there is no fixing you this time
mind ur manners - patients
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1.
He says he's sorry, like it will make everything better, like it will cross out what he's done to her.
All the sentiment really accomplishes is making Abigail lean back, flinch away from his grasp, his heavy hands with thick fingers and impossibly flawless suits. His features as sharp as glass. Dangerous, they scream to anyone paying attention, but everyone around Hannibal Lecter is temporarily blinded, aren't they? Like the sun, burning and merciless.
It's horrible and despicable and repulsive.
Hannibal Lecter smiles when he cuts her throat. At least her father had the decency to look remorseful.
And Abigail Hobbs is laid to waste in her own goddamn kitchen once again.
2.
A note about Abigail Hobbs: she's very, very good at nearly dying.
3.
Hannibal uses one hand to slice off her ear at the same time the other binds her throat, a temporary bandage of flesh and bone.
She almost doubts that is what he is made of. A man like Hannibal Lecter could never be that breakable, that human. His features are too finely made, too exotic and unbelievably perfect. His entire frame seems heavy, seems to droop under the weight of his sliding eyes that are never quite colored correctly. That are almost crimson in this light; they reflect the pool of her own blood. It spreads out along the floor, like a monster from an old movie.
Red and white and black. Beautiful and devouring.
She feels something cold press to her neck, and his voice. Even that's heavy, thick and rolling with his accent. Distinguished, she once thought, though now it seems terrible to her ears. It could swallow her whole. "I'm sorry, Abigail. That was necessary. You'll feel better soon."
Things go black when he holds up the piece of her own body to inspect, that he took from her person like meat.
4.
"Soon" is a week later, waking up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, and Hannibal Lecter looming over her. He blocks the lamp, and the light shines over his hair in a way that makes him look almost young, almost kind.
It makes her sick.
He smiles. Tries to. Really, he bares his teeth. An impossible being, when she looks at him now, she can't see his face for what it is, just a creature trying much too hard to look human.
She can't even replace his face with her father's, like when he'd drugged her and called it therapy.
Garrett Jacob Hobbs had loved and obsessed over her, she knows this. He would have cherished her, worshipped her, honored her. None of her would have gone to waste.
Parts of her were stuck in Will's home, in Will's lures, in Will's body. So she is informed. How he carved out bits and pieces until they were useless and fragmented, scattered like parts of an ancient temple. No longer beautiful and whole. Like bodies he's left heaving in his wake. Corpses on corpses.
Hannibal expects her to thank him for that insult, for the way he treated her skin like goods to be given away.
Abigail is nothing if not accommodating.
She smiles in return.
5.
Hannibal Lecter is a meticulous man, in every meaning of the word. Tailored suits, shaved face, sharp teeth. Predators know how to disguise themselves, and no one can compare.
But for all his caution, for all his genius, Hannibal has one thing Abigail never had.
Pride in his work.
Every monster makes the same mistake, and Abigail knows she will be there when Hannibal makes his. He keeps her alive, his greatest achievement, a living trophy, because men like Hannibal Lecter always believe there are no men like Hannibal Lecter.
They're wrong. There are.
And Abigail Hobbs knows more than anyone how an animal hides his skin.
She waits.
(I know what monsters are.)