Chapter Text
God, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor.
Staring at the incomprehensible scene in front of her, Kiara Harris repeated the facts to herself. There were other facts, terrible facts, but she chose to ignore those. She only repeated those facts which she knew to be true.
She’d just had a twelve hour shift at her shitty little factory job. She’d gone to her shitty little apartment and fell asleep in her shitty little twin bed. And what lulled her to slumber? The dulcet tones of Will Graham being gutted by his murder husband Doctor Hannibal Lecter, with a cold mug of chamomile languishing on her nightstand.
The fact was that she’d woken up. Not really a crazy fact in the grand scheme of things, but the fact of where she was escaped her comprehension.
She was here, standing over the mutilated body of a man and covered in blood. The tangy smell suffused the very air around her, leaving her floundering and gasping for breath in a tidal wave of red copper. It was on the walls, on the floor, on her hands. Blood was pounding in her ears and a vise was starting to tighten its way around her lungs like so many tiny puncture wounds. The world around her had that dripping, technicolor quality only present in nightmares of the highest order.
Kiara swallowed a scream at the sight of rusty red scissors in her hand.
Wishing deeply for her bitterly cold mug of chamomile, because that was nice and normal and this was immediate and abnormal, she realized that something seemed familiar. Hopelessly, intractably, undeniably familiar.
The metal scissors. The way the man’s tongue was flopping out through the gaping hole in his throat. The clear plastic gloves she was wearing, covering up those red-painted hands which…
…weren’t hers.
Kiara blinked slowly, sleep still gathered in her eyes. She looked at her hands, the scissors, the man, then back to her hands. There was a sinking feeling in her gut—a repugnant, sticky little ball of suspicion that she knew would only grow. It was as if a particularly virulent strain of fungus had taken up residence in her stomach, intent on polluting her body from the inside out. Leaning over the dead man’s perfectly polished desk (aside from the goopy arterial sprays, of course), she caught a glimpse of her own reflection.
Kiara’s blood transformed into something exquisitely thin and icy.
The face which greeted her was not her face. It was the face of the titular character of NBC’s Hannibal, chillingly portrayed by famous actor Mads Mikkelsen.
Dull, shuttered eyes reflected in warm mahogany revealed none of the emotion which suddenly washed over her. What the fuck is going on? Was she still asleep? Having some sort of break from reality? A really, really strange lucid nightmare? To ensure she was asleep, she took a few deep breaths, and hit her hands lightly against her chest to achieve physical sensation. In normal dreams, this feeling was dulled; almost like she was hitting herself through a giant barrier of foam. But here, she could feel every firm muscle and rib her (his) hands collided with—through the barrier of a three-piece suit and plastic body suit, of course.
These new facts made everything much worse. This was definitely not her body type. She was small and not that fit, thank you very much. The presence of such lean muscle on…her?...only served to strengthen the distant buzzing in the back of her head.
Shuddering, she took a moment to compose herself. Of course she was dreaming. She must be! Kiara had never had normal dreams; they were always fucked up to untold levels and unrealistically vivid. Actually, she dreamed in such a bizarre fashion that she headcanoned that Will Graham had dreams like hers, but she never let any of her fellow Fannibals know that in case they thought she was projecting a little too much onto Will Graham.
Simply speaking, her subconscious was a right bastard and she’d give herself a stern talking-to later—but there was no way she was somehow magically transported into the body of famous fictional cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the immediate aftermath of a murder. She’d go along with the dream, but only because she wanted to. She was curious to see what would happen, that’s all.
Kiara tried to ignore the fact that that line of reasoning was precisely what landed Will Graham in such hot water at the hands of Hannibal.
She shook her (his) head.
You know what, she wouldn’t make those same mistakes. Kiara was media literate; she spent way too much time shut inside and on the World Wide Web for that not to be true. She was a born-and-bred creature of the Internet, and she knew what fanfiction tropes were. She wrote fanfiction, for God’s sake. Reams of it. And she’d seen the movies. Freaky Friday. Freaky. Big. 13 Going On 30.
The list was endless, and the facts were this:
Kiara had fallen asleep watching Hannibal.
Somehow, instead of dreaming like normal, her consciousness had taken an ill-advised vacation into Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s body.
Now, she was responsible for escaping from the crime scene.
Good going, consciousness.
Flexing foreign hands, she did her best to ignore the overwhelming odor of blood in the room and the sickening adrenaline she was getting from it. Kiara’s whole body was shaking, and it quietly disgusted her that her fear felt like excitement. As she turned around, ready to get out of the office and find a bathroom to cry in, a zombie appeared in the doorway.
Well, not a zombie. Georgia Madchen, whom she remembered mostly from the stomach-churning degloving scene. Poor Will. Letting out a hard, hot breath at the sight of her, Kiara thanked God she was a huge fan of Hannibal. Seeing that creepy living corpse walk into a room without knowing the context would have made her shit her pants. Not that she wasn’t going to shit her pants; serial killer reflexes be damned. She opened her mouth to say something to the yellowing, rotting figure before her, but then recalled that she’d be giving herself away.
Not herself.
Doctor.
Hannibal.
Lecter.
Kiara narrowly avoided letting out a sob.
Maybe she should hang around, wait for a pale and shuddering Will Graham to materialize in the doorway and catch her red-handed. Literally. Hannibal was a greasy, horrifying, pathetic wreck of a human being, and he deserved to be caught. She’d be able to deliver his rotting carcass straight to the authorities, gift-wrapped and compliant as all hell. Kiara knew she didn't have the skills to fight Jack Crawford, that was for damn sure. Much less a SWAT team. Provoking a fight with him and the FBI while being brought into custody would be the height of foolishness.
Then again, she had no real idea as to how this nightmare had happened. And she’d rather not spend what could possibly be the rest of her life (she choked on that thought) in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, paying the price for Hannibal’s crimes.
Best to play by the rules and see what would happen. Copying Hannibal (and wasn’t that just the slimiest thing, copying Hannibal the goddamn Cannibal), Kiara handed Georgia the scissors and turned left out of…who’s office? Oh yeah, Dr. Sutcliffe. What a dick. Frankly, for doing what he did to Will, she wasn't too upset about his death in the show, but it was still a nasty way to go.
Kiara now knew that it didn’t get any less nasty up close and personal.
Facing a hospital corridor, her heart dropped to her feet. She admired the show for its surreal, magical-realism qualities, but a crucial foundation of that atmosphere was that you never learned how, exactly, Hannibal fled his crime scenes. Kiara would have to use some common sense, which would hopefully befuddle the FBI because in the world of Hannibal, common sense was sorely lacking.
In the episode, Will was right down the hall, but obviously Hannibal had enough time to flee the building before Will woke up.
Oh God, Will. Kiara’s stomach bottomed out as she realized just what his status as ‘superpowered empath’ meant for her.
He’ll see right through her—know right off the bat that she wasn’t Hannibal Lecter. Unless she acted really well? She’d taken a few acting classes when she was in college; she wasn’t totally out of her depth.
That was wrong. She was completely out of her depth. She had to put on the performance of a lifetime if she wanted to fool Will fucking Graham, the best profiler the FBI had, a man who had perceptive capabilities far beyond what anyone in real life possessed.
But at least she’d had ample practice playing ‘Zip Zap Zop’ in college theater.
No time to worry about Will. Taking a deep breath through lungs which weren’t hers, licking oddly well-moisturized lips which didn’t feel familiar, (what kind of chapstick did Hannibal use?) Kiara quickly strode down the hall towards the emergency exit. She would have run, but it felt a little like running in a school hallway and she’d rather not break any more rules or laws. Hannibal’s kill suit squelched against her as she moved, and she fought down the urge to splatter DNA evidence from her mouth all over the scene of the crime. Reaching the door, she looked down and lost her breath.
The door operated with a handle, and her gloves were covered in blood.
Kiara didn’t even know Hannibal’s body was capable of producing tears outside of the two specific scenarios of stuffy opera balls and whining about his own successful plans to put his best friend in prison, but she found her borrowed eyes suddenly wet. More DNA. Shit. Shit shit fuck shit ass Jesus Christ kill me now.
“Shit balls,” Kiara said.
It was the first cuss word she’d ever heard Dr. Hannibal Lecter say. Not the first cuss word she’d heard Mads Mikkelsen say; no, she’d watched far too many interviews with that man. But this was Dr. Lecter. His cadence was completely different, much more clipped and performative than Mads’. Everything Hannibal said had an air of aloof pompousness—even ‘shit balls’.
She was tempted to say more, to foul his (already fouled, the man eats people and doesn’t that reignite the urge to vomit oh my god you’re a cannibal) pretentious little mouth, but there were more pressing matters at hand. She raised an arm that was disconcertingly larger than her normal arm and attempted to find a blood-free spot. There! The elbow! Smiling a relieved smile, once again shocked that his face was capable of moving beyond a microexpression, she pressed down on the handle with her elbow and entered the stairwell.
Kiara was immediately taken aback by the smell. Sniffing the air, she recognized it as cleaning solution, primarily ethanol with multiple popular grease-dissolving surfactants and a hint of artificial orange—blood orange. (Where the hell did that font of info come from?) The scent was so strong, Kiara felt like one could commit suicide by proxy just from inhaling the air. Scents were never normally this strong; Kiara actually had a really shitty sense of smell. But Hannibal’s main superpowers were smelling really well and being a wealthy dickwad, after all. Oh god, if she could smell good did that mean she’d become a wealthy dickwad too? Perish the thought. If she wanted to uphold her motto of ‘eat the rich’ she’d have to start self-cannibalizing.
A hideous little laugh escaped her.
Thank God no-one was in the stairwell. She’d been standing there in Hannibal’s weird kill suit for God knew how long. Before she could start to panic even more, Kiara reasoned to herself that it was after-hours; no-one was around. Except Will. Better not forget about Will. Shit, she’d better scram.
Kiara quickly walked downstairs, avoiding touching any handrails. Surely Hannibal had a better escape system than ‘don’t touch anything and power walk until you’re free of the scene’? Fucking hell. Whatever that system was, Kiara wasn’t able to noodle it out on short notice. In no time she reached the ground floor and was faced with another door. Nodding to herself, Hannibal’s overly oily hair releasing itself from its pomade prison and flopping onto her forehead, she once more used the clean elbow to pry open the door.
Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Hannibal’s ridiculous pimped-out Bentley was by the emergency exit, basking in the glow of fluorescent red lights. It was parked up against the curb, close enough to make for a good getaway but not securely stationed in the parking lot—which meant it avoided most security cameras. Wait. Wait wait wait. Hannibal better have not parked around a bunch of cameras.
Throat tight, Kiara immediately swiveled around to look at the building. No cameras that she could see. Of course there weren’t any. The man was a serial killing sommelier; he wouldn’t be so common as to be caught dead by a security camera. He probably thought video evidence was for plebs or something. Not fancypants aristocratic serial killers.
Cursing, Kiara almost lost her footing, but managed to avoid splaying her blood-covered body all over the asphalt. The heat of tears unwelcomely presented itself once more, but she managed to keep them in as she fiddled with the random zippered pockets on Hannibal’s kill suit. Jesus, what did he keep in here? Razor-sharp hundred dollar bills? A dessert fork? Letting out a little high-pitched gasp she didn’t know Hannibal was capable of making, she found his car keys and immediately began to clamber into the Bentley.
Opening the door, she stood still and stared at the interior. It’d be silly and stupid to just drip blood all over the car seats as she drove. Sort of like an evil version of getting water all over the seats after going for a swim. A bit of pride swimming in her gut at catching her mistake, Kiara walked around back and popped open Hannibal’s trunk.
His serial killer trunk. Kiara half-expected to see loose rolls of duct tape and zip ties flying around.
Taking off Hannibal’s kill suit was an entire production Kiara would rather not endure again. It was completely messy. There was blood in every crinkly crevice of the damn thing. That smell mixed with plastic almost made her lose her lunch once more. There were startling and disturbing tools in its pockets—not a dessert fork, thank God, but she unfortunately found a pair of pliers and a nail file. Hell no. Nose scrunched up, she did her best to ball up the rotten thing and stuff it in a convenient, large, plastic-lined box in the trunk. Checking to make sure there was no blood on her clothes (this was one of Hannibal’s less offensive suits, in her opinion—a nice navy blue plaid ensemble), she properly slipped into the driver’s seat and gunned it out of the hospital.
Driving at night was unsettling at the best of times, but waking up in the body of a fictional serial killer made it about a billion times worse. Despite her terrified panting and roiling stomach, Kiara’s hands were steady and her brow was dry. The Bentley’s headlights were far better than the ones on her used Camry, but despite the marked improvement in light quality Kiara noticed that her night vision was unusually sharp.
Looking at Hannibal’s hands on the steering wheel was awful. Instead of her normal, small, slightly callused hands, she found herself staring at powerful, manly, veiny hands that she knew had torn apart bone and cut up muscle.
Kiara kept her eyes on the road.
She’d expected to just drive around aimlessly until she parked in a lot and had a good cry, but Hannibal’s body seemed to be going somewhere in particular. Kiara prayed to whatever God might exist that she was being taken to Hannibal’s overly large mansion and not some totem pole of bodies.
After a while, Kiara noticed that the buildings had changed from the typical city look of “raggedy as fuck” to something much more pristine. She could practically smell the money oozing off the colorful facades of each house. Large trees were lined up against the road, dark branches blocking the powerful golden light of the streetlamps. With her newly-improved night vision, they almost looked like little suns alight in the darkness. She wasn’t from Baltimore—wasn’t even sure if the TV show’s version of Baltimore had anything to do with the real Baltimore—but what she was seeing was wealthy, well-kept, and beautiful. As she gazed at the houses, curtains drawn against the night, her left hand flicked the turn signal into Hannibal’s driveway. (It would be shockingly rude to not indicate, after all. She hated it when people just drove around without indicating.)
Despite the past few hours having been a surreal mess of blood and fantasy, despite the ever-present wrongness of being in an unfamiliar body, despite everything…this was what shocked Kiara into a complete stupor.
Hannibal’s manor.
There was no other word for it. Of course, Kiara had seen it in the show, but that didn’t prepare her for the real thing. (Heh. Real thing.) A stately three-story monstrosity, pale brick and burgundy shutters jutting out of the ground like bone garnished with entrails. It was huge; far too huge for one man. He held dinner parties, sure, but wasn’t enough of an excuse for a house that big. It made Kiara feel like she’d been living in a shoebox her whole life. She swallowed, hard.
Hannibal was a consummate consumer; it makes sense that his home would reflect his appetite.
With the car parked, Kiara gingerly stepped out onto the driveway and finally threw up.
It was a sweaty, miserable affair, with much hacking and knees being roughed up on the impeccably maintained concrete. Nothing identifiable came up, only some clear bile. Kiara half-thought she’d cough up an ear a lá Will Graham. But alas, the pile of liquid waste on the ground could be ignored. What couldn’t be ignored was the giant box of evidence in the trunk. Shit. Shit. The show never explored what Hannibal did to get rid of his evidence; perhaps he burned it? Surely he burned it.
Wiping her hands on her suit jacket, taking a perverse pleasure in the uncouth action, she popped open the trunk and looked down at the box. It had started to rot in the heat of the trunk, and its smell was even stronger than before. But Hannibal must have an iron stomach, because for the first time since the nightmare began Kiara didn’t feel the urge to vomit. Setting her jaw, she lifted the box out of the trunk and locked up the car. Dress shoes clacking on the pavement (why Hannibal wore dress shoes out killing, she never understood), Kiara fished for Hannibal’s skeleton key and unlocked the door to his manor.
No, it wasn’t a manor. It was a mausoleum.
Weak slivers of blue moonlight trudged into the stone room, the air dead and empty around her. Evidence of master masonwork was everywhere in the opulent marble floor. There were various pedestals containing cold statues. The entire space had the air of a museum of which someone had taken particular care to curate an impression of success—and not much else. Hannibal’s foyer was a large, echoing space; one that was clearly meant to be full of people. When there were no people, only their echoes remained. Not even their scents lingered.
It was incredibly lonely.
And labyrinthine. The show never gave the viewers a good blueprint as to Hannibal’s home layout; they pretty much saw the kitchen, the entertaining space, and his office. The most likely place to have an incinerator would be the kitchen.
The kitchen. Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s kitchen. Kiara had to go find an incinerator in Hannibal the Cannibal’s kitchen.
She nearly dropped the box of blood.
Recovering herself, focusing on her adrenaline, Kiara zoomed her way down a long, ominous hallway. Each step ricocheted unpleasantly down the corridor, and each breath was a little too icy to be comfortable. It seemed that Hannibal liked to keep his house cool. Maybe the cold preserved all the greasy product he piled into his hair. At the end of the corridor, her efforts were rewarded. There it was—the famous kitchen.
If you didn’t know what was cooked there, it was actually quite nice. Way nicer than Kiara’s little kitchenette and hotplate. Even in the dark, the metal of the room glinted invitingly. There were appliances she was sure Gordon Ramsay himself would cream his jeans at, and everything was impeccably, suspiciously clean. Instead of smelling like artificial orange, it seemed to have a cooling scent of vanilla and mint. No doubt it was some homemade cleaner Lecter used.
Wandering further into the space, Kiara accidentally bumped against something and promptly howled. It was a completely animal howl, borne of desperate fear and confusion. Shaking, she brandished the box of evidence at her attacker.
The attacker was a meat grinder.
Staring at the dark holes human sausage came out of, each one outlined brightly in the moonlight filtering in from Hannibal’s French doors, Kiara felt her face split into a smile and she almost huffed a laugh. Almost. She didn’t laugh. Well, a little sound came out, but nothing more than that. If she started laughing now, Kiara wasn’t sure what would happen. So she swallowed down that painful ball and started the hunt for an incinerator.
Movies told her it would look sort of like an oven door but have fire in it, so that wasn’t helpful at all. And the only things in the wall were Hannibal’s oven(s!) and his refrigerator, which she was definitely not touching. How the hell did he dispose of evidence?
Turning around, Kiara noted the wine cellar.
Oh, no.
Staring at the gaping maw of wine bottles, each perched on a rack like loose teeth, a sick certainty slithered into her lungs. Hannibal wouldn’t keep an incinerator in his kitchen—that was far too eccentric, even for him. No, Hannibal would keep it somewhere no-one would ever see it.
In his Murder Basement.
No, no, no. She had been through enough for one night. She was not going to trundle down into Hannibal's little dungeon of corpses and pain. She was gonna go the fuck to bed and pretend this never happened.
Then Kiara’s hand slipped on a bit of blood that had leaked out of the box.
Dread sifting in the shadows of each step, she led herself to the inevitable conclusion of this journey. Open the secret wine door; down the hatch she goes. Watch her run. It was dark, as was the rest of his house, but this still didn’t bother her. It was beginning to bother her that the darkness didn’t bother her. The cement steps were unfeeling and harsh in their hardness. Kiara had expected the whole place to smell like death, but to her surprise it smelled sterile. Like nothing. Somehow, that was worse. When she finally made it to the bottom of the descent, she dropped the box on the floor without further investigation and and fled up the stairs.
Imagined demons chased her, nipping at her heels and clawing at her back. She hadn’t been this scared running up a flight of steps since she was little. Her heart was beating wildly and her legs were pumping, running up and up to escape that grotesque room with its grotesque box of evidence. In far too long, she made it up the steps and shut the wine door as quickly as possible behind her. Hannibal was one of those insufferable people who put an automatic stopper in the door to stop it slamming, presumably to protect the wine bottles. It wouldn’t shut fast enough. Shuffling, she slid to the ground and scrabbled against the floor, willing the door to shut.
Pressed against the now-shut door, Kiara started to cry.
The sobs were great in their power but astonishing in their silence. Hannibal cried hard and cried silently. Blood rushed to Kiara’s head, hurting her eyes and making her cry even more. Snot dribbled down the back of her throat, and took up residence in her lungs. Distantly, she noted that she was curled up on the floor and couldn’t see. Why couldn’t she see? Oh. Her hands were covering her face, which was extremely wet and sticky at the moment. Her temporary confusion was pathetic, and set her off even more. Her throat worked powerfully, unknown muscles bobbing up and down in a retching motion. Even with all this activity and maelstrom, the only thing she could hear was the whisper of her clothes and the occasional harsh breath.
Damnit! Why couldn’t she scream and wail? This—motherfucking—emotionally constipated stupid man—stupid everything—
Kiara began to slam her hands on Hannibal’s knees, trying to wrench out some of the hurt inside. Her emotions flowed and roiled, and they were just barely managing to ooze through the tight stitches of Hannibal’s person suit. Kiara felt like a balloon that wasn’t allowed to burst. Hitting her knees wasn’t helping, so eventually Kiara silently sobbed herself into exhaustion and laid on the floor. She had no idea what time it was. It didn’t matter.
The hardwood floor was cool and hard against her back, deliciously biting and relaxing. Even through Hannibal’s suit, she could feel the grains in the wood. The air smelt like salt. There wasn’t anything for her to do, she reasoned. The evidence was hidden, it was still dark outside. She should just close her eyes.
So she did.
_____________________________________
Kiara’s heart was awake before her mind.
Not metaphorically, of course; literally. There was a strange surge of energy into the organ, and a strong beat. In a limbo, she lived in that world for a while: the tug of life in the aorta, a memory of some kind of movement pulsing through her body. A bright, pounding light was turning the world into pink fire in her eyes, and she bolted upright, bending completely at the waist from where she had been lying flat on the floor.
She’d never woken up so quickly in her life. Fully alert, she awkwardly lost her balance a few times before fully righting herself. Subconsciously straightening the suit she was still wearing, Kiara left the wine cellar and scanned the kitchen. Everything was as it had been the night before. Weak gray sunlight was streaming in through the glass doors, setting the metal in the kitchen on ethereal fire. That must be what woke her up—the early morning light. Perhaps Hannibal always woke up at the asscrack of dawn. Yet another infuriating thing about the man.
Oh, right. She’d almost forgotten. She was still in Hannibal's body. That ruled out going to sleep as a way to break the…spell, or whatever it was.
“Why couldn’t I have fallen asleep to My Little Pony?” Kiara grumbled. Her tongue tapped strangely against her palate, moving in tandem to Hannibal’s accent. Eurgh. Even talking was uncomfortable.
“My Little Pony,” she repeated, just for the novelty of hearing it in Hannibal’s voice. Her Fannibal friends online would kill to hear a sound bite of that. The repeated words, however, alerted her as to the dire state of her breath—it smelled like something died in there. Surely Hannibal didn’t have such naturally terrible breath? Either way, she ought to find his bathroom and freshen up. People would think something was wrong if she (Hannibal, her mind whispered) didn’t look put together.
Kiara almost laughed at that. Seemed she’d felt the urge to laugh at a lot of things.
Standing in his kitchen, she realized what she must look like. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, dressed in a now-crumpled blue suit, stood against the morning sun with greasy hair whispering “My Little Pony” to himself. Freddie Lounds would give her left titty to see this.
Mechanically, Kiara moved to where she remembered seeing the staircase last night. It wasn’t as monstrously grand as his foyer—it was just barely more tasteful. Well, Kiara couldn’t exactly say what was tasteful and what wasn’t. It wasn’t like she was born and bred in wealth. But she knew that she didn’t like Hannibal’s bizarre statues. Animals, humans, bronze, marble. They were just creepy. How the hell did no one suspect him sooner?
After opening a couple of wrong doors which revealed nothing but freshly-dusted, empty furniture, she finally made it to Hannibal’s bedroom. Kiara couldn’t lie—she almost gasped at the sight. His bedroom was awesome. The Japanese prints alongside his bedframe were especially alluring. The whole place had so much beautiful art in it; right down to the craftsmanship of the ebony wainscotting. She’d almost describe the atmosphere as cave-like, but it was too clean and too aromatic to deserve that descriptor. It was more of a sanctuary.
What was she doing, standing around waxing poetic about Hannibal’s interior decorating skills? Shaking her head, she made her way to his en-suite and was promptly greeted by a little glass shelf positively sagging with oils and perfumes and God-knows-what. Each product was encased in a differently colored and shaped cut crystal jar, with impenetrable labels in cursive gold filigree. They were probably all made by little old Polish grandmas in 1904 using a perfume recipe handed down since Moses parted the red sea or something.
Looking at her reflection in the dim (Hannibal probably thought it was ‘atmospheric’) light, Kiara felt a strange untethering of her mind from her body. To put it lightly, she looked absolutely nothing like Hannibal, and seeing his skull-eyed face staring at her in the mirror quickened her heartbeat in the foulest fashion. Almost as soon as she had focused her eyes, she looked away and randomly selected a product that advertised itself as a pomade. Hannibal certainly didn’t need more oil in his hair, but as he seemed to consider a helmet-head haircut the height of fashion, it would be remiss of Kiara to style it more flatteringly. Sighing, she squeezed a healthy glop of the self-proclaimed ‘alpine scented’ stuff into her hands and combed it into Hannibal’s hair.
His hair was stiff with artificial oils, but not entirely unpleasant. Her own curly hair didn’t have that silky-smooth texture, and it was a novelty to be able to feel it on her own head. She’d always wondered what having straight hair would be like. She certainly didn’t have to wonder anymore.
Patting down Hannibal’s hair into a suitable helmet shape, her soul dying as she did so, Kiara moved on to selecting an adequate cologne. What went with ‘alpine’? ‘Gossamer Bush’, ‘Heart of the Woods’, ‘Gold and Marble’…Jiminy, they should just be named ‘Pretension No. 5’. Frustrated, Kiara randomly picked ‘Olympus’. The scent combination was not offensive to Hannibal’s stupidly sensitive nose, so she figured it was okay. How did he do this every morning?
Kiara made quick work of brushing his teeth (with some artisan toothpaste that advertised itself as an all-natural export of Italy) and his breath became less terrible. She went back in for a second brushing, this time fully clearing up the stink. Instead, her mouth now smelled vaguely of lavender. There were worse things.
Leaving the bathroom and its all-too-large mirror, Kiara moved towards his closet to find another change of clothes. This suit was way too crumpled for Hannbial’s usual M.O. Plus, he’d probably die of shame if he was seen wearing the same suit twice in a row. Setting too-large hands on the closet doors, she slid them open smooth as butter and gazed upon the wealth of cloth within.
Plaid.
Endless plaid.
A whole rainbow of plaid. Hannibal probably called it ‘tartan’. Some of the suits were pure monstrosities. She’d never liked his baby-blue number from the pilot episode, and sure enough, there it was. Withering in the corner like an unwanted child. For the life of her, Kiara couldn’t remember what suit Hannibal wore in the episode after Georgia Madchen was killed. Biting her lip, she selected her favorite suit of his—a dark charcoal gray patterned with red plaid. It didn’t take too long to pick a cream colored shirt, and a red and white paisley tie. Paisley and plaid. His fashion was truly avante-garde.
Kiara pointedly ignored her closet of abominable clothes back home. Hannibal had nothing on her.
Clothes picked and laid out on his silk, extra-fucking-large bed, Kiara looked down at her fully clothed body. There was a problem, a big problem, that she’d been ignoring. Not that it was bigger than her main problem, which was that she was trapped in an alternate universe as a serial killer, but it was still a problem.
Kiara was a cisgender female, with female biology. She was comfortable with that. Hannibal Lecter was decidedly un-female. Kiara almost wanted to laugh. How was this what was tripping her up? She’d just hid murder evidence last night, but she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Hannibal’s penis.
A most ungainly sound escaped her throat at that thought. It was as if a pig had died on her vocal chords. Right. Better to get this done. Luckily, she wasn’t a stranger to wearing a suit—she could do this quickly.
As fast and effectively as possible while trying to avoid looking at his entire body, Kiara fully undressed and put on all the necessary things needed to exist as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The silk boxers were new, but she should have expected that the good doctor wouldn’t be caught dead in Hanes tighty whities. Overall, the experience was deeply bizarre and altogether uncomfortable. She’d never wanted to know how it felt to have your ample chest hair accidentally get caught in a shirt button, but here she was. Thank God Hannibal’s muscle memory took over with the Windsor knot, though—Kiara hadn’t the slightest in how to tie a tie.
Briefly, she smiled at the memory of watching Hannibal crack videos which almost always included the blooper of Mads forgetting how to tie a tie. Better times. Now she was getting to experience all that firsthand in the worst possible way.
Feeling oddly predatory and powerful dressed to impress, Kiara wiped her already-clean hands on the suit and looked around. What was she even supposed to do? What did Hannibal ever do besides kill people and make heart eyes at Will Graham?
One thing she could do was turn herself in.
That was a thing she could do.
No, no. Not yet. Not now.
A buzz interrupted the thick tension in the room. Kiara nearly screamed. It was just Hannibal’s ancient little cell phone, vibrating forlornly on his nightstand. She snatched it and looked at the screen.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Lecter, but I have to cancel today’s session. Emergency.”
The contact was one Amelia Bourdain. Kiara didn’t recognize the name, but she was grateful for Amelia’s emergency. Even if that made her an asshole. Amelia Bourdain’s emergency reminded her—Hannibal had a job. With people depending on him. She couldn’t do that right now. Opening up his phone, fingers flying as if she used this thing constantly, she sent a mass text to every one of his ‘Patients’ contacts informing them that she’d be indisposed for an unknown amount of time, and would reach back in a few days or less with more information. So what if someone complained?
They’d be better off being spared Hannibal's therapy.
Chore complete, Kiara had to decide what to do next. How did one decide what to do next? There were so many roads, so many options, that she couldn’t possibly sit here and furrow Hannibal’s prominent brow trying to parse them all apart. No, she had to figure out something else. Moving quickly, she inspected the contents of Hannibal’s nightstand. Perfect; a pen and notepad. The pad of paper—or parchment, rather—was so thick and richly textured as to have been made in the wilds of Egypt by a group of paper-making elves. And Hannibal’s fountain pen was a sleek, shiny black, with a gold statement band down its middle. It seemed to fit perfectly in Kiara’s hand, a hand that she knew had only ever held Sharpies and number two pencils.
The dissonance grew.
Swallowing, she awkwardly leaned down to the hip-height nightstand to collect her thoughts.
OPTIONS, she scrawled. Normally she wrote in print, but her pen flowed across the page in beautiful, neat cursive. She could take the time to override Hannibal’s muscle memory, but it was more important to get her thoughts out than change (her? his?) handwriting. She could figure that out later. For a second, the pen hovered over OPTIONS.
Option 1:, she wrote.
Continue acting as Hannibal to the best of my ability. Wait for something to come up and explain my situation to me, but stick to the script as much as possible and not deviate. Seems hard. Will would probably sniff me out.
Option 2:
Deviate completely from the script and turn myself in. Don’t like this option because I don’t wanna go to prison. And it negates my ability to figure out what the hell’s going on.
Option 3:
Stick with the script but search for clues as to what happened on the side. This seems like an okay one? But I don’t wanna have to kill all…
Kiara accidentally blotted the pen against the paper. Cursing, she rubbed her now-inky fingertips (careful to avoid any cloth) together and continued writing.
Option 3 Mark 2:
Stick with the script and search for clues. Don’t necessarily have to do exactly everything in the script.
Option 4:
Deviate from script and search/don’t search for clues, but DO NOT turn myself in. Even though that’s what actually ends up happening in the show. Fuck. Most viable option????
Those were the only routes she could think of. If others presented themselves, she’d gladly take them, because the list in front of her read like a series of bad headlines. Not in the least because she didn’t have each scene in the show committed to memory, which meant that no matter what she was gonna be surprised by something. She could only hope that it wasn’t going to be too awful.
Looking at the list, Kiara rubbed her chin in her hand and then slid her head down, covering her eyes. What was she doing? What she just wrote down looked like a crazy person wrote it. Was she crazy? Even with her eyes closed, the complete feeling of wrongness in her body would not budge.
Opening her eyes, Kiara was greeted by the sight of a male hand that had never once belonged to her attached to her elbow, which also didn’t belong to her.
“Perhaps I am crazy,” she murmured to herself. “But I have to roll with it.”
Hearing so pedestrian a phrase as ‘roll with it’ spill from Hannibal’s mouth prompted a giggle, which was quickly cut off by a fortuitous throat-clearing. Kiara grabbed another slip of parchment and continued to write.
RULES:
No killing. I don’t care if that means deviating from the script.
She was confident about that one. There was no way she’d fall that far. She might had been tossed into the driver’s seat of a particularly murderous car on a particularly murderous show, but she was still driving.
Cannibalism??
Ah, there it was. Hannibal the Cannibal. The most famous gimmick of the entire franchise.
I didn’t kill them—is it still unethical to eat them? This isn’t my body, should I honor it the way Hannibal would??? Is that unethical??? Or is it ethical to let them be???
Frankly, Kiara couldn’t face going back down to that basement anytime soon. Or think about that question any longer. She’d just starve or become a vegetarian until she figured out what to do about that can of worms. Or a can of liver, heart, lung…No, no, no. But what do people taste like? a little voice piped up in her head. Kiara told it in no uncertain terms to fuck off.
No malicious acts.
After writing that one, she placed the pen on the nightstand and breathed.
Pulling this entire thing off without committing a malicious act would be a miracle. But if she wanted to stick to the rules, she’d have to start following them. Nodding sternly at the air, she folded up the list of rules and stuck it in an inside pocket of the suit. Once done, she clasped her hands on her knees as she sat on his bed and looked up at the sky. It was blocked, of course, by a ceiling. An ornate one, but a ceiling nonetheless. Kiara slapped her hands on the bed once and stood up.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter had a crime scene to visit.