Author's Note: A little short (like, 1/3 my usual), I know. But I would rather give ya'll something rather than nothing. Finals and such are over for me, but ya'll still need cheering! So enjoy my huge, throbbing cliffhanger. :)
"Will!" cried Maryann alarmedly, stiffening in Gideon's lap. She insistently fisted her captor's pants leg, casting a wild look over her shoulder. "Let me go! Will is - "
"Maryann!" Hannibal said sharply, rising. The doctor's eyes stung her to teary silence before flickering to Gideon's in perfunctory promise.
Gideon nodded once, detached amusement curling his lips as he recognized a new form of entertainment.
Will was shaking like he was being electrocuted, eyelids haphazardly fluttering under a sheen of sweat, by the time Hannibal crossed the room. He grasped Will by his scruffy jaw with both hands, peering under the frantic lids for Will's eyes. "Will? Can you hear me?" he asked with a doctor's clinical crispness.
Maryann exhaled a tiny, terrified sob. Will continued to seize and jerk for a full minute, and Maryann mirrored the occasional stilted motion, causing fresh blood to course down her décolleté. It didn't halt her sympathetic flinches as her friend's baking brain took its toll.
Hannibal monitored Will's pulse and various other vitals through the episode, and when his friend finally drew to exhausted stillness, Hannibal gently thumbed back his fallen eyelids and declared meditatively, "He's had a mild seizure."
"You don't seem that worried," commented Gideon.
Hannibal turned around again, resettling his maroon pits on Maryann. "I said it was mild."
As Hannibal languidly strode to retake his seat, it prompted a disbelieving and torn noise from the hostage gardener. "You can't just leave him like that!" she exclaimed, shifting in her living seat. "He needs help!"
"Who better than two doctors?" grinned Gideon, pulling her back against his chest like a fish on a line. "Well, ex-doctors."
"Hannibal," pleaded the pinioned woman beseechingly. "Please, do something!" She was rewarded by an aloof stare from across the table from one monster and a throaty chuckle from the second.
Hannibal was waiting for something, it seemed. Maryann could see it in his eyes: the same look of intense interest he had when he was looking at the growing garden with her. What could he possibly be waiting for?! Maryann thought desperately. A written invitation?!
Then it occurred to her... maybe he was.
"Now," Gideon continued conversationally. "Before we were so rudely interrupted..."
You don't know the meaning of the word, Hannibal internally sneered.
"...you asked me a question, Doctor Lecter."
Hannibal steepled his fingers, peering over them at the tensely splayed limbs of his gardener as she lounged on her murderous throne. The poor thing was still struggling with where to put her hands: caught between trying not to touch her captor and trying not to imply dissidence. It amused him to find her so uncomfortable, but also jealously angered him with Gideon.
"If you will allow me to hazard a guess," Hannibal replied. "And a presumptuous opinion of your motivations..."
Gideon half-shrugged in obeisance to the doctor, coupled with a mocking laugh. "Presumptuous, it would be! But who am I to deny a master his canvas?"
Hannibal smiled.
Oh, you asshole, Maryann grumbled in her mind as Hannibal smiled at her. She inhaled to steel herself for the singly most dangerous, risky, and crazed undertaking of her life. She'd either come out of this alive, or... it didn't bear thinking about. She only prayed the psychologist across the table was married to the idea of keeping her around for a while longer.
Because, in the amount of time she'd been given the clarity of mind a knife to her throat granted, Maryann had come to several conclusions. One, Hannibal was a monster. She'd suspected as much upon seeing his demeanor so markedly different after Tobias' attack. And now, having witnessed him the farthest thing from the cordial and even kind man she'd come to know, Maryann was convinced: Hannibal was the suit- and civility-wrapped version of the ramshackle Gideon.
Or worse. But, again, that didn't bear thinking about.
Two: Hannibal was, in fact, interested in her alive. It might be for skin-crawling and scream-worthy reasons (that also didn't bear thinking about), but at the moment, it was the only real thing standing between Maryann and a panpipe for a trachea.
Three: with all the delaying, the subtle pushing, the tiny stresses, maddening conversation, and contrived dignity of this situation, Hannibal was driving at something.
And that something was Maryann. And ironically, she'd been the one to ask for his help in facing her fears! Be careful what you wish for...
"You know, Hannibal," Maryann interrupted, eyes flashing. "You invited me to your home. I allowed you to convince me despite my issues with the idea."
"Myriad those issues are," Gideon mumbled with humor. But no knifestroke accompanied his words. Maryann was braced for it but glad it didn't come. She was right: Gideon was delighted to see some drama, after so long in the clink.
"Is this how you treat your guests?" Maryann charged her tacit host.
Surprised, Hannibal raised an eyebrow, as though allowing the feminine tantrum leave to carry on. He was catching on quickly, then.
Against her back, Maryann felt Gideon snicker.
"You allow them to be assaulted and held hostage by psychopaths?" Maryann cast a wince over her shoulder at said psychopath. "No offense. You know it, I know it, we all know you're a psychopath."
"Astute observation," Gideon replied dryly. "And not the first to say as much. No offense taken."
"Not only that," Maryann blustered on, warming to her anger. "You watch your friend suffer a medical emergency and then refuse to get him aid? You are a unique and special kind of rude, Doctor Lecter!"
Now Hannibal's eyes were narrowing. Apparently, 'rude' was a trigger word for him. Too damn bad.
"I'd like to offer you a chance to remediate this offensive series of events," Maryann continued, eyes glinting with cold fire. She poured every ounce of snarl into the words. "Get me off this guy's lap. I'm sick of feeling his erection."
Hannibal's smirk had grown over her speech, a sort of dark pride rising as he observed her meet his challenge. At her final words, he launched himself across the table.