Warnings: Permanent injury, crack.
Tags: AU, Hannibal is not a cannibal, pre-canon, different first meeting, prompt fill, Alive Mischa Lecter
A/N: In the process of uploading fics from my AO3 onto this site. It's a nightmare. I hate the FFNet system urgh. Anyway, enjoy the crack!
xHx
Change of Plans
oMo
Mischa would have given her arm to have been there for whatever went down after her brother left their house in an enraged, murderous mood only to return hours later with a dazed look on his face.
Time to put her thinking cap on, because she wasn't about to try and interrogate her brother when he looked like that.
oMo
Let's start at the beginning.
Her brother's a compulsive, obsessive, manipulate, intelligent and high-functioning psychopath. She can't remember if he'd always been that way, but after Mischa lost her legs and any memory connected to the incident, he has been...special. According to their Aunt, this wasn't something someone just became. It didn't matter, though, because this was who he is, now, and she loves him.
This doesn't mean that he doesn't come with his own unique...issues. She knows he's killed, but since assuming her guardianship and moving them both to the States, he's put his focus on his work and culinary skills. It's a way to vent, she supposes. But after leaving behind his life as a surgeon and taking up psychiatry, well. She suggested topiary mostly as a joke, once, but turns out it's an excellent outlet for Hannibal's creativity and compulsive need for control.
To be honest, their garden resembles something from a French periodic drama. It's quite ridiculous, but Hannibal takes it very seriously. She accidentally ran over one of his plants, once, and was forced to eat offal for a week. Vile.
That said, she is not surprised when he comes inside dragging a wriggly puppy with leaves all over its fur, almost frothing at the mouth in his anger. No, that's a perfectly predictable response for him.
"I will do horrible things to this thing's owner, Mischa. I trust you will act as my alibi, in the unlikely event that their body is found?", he snarls, and really, she's only human. It's just so fucking funny. She laughs in his face.
Hannibal ignores her as gracefully as he can in his fury. He checks the tag on the poor dog's collar and she sees him nod to himself, muttering an address under his breath. This is when he leaves, closing the door firmly behind him, because God forbid he ever slams it.
At this point, Mischa is unconcerned. It's only when Hannibal returns three hours later that she starts to fidget with curiosity. What happened with the furious beast that left to unleash hell upon a poor, unsuspecting soul?
xHx
Mischa has always had a flair for the dramatic, in Hannibal's honest opinion. He blatantly refuses to acknowledge they might be more alike than he would ever admit to anyone but himself. That said, he feels completely justified in reacting as he does upon finding his latest project gnawed to bits by a mutt (it is particularly tricky to shape a bush into a tasteful murder scene). He is determined to find its owner, and extract retribution upon the fool who dared to unleash this hellhound on Hannibal's award winning garden (five times in a row, he has won the local annual horticultural competition).
The owner at least has the decency to make it easy for Hannibal. The dog's tag has a name, address and phone number. Will Graham, somewhere in Wolf Trap. Mr Graham does not deserve a courtesy call, Hannibal will show up without warning. No matter that the drive is an hour away, and it seems strange for the mutt to have travelled so far away from home on his own. That is not Hannibal's concern right now.
He contemplates stuffing the mutt in his trunk, but a sharply cleared throat stops him. He looks up to meet Mischa's warning glare where she sits in her wheelchair, having followed him to the door and opened it to see him off. Grumbling, he chucks the mutt into the backseat and looks back at his little sister, eyebrow raised. Happy? She nods, wheels back, and closes the door with a wave.
Time to pay Mr Graham a visit.
xHx
When Hannibal finally arrives, he has worked himself up to a temper and talked himself down to a cold, stoic kind of rage several times over. His current mood is a simmering kind of indignation, a calculating kind of fury that lies in wait under his skin. The house he pulls up to is a lonesome image, no close neighbours and in a desolate state. It's perfect. He has no intention to commit an unplanned, sloppy murder in the heat of the moment, but he does intend to inflict some kind of damage. With words, of course, but there's nothing to say he won't take this opportunity to scout out a future punishment that will be extremely satisfying.
With that in mind, he gets out of his car and takes the mutt with him, hanging squirming from one arm. The lights are on, and a beat-up truck is parked outside. Hannibal has barely taken three steps from his car before the door to the house open and-oh.
Well.
This might, no. It won't change a thing, but.
Well.
"Plato! Oh my God!" the man, most likely Mr Will Graham, comes rushing out in boxers and a white t-shirt, eyes wide with relief. The mutt goes wild and gets out of Hannibal's suddenly slack hold, lunging for its master. Mr Graham goes down on his knees, greets the puppy with laughs and kisses and gently scolding words.
Hannibal stares. He swallows.
Will Graham looks young, early thirties at most. Soft, brown curls on his head, clean-shaven face and light eyes. A Ganymede in a cheap shirt and underwear, kneeling not four steps from Hannibal's feet. Merde.
Well, there are several ways to punish someone. Hannibal is nothing if not creative and adaptable.
xHx
"I can't thank you enough, Mister Lecter," Will gushes after the initial introductions. They're in his kitchen, and Hannibal is sipping awful, cheap coffee from a chipped mug with Teacher of the Year written on it. From what Will has told, it was a gag gift from his students at Quantico, as he's gained a reputation for being quite...difficult, to deal with. Teaches profiling at the FBI this young. Aversion to eye contact and social interactions. Hannibal is fascinated.
"Please, call me Hannibal, Will," he insists, because he needs to start somewhere if he is going to be tearing down boundaries. The beautiful, jittery man smiles weakly, eyes fixed on Hannibal's chin.
"All right then, Hannibal. I know I've offered you a hot beverage, but that's hardly enough for bringing Plato home. I'd gladly offer you a reward, I offered one on the posters I put up back in Baltimore after all."
Apparently dear Will had decided to take his new puppy to work with him. The mutt had run away on his lunch break, and Will had spent most of his day searching for him. He'd printed out posters, put them up and handed them out, until it was too late at night for anyone to be out and about that would be willing to help. Resigned, Will had returned home hoping someone would call. He'd had plans to return to Baltimore again today to continue his search, but apparently Hannibal had arrived just in time. And now dear Will is offering him a reward. If Hannibal was a lesser creature he would call it fate.
"How very gracious of you," Hannibal smiles charmingly, enjoying the way Will's eyes flick around Hannibal's face as if unsure where to settle. "However, as I am in no need of any monetary gains, might I be allowed to suggest an alternative? One which would be much more valuable to me, and quite sufficient in settling any debts between us."
Obviously intrigued, Will momentarily meets his eyes. Hannibal is unprepared for the jolt of want and success he feels at this unexpected contact. It only further cements his belief that he has chosen the right course of action.
"Oh? Well, you make it sound interesting. What could a man like you want from a man like me, then?" Will muses with a tilt of his head, curious. Hannibal smiles tight-lipped with amusement.
"A date," he replies, for once completely sincere and surprisingly direct. He feels it's the approach which will gain him the quickest and most positive response.
Will chokes on his sip of coffee, eyes wide with shock. It's quite gratifying (Hannibal has not forgotten his ruined topiary project), and makes Will's face flush an attractive hue of red.
"Sorry, but did you just ask me out?" Will rasps out between coughing and gasping breaths. Shaking his head, he clears his throat and continues in a more level voice. "Wait, I know you did, I'm neither deaf nor dumb. But why? We've only just met."
Hannibal circles the lip of his coffee mug with the tip of a finger, wishing it was a glass of red wine that would hum pleasantly in the space between them.
"Is that not a quite ordinary way to go about it? You meet someone, you feel attraction and you engage in conversation. With a desire to further your acquaintance romantically, and to do so under no pretenses of your motives, you ask them out on a date. That is was I am doing here, with you. Are you amenable?" Hannibal says, watching as his words register with the man before him and turn his cheeks pink. Will smiles shyly and meets his eyes once more. It is no less heady the second time.
"Well, when you put it like that, how can I refuse?" Will says with a shrug, still smiling. With a teasing twist to his lips and glint in his eyes, Will continues. "If only to settle my debts."
Hannibal smirks, and feels entirely self-satisfied and accomplished. He would have plenty of time to think out a suiting punishment now, because one date would not be the end of his acquaintance with Will Graham.
xHx
An hour passes by before Hannibal reluctantly leaves. By the time he gets home to Mischa, he's been gone for three hours, and spent the drive back utterly immersed in the most pleasant plotting he's engaged in for quite a sizeable number of years. This might account of the dreadfully dreamy look on his face when he steps into the bathroom later that evening for a shower. He scowls at his reflection, displeased at his open display. Thankfully, only Mischa has born witness to his appalling lapse in control. He does not look forward the the questions this will no doubt earn him come morning, when his little sister has collected enough courage to corner him on the subject.
Well, it would have had to happen sooner or later. He can't have his dearest sister be a stranger to her future brother-in-law, after all. That would just be rude.
.END.