumspect around—
“Obviously,” she interrupted him, archly, before her blue eyes went wide and startled and she apologized. “I’m sorry. But I know. I mean, I understand.” She nestled into him, deferentially.
“Of course you do,” he said.
“Thanks for looking out for me,” she said, not personally sure if she was sarcastic or not.
But despite her words, she snuggled up against him happily, unconsciously, wrapping his strong arm around her more snugly. He could feel her relax profoundly at his touch. She was soft and warm and pliant; she smelled of the soap and hair products of his choosing, wearing his clothes.
Since she couldn't see him, he smiled into her hair, one of snarled lip and exposed teeth. Remarkable girl. Until she had discovered and reclaimed her power, he would protect her. The only person whose mercy she would be at would be his.
Exhausted on every level, Abigail fell asleep almost immediately. After some minutes, Hannibal shifted when he was certain he wouldn’t wake her. He was rewarded with a starburst of pain, electric white, on his upper back. She had reopened the scratch, and more. His left shoulder blade in particular was scraped raw.
As she curled into him, and smiled, and sighed, and his shoulder throbbed, Hannibal felt an unexpected stab between his ribs.
(That phrase came into his head, also unbidden—“At what moment does the knife wound sink so deep that the flesh begins to weep with love?”)
Cooking was a simple matter when it came to meat. For living things, other pressures than heat had to be applied to form and transform. Pain was one. A sort of love was another.
Hannibal Lecter did not know how to love. Not as others did.
He only knew how to eat more slowly. To eat more carefully, only sucking out the marrow of the bones that couldn’t be seen. To break and reshape and refine and cultivate.
To eat a heart raw and leave it beating, so he could devour it over and over and over. Hannibal would do it as much for her (and later Will, and even later, and lastly, Clarice) as for him.
And this was all he knew of love.