Chapter Text
So nice to have company for dinner.
Hannibal Lecter and his most recent guest ran into each other, literally, as Lecter left his office late in the evening. His guest, an agitated, unshaven man, brushed past him without even looking to see whom he had hit.
Lecter paused a moment to assess the empty street, before turning and lunging. In the space of moments he was on him, one arm curling around his abdomen, the other cracking his head against the brick facade. He slumped into Lecter's waiting arms like a sandbag. Lecter carried him, fireman style, and slid him into the trunk. It all took less than five minutes.
Now, at his home, his guest, a William Graham according to his driver's licence, began to wake, eyes twitching under their lids, limbs testing the restraints that held him fast to the elegant solid wood chair. He sits up slowly, clearly aware, but never looking at Lecter directly. Lecter ignores him to put the finishing touches on his table settings. He is famished, but taste, like so many things, has a deep psychological component, and presentation is important.
“Will you let my dogs out?”
“...Excuse me?”
“My dogs. You don't have to look after them, but there isn't enough food in the house, and they'll starve before anyone notices me missing. You have my keys, and the address is on my ID. I'm begging you, please. They're just animals; they don't deserve that.”
That he has dogs is not surprising, he reeks of canine and cheap cologne, but the request itself is unusual, calm, collected, and strangely accepting of what is about to happen. Lecter is used to pleading, even last requests, but this... “Do you not think to beg for your own life, before asking for those of your dogs?”
Graham laughs, high, creaky, and cynical. “Don't play stupid. You don't let people go, and you don't care if I beg. You're going to devour me.” He says it with such stark certainty, placing it amongst the rising sun and the irresistible pull of gravity as law of the universe.
Lecter's hands freeze where they are twisting a napkin into a rose. He turns slowly, then stalks across the room like a predator on the savanna. He grabs Graham's chin and twists his face so that he has no choice but to look Lecter in the eye. Graham groans, low and panicked. Lecter searches his face, long and hard, before releasing him with a smile.
He returns to the table, humming under his breath. Mechanically, he pulls up a second place setting. “I do hope you are in the mood for dinner, Mr. Graham.”
Graham blinks, “I'm sorry, what?”
“You'll forgive the abruptness of my invitation, but you simply cannot refuse.” He twists the second napkin into an elegant flower. “We must speak, you and I. After all, it seems that you know all about me, yet I feel that I barely know anything about you. I would like to remedy that. How do you feel about kidney?”