Author's Note: Backing up a wee bit here, to recover some plot I forgot to inject. It's good, I promise. :)
Abel Gideon escapes from custody. He begins to systematically target the psychiatrists who attempted to treat him, choosing to rip their ineffective tongues out through their throats in a Columbian necktie.
Hannibal loathes Gideon for his charlatan displays of imitation, for pretending to be him, but the Columbian treatment? A fitting touch, he must grudgingly admit. Wagging tongues grimly displayed as the ill-used tools they were.
Hannibal understands his copycat as a psychiatrist and murderer himself, easily fathoms his intentions, and effortlessly ducks the attempts by the poser to draw him out. During his treatment at the myriad hands of inept therapists, Gideon's mind was stretched like a piece of soft taffy, thinning down to nothing until his sweet chewy sanity broke under the strain. Now, the imitator was careening in the wake of the truth. He knew he wasn't the Ripper so long as the real Ripper lived. So the insane man conspired to lure out his namesake.
It would be flattering if it weren't so insulting. Gideon exulted in the brutal for brutality's sake: Hannibal elevated killing to function art. In addition, Hannibal had a dinner with his gardener to prepare for. The imitator had to be dealt with, so the cannibal would have to orchestrate his perfect meal and his perfect collusion simultaneously.
When Doctor Frederick Chilton is kidnapped, Hannibal knows how to direct the flailing man in his favor like he knows when to add more salt. His plan will not only discredit Gideon as the Ripper, it will assist Will Graham (which Hannibal considers the crispy sugar on the crème brulee, so to speak: Will is his friend, is he not?). Hannibal severs the right arm of one of Gideon's dead psychiatrists as a message to the FBI; specifically, to Jack Crawford.
Jack feels the ghost of Miriam Lass breathe down his neck, and knows exactly where to find Gideon.
Satisfied, Hannibal goes home and prepares the remainder of the meal for his dinner with Maryann.
The phone in the kitchen warbled, but Hannibal was studiously watching the gnocchi roil in the simmering pot, and lets it roll to voicemail.
Beep! "Hannibal, it's Jack."
The cannibal rolled his eyes to the ceiling and ladled out a few cooked puffs. Jack was only going to tell him what he already knew.
"Abel Gideon has escaped from custody, and has been targeting the psychiatrists who treated him." There is the faint sound of an ambulance siren in the background. "He forced Freddie Lounds to watch him dismember Doctor Chilton. Lounds says he was making a gift basket for the Ripper. Gideon left all the man's organs in his own hands." Jack paused for a moment, presumably to cover the mouthpiece and bark an order to the ambulance. "He saw us coming, Hannibal."
That was fortuitous happenstance, but not really Hannibal's problem.
"Doctor Bloom is the only one left on Gideon's list, and she's under protective custody at her home. But now Will is missing, and with Gideon loose, I have a bad feeling. Call me when you get this, or if you see Will." He hung up.
Hannibal dusted another round of gnocchi in flour and dropped them into the pot, considering. Will was undoubtedly roaming the Virginia countryside, following his hallucinations, and Gideon was probably sitting on a police radio to find out where Alana was being protected.
Not my circus, not my monkeys, Hannibal thought, capturing the floating puffs. But the gift basket was kindly.
The doorbell rang as Hannibal pulled the fragrant roast from the oven, and never before had the sound brought such delectable anticipation to the cannibal. He was rather excited by the night's potential course. This was fulfillment of all his most base pleasures: food, manipulation, domination, sex if he could manage it.
He was momentarily brought to smiling by the last. Would he be fucking his little gardener tonight? His meals had an inspirational history. It would be more than a simple puppeteer's string on Maryann: it would be a noose around her neck, a leash by which Hannibal could further control her.
It might be jumping the gun, seeing as insinuating himself into her mind before her body was most prudent, but if he had the chance, Hannibal would certainly take it. She may have had no real ties to the FBI, his cannibalistic alter-ego, or any of the plans attached, but oh, she was sweeter than the honey she cajoled, and more delicate than the blossoms she tended. Really, how could beast or man resist?
Fucking her, eating her, sinking his claws into her psyche... one at a time, the ideas were reasonable. Any combination thereof was simply decadent.
With one last check of his flawless attire in the entryway hall, Hannibal reached for the knob.
As he twisted open the door, he automatically brought a hand to chest-level to catch the undoubtedly descending fist of his gardener, as per her habit. A chill elation drifted up from the fathoms of Hannibal's mind.
Maryann never rang the doorbell.
Hannibal had enough time to compose himself to steel and stone wrapped in sociability, to cloak himself thinly in his beast. Elimination gave him a good idea who it was within a microsecond, but he entertained being incorrect.
This intruder may not know that, during dinnertime, this was hallowed ground at a sacred moon. If their usefulness in Hannibal's future strivings outweighed their rudeness, he would turn them away. And if not...
Damn whoever was standing there: they would receive the full brunt of his despising sneer and the feel of his manicured hands around their neck. Just before the door swung wide, Hannibal decided that he needed some fresh lungs for his freezer. Still-inhaling fresh.
But with a single deductive sniff, Hannibal knew this option would evade him.
There stood the most unusual trio ever to grace his porch, and decidedly, a cataclysmic conflict of purposes that gave even his beast pause.
Will Graham looked for all the world like his mind was in orbit around Pluto, as innocuous as a distant star, and covered in sweat and the stench of encephalitis.
Maryann Shule was wide-eyed and trembling beside him, with a knife indenting her throat. "Hannibal," she whimpered, apology and fright kneaded together like the soured bread dough smell that rolled off her.
Abel Gideon, the owner of the knife, stood with a merry grin on his toadlike face. Found you, his expression said. You weren't expecting me to come to you, were you? He smelled of bleach and blood.
The two murderous parties stood stock still for a long moment, eyeing each other critically over the shoulders of their shared (stolen! Hannibal's beast snarled) victims like the two predators they were. Lion and hyena squared off over their prize.
Maryann had her hands clenched tightly in the fabric of her sumptuously tied infinity dress. Off one tanned shoulder, in a high-low style, and knotted at the waist, it was the same shade as her neurotic gaze. Though her eyes were normally a serene pine, Hannibal noted that they lightened under duress to the sickly verdance of a tornado's birthing.
Gideon took a deep whiff of the air, his smile widening as the scent of Hannibal's special meal drifted outside. "Well," he drawled. "That explains the dress on this one." He sounded just the slightest bit relieved, as though he'd debated which of the two victims to put a knife to.
"Gideon," Hannibal greeted frigidly. When the maneater brought the full measure of his beast to bear, he wasn't hiding a single nuance of his dominant nature. His posture had shifted to full imposing stature, seeming to grow in bulk and heft. His neutral expression was as inscrutable as the Mona Lisa's, but the same inscrutability that granted the artist's model poise and benevolence resettled itself across Hannibal's features in a fashion decidedly malevolent. The very air changed texture around his beast: turning thicker with clotting fear and deep-seated ancestral instinct of eras gone by. He was an infernal demon wearing a man's body, a dire wolf slavering in a cave, a velociraptor couching its claws for a dash. He was the apex, the ultimatum, the call to creation's bluff that no thing born of it held enough power to completely obliterate it.
Hannibal realized that Maryann was meeting his beast for the second time, and studied her reaction with intrigue. Picking her apart through the eyes was akin to ophthalmological laser surgery without the anesthetic dilution of his mask, and it brought a subtle flinch from her. The repression made him loathe the knife holder ever more for denying him full revelry in her fright.
It was such a shame that Maryann's reaction to Hannibal's inner self was marred by her reaction to another's inferiority complex. Gideon was eyeing Hannibal with great care, knowing he had the upper hand for the moment, but that the second he lost it, the beast would strike mercilessly.
Maryann seemed to be weighing her chances: the devil she more or less knew gazing at her with dispassionate maroon eyes, or the devil she did not holding a blade to her jugular. Which would possibly let her walk away? When her eyes flickered to the unresponsive Will, Hannibal watched her mentally add him to this equation, and deflate at the imbalance. Could she assure her own safety as well as her friend's?
But what she had yet to discern was that Hannibal's beast and the man with the knife were on the same page: one of them simply had more invested in her. Little did she know she walked a razor's edge between two killers: one who had no qualms with mutilating and/or killing her, and the other who might enjoy watching and participating too much to stop it.
Surprising most of all, though, was that somewhere in those kelly depths, Hannibal also saw concern for his safety. Although he found the sentiment endearing, both man and beast scoffed at the thought. Gideon was an abject fool if he thought bringing their dance to Hannibal's own castle along with, arguably, the two people the cannibal most cared for, was an intelligent move.
Hannibal couldn't wait to prove it. In graphic detail.
"I hope you don't mind setting a table for two more," Gideon continued, the knife against Maryann's throat shifting infinitesimally. She gave a falsetto grunt as a bead of blood ran down the blade.
Will's eyelids twitched at halfmast over restless orbs.
Hannibal took stock. "Of course not. Come in," he replied, tightness giving way to grandiosity as he stepped off the threshold. "I would love to have you for dinner." Only Maryann recognized the glint in Hannibal's eye intimately, if not the innuendo, and it drew a surreptitious shiver from her.
Gideon gave Will an almost friendly directive push with his hand, sending the FBI consultant gliding forward on dream-steady legs. Hannibal watched the sweaty man go, with laughably autonomous habit, towards the dining room. He'd trained Will well.
Maryann, however, posed more of a problem.
"Walk," commanded Gideon lazily.
The woman locked eyes with Hannibal, horror befalling her but finding only sardonic placidity in reply. "I can't," she replied.
"Are you going to make me slice you open here?" queried the psychopath curiously. "I don't mind."
"I can't," Maryann emphasized, pleading in her tone.
The beast in Hannibal withdrew enough for him to come to Maryann's aid. He interjected, "She has a phobia of strange houses that refuses to let her enter." In response to Gideon's appraising gaze, Hannibal elaborated, "She's my patient, of sorts."
"Of sorts," repeated the cutter. He chuckled, "Dating a patient, Doctor? Kinda bucolic for you, isn't it?"
Hannibal didn't contradict him, and the fact brought a hint of surprised delight to Maryann's eyes like the sun breaking through clouds. Surreptitiously, Hannibal cocked his head as thought to say, Surely you knew?
Maryann's lips parted faintly. I guessed, but didn't dare hope.
Leaning into Maryann's ear and bringing the tacit conversation to an end, Gideon murmured sensuously, "Last chance, sweetheart: walk or be dragged."
"Please, I can't do it!" Maryann insisted, babbling, a fever pitch to her terror.
The impasse was reached. Gideon's eyes landed on the back of Maryann's head, and he seemed to come to a decision. With lightening quickness, he landed knuckles to her skull, snaking a hand around her torso and reapplying the knife before she collapsed.
Although Hannibal might have made his move at that moment, he dared not risk Maryann. Having a grasp of Gideon's tendency to blab secrets Hannibal wasn't ready to share, Hannibal deemed it wiser to have the listening ears momentarily deafened while he and the killer exchanged pleasantries.
He was already calculating.
"After you," Gideon said courteously to the cannibal, nodding towards the house.
Hannibal retreated into the house and jealously watched Gideon drag the limp Maryann inside, footing the door shut gracelessly behind him. "I saw the FBI coming," Gideon said conversationally, pulling the gardener with some awkward effort but no less enthusiasm.
"I assumed as much," Hannibal replied drily. "Or you would not be here."
Gideon nodded at Will's retreating back. "You know your friend has acute encephalitis, right?"
"Of course," Hannibal said placidly. "I'm overseeing his treatment."
"Or lack thereof," Gideon surmised knowingly. "He had an episode of some sort as I was making my getaway. Does he fritz out like that often?"
"Quite. His mental status has deteriorated with the increase of the fever. He was not exactly stable to begin with."
"They're so suggestible in that state, aren't they? I encouraged him to lead me to you. The arm was a nice touch, by the by," Gideon continued, hauling Maryann through the foyer.
The cannibal followed at a sedate, stalking pace. "So was the gift basket."
Gideon fairly preened at that, choking his arm up under Maryann's breasts. "I was hoping you would understand. Chilton is only good for spilling his own guts, despite his attempts to get me to do so." He chuckled darkly.
They entered the dining room with its imposingly long, heavy table set for two. Will stood loose and entranced close to the wall, still lost behind his retinas, staring into space.
Hannibal hoped he could dispatch Gideon in one way, shape, or form before Will came back to himself. It wouldn't do to have to kill his friend before his time.
Gideon's dragging of the unconscious gardener's heels over the lush carpet removed one of her shoes: the one on the scarred foot. He stooped to pick it up as Gideon flopped into the chair at the head of the table, bringing Maryann to rest in his lap like an unstrung marionette.
Hannibal moderated his fury to a cold burn at the lack of propriety. How rude to take liberties with an unconscious woman. "May I?" he asked, holding the shoe up for inspection. He didn't like the idea of his prey's weaknesses bared to another predator.
Gideon shifted the knife held to Maryann's neck so that the chandelier light glinted off it into Hannibal's face: a mocking reminder of his momentary power. "No." His grin was unabashed. "I want to know the story behind that when she wakes up." He toed the woman's scarred foot into the light, his prison-shoed instep caressing hers like a lover's game under a table.
Hannibal was getting more and more angry at this imposter's treatment of things that belonged to him. First his murderous identity, then taking advantage of Will, and now traumatizing Maryann! Only Hannibal was allowed to bruise that sweet fruit.
Gideon was prodding at him, feeling him out. He had something he wanted, but was content to simply annoy Hannibal for the time being. It was working.
A modicum of patience was required. The cannibal set the shoe down on the table, considering it. It was a dressy ankle boot, and it brought a faint smile to Hannibal's lips. Maryann would never wear peek-toe shoes or sandals, but she'd dressed up for him.
"What's for dinner?" Gideon asked, breaking Hannibal's reverie.
"Roast with apples and fennel," Hannibal replied shortly. He would not give the intruder courses unless explicitly bade. Rude guests were treated to rude meals.
"I assume it's fork-tender?"
"Yes."
Gideon licked his lips. "Bring it out. No carving tools except two spoons."
Hannibal was comfortable enough to do so. Will would not upset the balance of the situation, and neither would the gardener, for the moment. And even if they did rock the boat and get themselves hurt by Gideon, Hannibal would not be remiss. He was, as ever, a self-preserver.
And yet, he wasn't through with Will or Maryann yet. They were incomplete recipes, unfinished sonatas, immature plants.
As Hannibal plated the roast, he decided he would not toss either of his playthings away just to be rid of Gideon. So, the cannibal would play the game to the finish. The decision gave rise to a few artful sprigs of herbs, cut earlier that day for the purpose. Maryann would see them when she regained consciousness, and that was reason enough.
"Et viola," he said with a habitual flourish, placing the laden platter four feet from Gideon. Hannibal brought the two spoons to bear on the meat, holding back a grimace at the mistreatment of his choice entrée, but served a large portion to the knife holder with a polite, "Bon appetit."
Gideon plucked a pinch of meat to his mouth, forgoing flatware, and gave an enamored moan.
Maryann echoed the sound in such a way that brought a flush of sensational goosebumps to Hannibal's broad back.
"Ah," Gideon said lightly, his renewed grip on the knife a harsh counterpoint to his tone. "The beauty awakens."
Maryann's eyes opened sluggishly, frowning with pain at the bump on the back of her head. She absorbed the change in scenery, but managed to keep her voice drily humorous when she said, "You have a lovely home, Hannibal. Thank you for inviting me. Although, you might have employed a less painful method to get me inside."
Hannibal chuckled mirthlessly in the timbre of his beast as Gideon spoke up, "That would be my machinations, dear…?"
Maryann looked to Hannibal, and the acknowledgement that he was actually the one in charge sent a roaring heat through the cannibal. She believed Hannibal would see her through this encounter unscathed. How naïve and adorable. He nodded.
"Maryann," she replied, choking back a whimper as the knife bit a hair deeper into her neck.
"Maryann," cooed the cutter, forcing her head back to his shoulder. "What brings you to the Doctor's home tonight?"
The gardener swallowed, throat flexing as her head canted. "He invited me to dinner."
Gideon snapped, "Don't play coy with me. Why would you risk your phobia for him?"
Maryann's eyes drifted to Hannibal's. She did not shudder this time. "He's helping me work through that phobia," she elaborated. But she spoke about Hannibal as though he wasn't in the room.
In a way, Hannibal wasn't. The thing shining out of his maroon eyes certainly wasn't a man.
"And how did you two lovebirds meet?" asked Gideon conversationally, chewing more roast.
"I'm his gardener."
Gideon swallowed quickly to chortle, "Was that your handiwork I saw on the way in?" He flashed a grin to Hannibal. "Some talent with your hands, there."
The cannibal began to silently count the organs he would deign to eat from the cutter.
"But how does a sweet little thing like you," Gideon drawled. "Come by something so nasty as that?" He indicated her scarred foot with a light kick of his own.
Maryann paled, just then noticing her bare toes. The bravado faded from her.
Hannibal watched her consider her thorny choices, and reveled in the drawn look on her face. She was just as reluctant to divest the root of her issues with a knife to her neck as without. An insane, homicidal ex-medical doctor forcing her to relive her past traumas instead of a psychiatrist conducting incisive therapy was like bringing a hacksaw to a surgery.
Hannibal was loathe to let Gideon spoil his chance at his manipulative brand of treatment, but could do nothing to stop it. The execution would be lacking, but the result would be the same.
Gideon gave a jeering pat to Maryann's leg, making her jump and leaving a smear of meat juices on the fabric. "While you work up to that, Hannibal will bring us more food. You'll be ready to talk by the time he comes back." Gideon adjusted the blade so that the point balanced on the soft crook under Maryann's jaw. "Won't you?"
Maryann stifled a sob, exposed toes curling as though to clutch back the overwhelmingly obvious choice.
Hannibal faded back into the kitchen, and began to plate the rest of the meal. Food was usually brought to informal shows, was it not?