"When engaged in eating, the brain should be the servant of the stomach."

~Agatha Christie


It was two weeks later when Miss Rigby returned with her apparent favorite desert ever: pudding.

This was not regular pudding, though. This was chocolate pudding, made from scratch and made with love. Flossie had met someone and from what Dr. Lecter understood, things were getting, "pretty serious," between them. She was reluctant to tell the good doctor his name, but she eventually gave in, grinning like a schoolgirl as she blurted out, "Leland!"

Hannibal wondered how someone could know another for such a short amount of time and be so ridiculously obsessed with them. Love on such a level as this was something he didn't predict he would ever fully comprehend. Not that he wanted to.

The doctor suspected Flossie was indeed getting better and she had mentioned a couple of times that she was thinking of ending her sessions with him pretty soon. Hannibal was unsure about this, however Flossie seems to be fluctuating between very different moods. This Thursday everything was fine and dandy and she had the love of her life, Leland, but not two weeks ago Miss Rigby didn't know how she could go on anymore. The lady was quite unstable and needed even a little stability in her life, which he believed her weekly morning appointments could provide. He told her this as gently as possible, and as anticipated, Flossie agreed. She would keep coming, which this meant she would keep bringing Hannibal food.

Chocolate was among Dr. Lecter's guilty pleasures. It was the one thing he would never, ever get sick of eating. (Besides human organs, ahem.) Pudding was a different story, however. He has had it on occasion, though he cannot exactly recall when or why. That's the kind of impression it left on him; pudding was nothing too special.

Hannibal found himself in a bit of a predicament at this point. Was having the epitome of deliciousness, also known as chocolate, worth it if it was in pudding form?

Of course it was.

Much like last time, Hannibal was clearly skeptical upon the first bite. He didn't really bother sniffing at it this time around, for he could smell chocolate miles away and that made him unbelievably happy. Anyway...

It was chocolaty but not overly heavy, indulgent but not too rich. Basically, the pudding was the kind of thing you'd want to eat with the love of your life, Flossie's Leland. He could tell she put a lot of effort into the desert, and he appreciated people who were as ambitious as Florence Rigby.

Though the pudding was far better than Dr. Lecter thought it would be, it left him with a sort of melancholy feeling, something he was unable to properly explain. He had a sneaking suspicion Flossie's happiness was not going to last long.