"The tragedy is not to die, but to be wasted."
-Thomas Harris, Hannibal
Abigail Hobbs had interested Dr. Lecter.
In much the same way he and Dr. Bloom had discussed a shared professional curiosity over Will Graham, Abigail's welfare was often a topic of which he was consulted. Dr. Bloom had observed that the young woman only demonstrated enough emotions to prove that she had them. His former protege's observations were correct but only scratched at the surface. Just beneath, if one dug just enough in the dirt pit, all the mangled secrets rotted away. He had helped Abigail cover that pit with earth and they had smoothed it over together in the moonlight.
Many times Abigail wandered unknowingly into his thoughts. Perversions of a professional curiosity.
There was potential in her. He heard it in her voice when it so readily switched back and forth from that of the damaged little victim to deflections and delicate probings of those who she knew underestimated her. Will, her savior, was wrapped around her little finger, though Lecter knew very well this was more Will's own doing than any penchant for manipulation she possessed. Will clinged to broken things, and how he longed to wrap the girl up and shield her before she could be eaten alive by the press, dissected by Jack Crawford, or tormented by Garrett Jacob Hobbs from the grave as he so often haunted Will's own dreams.
Will had a natural talent. It was beautiful. Abigail did not. She was a product of her experiences. In the eyes of Garrett Jacob Hobbs she was a perfect porcelain doll that he had killed for. Though deep down she feared that instead of a doll shattering into pieces after being thrown around, she was instead a rag doll that would be dragged through the mud, ripped at her seams, a terribly ordinary ratty thing that could never be put out of its' misery. Like the scar on her neck, she could be sewn up again and again and again.
Hannibal Lecter did not share Will Graham's predilection for hording broken things.
Yet still, he could appreciate Abigail in other ways. She was young and naïve, surprisingly so considering the ordeals she had faced in her young life. It was both off putting and yet attracted him at the same time, the opportunity to shape a mind in any way he saw fit.
Aesthetically, she had her bright blue doe eyes, dark hair which contrasted with her smooth ivory skin. Yet, he had noticed lately that perhaps due to an early influx of cold weather, her skin had grown weathered and her full lips chapped and increasingly colorless. He considered purchasing her face cream and lotion and perhaps even lipstick from Paris. He enjoyed her skin.
Nevertheless, one day Abigail would grow into a lovely woman. She lacked refinement but had a graceful bearing for one so young. He could enjoy watching her grow.
When he had first seen Abigail, she had been strewn across her kitchen floor soaked in her own blood. It oozed like a warm little spring from her father's laceration, drenching Will's unpracticed, nerve-ridden hands. Desperately, Will, the newly christened killer, turns to Dr. Lecter, prompting his assistance. The blood feels slick through his fingers as Abigail's slender neck is engulfed by Lecter's large and knowing hands applying pressure. He looks to Will, still in shock with blood stains on his glasses, and then back down to Abigail. How beautiful they were.
Dr. Lecter had hoped to witness such beauty again when Abigail made her first kill without Garrett Jacob Hobbs egging her on, pressuring her like a little Beelzebub, poking and prodding. He wanted her to enjoy it, though he knew it would still go against her better judgment.
He had been slightly disappointed. But he knew it would take time.
There was a cool breeze that night when they buried Nicholas Boyle's body. Her jacket was thin and his little shrike shivered as she watched him pile on the dirt over yet another one of her tormentors. Was she in awe of him? Her new savior?
"Dr. Lecter?" she asked quietly.
"Hannibal, Abigail. You may call me Hannibal." he replied, breathing in deeply as the cool breeze blew against them and rustled the tall pine trees surrounding them.
His eyes drank her in as she stood unsure of herself in the moonlight.
"Hannibal." He liked the way she articulated his name. "I'm afraid."
He smiled and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He knew he was being forward. She didn't like to be touched when she was afraid. She liked to cling to herself.
"You need not ever be afraid Abigail. What is done is done. You had to protect yourself. You will not be tormented anymore. I promise you that."
They walked back to the house without speaking, with only the sounds of the woods to fill their silence. Cracking of branches, the light whistle of the wind. Abigail tripped a little twice, and as he promptly put his arms out to ease her, she continued forward hastily, moving away from him.
"Abigail?" He said as they reached the back garden of the Hobbs' house. Abigail turned to him."Jack Crawford and the FBI will be here soon. Once we go in there, I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"
Her tongue runs over her lips, always unsure of herself.
"I trust you" she finally says.
She could never have denied him. Not then. Nor would she ever. He would see to it.
It doesn't surprise him in the least when she confesses the role she played in her father's murders. He knew all along.
"I wondered when you would tell me."
He plays the all-knowing confessor and she seeks repentance for her sins in his arms. She wants to feel safe, taking in the feel of his fine shirt and his large frame. She inhales and he smells expensive. Closing her eyes as the tears begin to fall, she chokes back a cry, she doesn't want him to hear it because it wasn't for the girls she helped to murder. She didn't feel remorse for that anymore, not really. Dr. Lecter soothingly stokes her hair. Part of her wants to see his face as he does it, perhaps it would reveal something about him she had yet to piece together. She feels coiled and unsteady in his warm embrace.
Hannibal Lecter never did enjoy limitations. Specifically limiting dichotomies such as the one he was currently presented with. Various scenarios run through his mind and he always considers all of his options.
Many nights Dr. Lecter takes the opportunity to sit with a glass of wine and reflect. His days are proving to be rather strenuous even for a man who usually takes an unrepentant hedonist's pleasure out of his work.
The rousing vibrato of Strauss' opera Salome fills his sitting room. He takes a sip of wine, the faint taste of blackberries coat his tongue. A small smile crosses his lips as he swallows. His dear respected colleague Dr. Sutcliffe met his end in a most artful manner, though in a more perfect world, the thought of sweet, young Abigail serving the man's severed head to him on a plate would be rather appealing. He could make the little shrike his own pale and pretty Salome if she'd only allow him. The thought pleases Lecter more than he would have expected of himself.
But she wasn't behaving the way he had wanted. The nonsense with Freddie Lounds with her book and the business with Nicholas Boyle and Jack Crawford, was not being handled well by the little shrike. It displeased him. Perhaps he had been too optimistic from the start.
Will Graham, however, continued to surprise Dr. Lecter, all the while so trustingly clinging to his every word. Pure empathy...so much could be done with it. He looked forward to seeing how the events he had set in motion that evening would play themselves out.
How long had the question sat on her tongue. How long did she forcefully swallow it like the human meat at his dinner table. She knew. She had always known. Part of her was thrilled by it and still more of her was horrified. Did he see?
"How many people have you killed?"
There is no dramatics when he speaks. He says it softly, levelly, like he always does. He takes her hand, in a way a stranger might consider lovingly.
"Many more than your father."
A soft gasp escapes her mouth, but only slight. She does not want to become hysterical.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asks, the tears beginning to fill in her eyes.
Lecter caresses her, up her cheek and down near her mouth, smooths away a stray tear across her face.
"I'm so sorry Abigail. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you in this life."
Abigail closes her eyes, running over again and again all the mistakes she had made. She had known. He had been the man on the phone. Why hadn't she trusted herself?
Because she was a monster.
She never wanted to believe anything she told herself. Why should this have been any different? She drowned out everything else. The pleasure she received from causing others pain was never something Abigail could reckon with herself. Perhaps it had been the only thing that had motivated Lecter to keep her alive this long anyway. He knew what she was and what he had wanted her to yet become. But it was all too late for that now.
Dr. Lecter retrieves a scalpel from his left coat pocket. It gleams in the dimly lit kitchen. With his right hand he continues to run his fingers along her face. He smiles, a genuine smile.
Expertly maneuvering the scalpel in his hand, he then suddenly pushes Abigail against the counter, she lets out a cry in response to the sheer force of her hitting the wood cabinets, he pushes himself against her, unrelentingly.
For the first time since she's known him, she looks up at him defiantly, her blue eyes filled with a rage she could never physically hope to exert against him. Fear, of course, he was naturally accustomed to, as it filled his victims' eyes shortly followed by defeat. But hatred...made him feel as though he were drunk and swimming any time he witnessed it glazing their pupils. It was so rare. So, so, rare. How sweet and delectable it was.
He lifts the scalpel and drags it across her face, delicately tracing figure eights across the flesh. He stops at her mouth and suddenly slices along her bottom lip. Abigail winces as she begins to bleed.
"What are you doing?" she asks, foolishly, not knowing what else she could possibly do.
"Shhhh..."He tuts and takes his index finger and presses it to her bleeding lips smoothing it over as a kind of macabre lipstick, deep shining rouge against her newly turned ghoulish pale skin.
He leans in, making sure to keep her body in place, and presses his lips to hers, surprisingly gentle and tender, savoring the iron taste. It's almost enjoyable until a light slurping sound escapes his upturned mouth. He bites down hard. Horror. Utter horror shakes in every crevice of her body. He's doing this on purpose, reminding her of all the bodies, of all the people he had butchered and consumed. That she had consumed. She feels nauseous. He might very well do the same to her, and lick the sweet marrow from her bones.
Lecter pulls away, her blood all over the edges of his mouth. He licks his lips. This is the most undignified she has ever seen him, it's almost incomprehensible. No more walls. She had climbed them all and oh how she wished she hadn't.
He begins to run his mouth against her earlobe.
"Abigail..." he whispers and almost coos "You were to embark on such a long journey with me."
He runs his left hand, still holding the scalpel, up and down her body and wraps the right violently around her neck all the while still fixating his mouth on her ear.
"Such plans, my dear. Yet here we are again full circle, where it all began"
His left hand quickly pulls off her scarf, one he had given her himself, to reveal the scar that her father had given her. He kisses it and makes an infuriating "mhmm" sound as he does so.
"My Abigail" he could have been her lover with the sickly saccharine way he spoke to her now, his foreign accent articulating the words both drawling and tender.
"Hannibal, I'm not ready to die." Abigail replies simply.
With a new boldness, Abigail lunges for Lecter, attacking him with her mouth, she prays with every fiber of her being that he will respond to her. Anything just anything other than indifference. A naïve child inside her pleads that maybe he will change his mind, if only she could convince him. If only, if only.
She had never been confident like this with anyone before, he would probably laugh at her. She tries to be passionate. God is it even possible to be alluring in a situation like this? She didn't think so. And with a man like Hannibal Lecter no less.
He allows her to kiss him. He opens his still bloodstained mouth for her tongue that she is inexperienced at using. Always inexperienced. That's why she was in the position she was in, for not knowing enough, for being left alone in the dark with her father's phantom, her mother's lifeless body bleeding on the front step, and all the girls she had lured to violent ends. She would join them all soon, no matter what she tried in order to prevent it. Of this she was sure.
Lecter pulls away from the kiss after a few moments unphased.
"That is enough now, Abigail" he says, the hope draining from her eyes "Now, allow me to continue on with what we're here for..."
He grabs Abigail by the waist and throws her down on the tile floor, in the same spot where he had first laid eyes on her, wreathing in a pool of her own blood. She tries to get up, but he pushes her down hard, scalpel at the ready.
"Hannibal!" She makes a point to use his name, believing it will somehow make a difference. "Hannibal, I am not ready to die! I'm not ready!"
She says it over and over and over. For so long she had thought she would have been ready. She had contemplated suicide. It would have been so easy to get a bottle of pills. Abigail was good at being a sneak, she could have knicked them, taken a whole bottle, and have gone to sleep one night and never woken up.
Yet here she was in the middle of a living nightmare.
"Try to be still, my dear"
"Hannibal!"She shouts his name again and again and again and again.
The pain is unbearable and unnerving as the scalpel cuts, blood pours from the side of her head, her equilibrium is totally off kilter, and her own screams seem almost other worldly. His voice seems other worldly.
Abigail sobs. Hannibal brings his mouth to the bleeding hole where her ear had once been.
"I'm not ready to die, Hannibal! I'm not ready to die!" she pleads.
"Shhh shhh shhhh" he whispers "My sweet, Abigail..."
He licks blood from the side of her ear as she moans and cries out in pain and then he rises to stand above her.
There was more blood now than there had been their first meeting, a large pool of crimson surrounding her raven hair. Delicate, like some kind of Ophelia-like nymph, she lies drowning in her own shallow red lake. Her legs flail as she feverishly attempts to swim. She doesn't want to drown. God, she doesn't want to drown.
"Hannibal..."she whispers through her pert bleeding lips.
Hannibal Lecter smiles.
"Don't worry, my dear. You're too beautiful to waste..."