Author's Note: I'd rather keep the fires going by giving you guys this mini-chapter than lose you completely. Just bear with me. I finally found a free source for season two, which had been my major hold-up, so expect the writing to come a little more frequently now. :)
So this pretty much wraps up season 1.
After courteously aiding the dumb Maryann into his luxury sedan, Hannibal managed to get a muttered, "I'm bum-winged, not limping, Hannibal."
The cannibal's smile flickered. Even stunned by Will's arrest, the gardener protested his chivalry: the feeblest pushes against his nature belying their intended power, were she not so stunned. He expected nothing less.
As he slid into the driver's seat, he eyed Maryann's pensive pout in profile. He put a hand on her knobby knee. "Do you want to go home?" He meant with intention to stay.
Maryann covered his hand with her own, squeezing cold fingers around warm. "Yes," she said softly, still deep in contemplation. Then, realizing his sentiment, she amended, "To pack a bag, that is."
Hannibal nodded, starting the keyless ignition. Pulling free of the congested lot took several minutes, during which time he regarded his silent gardener out of the corner of his eye. She looked sightlessly ahead, undoubtedly roiling in the same tumult of emotion he was, albeit on a grander scale.
Just as they passed the final emergency room sign, Maryann gave a quiet chuckle. She repeated it, a little more animatedly, tipping her head back against the cushion.
Hannibal made an inquisitive noise.
"Don't think I didn't notice," she chuckled. "I did."
"You'll have to be more specific," commented Hannibal dryly.
She smirked over at him, acknowledging the statement as utterly true. "You got my agreement for cohabitation before you told me about Will. Smart, Hannibal. Wicked smart."
Hannibal mirrored her smirk with a slightly darker edge. To think she could fathom his sinister self so quickly upon embarking its stony face was naiveté. By the time she realized her foolhardiness, it would be far too late.
Maryann swept into her house like a queen into her castle, and her cats immediately swarmed her, meowing piteously. "Alright, alright, keep your whiskers on!" she laughed as they ran ahead into the kitchen. Hannibal lagged behind and listened to her chatter at the felines, scooping the dry mix into their bowls. There was a pause laden with soft cruching, then a baleful hiss.
"Ouch!" yelped Maryann, drawing Hannibal into the kitchen curiously. "Well, I finally managed to touch Jinx," said the gardener wryly. "For exactly two seconds."
"How will they fare in your absence?" Hannibal asked pointedly.
"During one of my longer trips out of state to 'scape a governor's mansion," Maryann said breezily. "I invested in a mechanical feeder. They have a cat door. They favor the koi pond over their water bowl. And it's not like they're going to miss socializing with me, anyway." She brandished her thrice-striped hand, which was unhurriedly trickling down her index finger.
Hannibal captured the scratched hand, unable to resist muddling the bright blood over the tan skin. "You're just banking up the injuries."
Her eyes twinkled at him over her red-smeared knuckles, inquisitive, testing. "Funny how that keeps happening."
The cannibal's eyes shadowed. Cheek, from prey? Just because he spared her - for the moment, he might add - did not mean she was absolved from even so trifling rudeness.
Before she had time to react to the shifted tides in his expression, Hannibal scooped her by the small of the back into his body, letting the full brunt of his towering frame come to bear on her.
Prey, even momentarily pardoned prey, needed reminding of their place.
Maryann's breath hitched as Hannibal's personality flipped. She knew too late that her teasing had upset the delicate balance. Still, it did not stop the roiling surge of heat that flooded her veins as his frame pressed against hers. Fear and feral lust thrilled her, low in her belly as his maroon gaze locked onto hers.
Hannibal observed her with that same lazy intent: sleeping lion's posture and raptor's eyes. He saw the bloom of pink in her cheeks and lips, the momentary glaze of her eyes as her body betrayed itself to his. It caught him off guard.
The hunger in him changed direction as suddenly as monsoon winds, ripping sail and hitching in the lash. The whip was so complete and unprecedented, Hannibal was taken by its ambush and overwhelmed.
Capsized, he melded their lips together. Maryann did not hold back her whimper of want.
Taking on water, he found his hands skating her shoulders, her back, spanning her waist. He flexed his fingers into the muscles there, thumbs crowning her navel, and received a sharp intake of breath in reward.
Sinking below the tongues of the sea (and Maryann's, too), he lifted and set the gardener on the edge of her countertop, where she could pull him closer with athletic legs.
Sharp pricks on the back of Hannibal's calf caused his unpleasant resurfacing. He jerked around to find Jinx drawing back, spine arched and fur bristled.
"Jinx!" scolded Maryann from kiss-bitten and breathless lips. Hannibal's whirl allowed her enough room to leap from the countertop in pursuit of the black cat as it vacated their presence through the cat door.
Maryann opened the proper door and yelled what sounded like explicit Spanish, too fast for Hannibal to decipher. Gingerly, Hannibal rolled his pants leg up to find a series of pinpricks in his calf, barely bleeding. "It's nothing," he assured the gardener as she slammed the door and approached him apologetically.
"I am so sorry," she said. "Do you want a first aid kit?"
Hannibal shook his head. "Not worth the alcohol swab." Heaven knew, he'd had blood on him before.
Maryann rubbed her forehead, the aftermath of de-escalation evident in her frown. "He's never done that before."
"I believe that Jinx was being protective of you," supplied Hannibal.
Maryann snorted. "He's got a funny way of showing it." She kept her face hidden by her hand until Hannibal extracted her visage gently.
"You are embarrassed," he surmised. "Not about your pet's behavior."
She swallowed, shifted her hand to the back of her neck. "I never get swept away like that," she murmured. "It's not like me."
Hannibal's lips quirked. "Nor I." No, he was much more deliberate in his seductions. They were planned carefully from doorbell to bedpost, much like his famous cooking. Maryann posed a quandary Hannibal usually only found in delectable table stuffs: all in one bite, or in careful pieces. Ettiquite versus eagerness. The goose that laid golden eggs... He thumbed Maryann's cheek. "But that bodes well, no?"
A slow smile pulled to life under his thumb. "I suppose so." She readjusted the lay of his tie, presumably righting her own hands' wrongs. "I, uh, I think I should say something. I, uh... don't believe in starting things and not finishing them."
Hannibal leaned in to pick up where they left off, but was met by cold, gentle fingertips on his mouth.
"No, no," she huffed a laugh. "I think this one's well and truly gone. But, um, in the future, provided there aren't any psycho cats in the room, maybe we could - you know. I don't want you to think I'm a tease - "
Hannibal terminated her attempt at diplomacy by sucking her index finger into his mouth. The blood from the cat scratch whetted his appetite where the source had lapsed. Those few metallic and salty-sweet drops inspired a reverence in him that was given life by soft lashes of his tongue, and a fierce craving that caused his teeth to prevent the finger's escape until he was well and truly satisfied.
He was loathe to let a meal go half-eaten.
Maryann's eyes were heated when he allowed her to have her digit back. "I, too, do not like to start things without finishing them," he informed her.
Her shiver was appetizing, like the juicy spray of a grapefruit ripped into hemispheres.
She drove her truck behind him, burdened with various tools of her trade, as well as two paltry bags. Hannibal had anticipated more than two, but then, he was judging Maryann by another woman's standards. Maryann seemed to put less stock in physical possessions than others, and Hannibal found them decently matched in that area. Just because he enjoyed luxuries, did not mean he was hindered by having them. His house could burn to the ground tomorrow, and the only thing he would truly mourn would be the hard-won contents of his refrigerator.
As lunch had passed, that afternoon saw them sharing a light meal of roasted winter greens with balsamic vinegar for her, 'prosciutto'-wrapped wedges of sweet potato for him, and a soft blush wine. Ever the gentleman, Hannibal proposed to set Maryann up comfortably in the guest suite; a pretense Hannibal allowed with only some minor internal grumbling. Despite the deeply physical magnetization between he and the gardener, he felt it prudent to let Maryann set the pace.
She must maintain her own choice, he thought as he brought her two bags in, following her backside up the stairs. So that, when she looks back, she may only see where and what her own decisions have brought her.
"First room on the left, Maryann," he said.
She twisted the knob with her good hand, and stepped into the bedroom. Her posture changed from unknowing to delight as she took in the large windows and the elegant four-posted bed with a tulle canopy dressing its iron bones. The room was a palette of gray and blue, which was the most Hannibal would foray into a color scheme beyond black, brown, red, or navy.
"I really like this room," Maryann told him with quiet awe.
"Of all, I thought you might," Hannibal said, putting the bags down. "You will find the bathroom fully furnished, and spare amenities in the closet."
"Thank you," Maryann replied. She sounded weary. "Would it break your heart if the palace tour waited? I'm tuckered."
"Not at all," Hannibal responded. "And my home is not a palace in the sense of being stilted. Please, feel free to go where you wish. Read, eat, and wander as you will."
"I might do that," the gardener yawned demurely. "After a nap."
"The singular rule I have," continued Hannibal with a hint of sternness that made Maryann take notice. "Is that no guest may cook in my house without my permission. I am host, therefore, I am provider."
She nodded solemnly. "I understand." A dimple appeared. "It's not like you'll have to - ahem - twist my arm." She shallowly flapped the arm connected to her injured breast.
Hannibal thumbed her cheek, as he was finding habit in doing. "Then I bid you pleasant dreams. I must leave for a few hours."
"Where you goin'?"
"Jack Crawford texted, and requested my consultation."
Maryann yawned again. "What for?"
Hannibal hesitated. He did not want to tell Maryann that Will was at large, having highjacked his own medical transport. "You might find the content of such a consult disturbing," warned the cannibal, as though he desired not to disturb, disrupt, and contort the gardener.
She granted him a laden look. "As I am sure your psychiatrist's mind has already figured out, I am disturbed enough of my own accord. A bit more, in the interest of becoming closer, won't hurt me."
Are you so sure, little gardener? Hannibal thought as he left her settling into the window seat with a blanket. Before he had left the room she was snoring softly.
The effects of modern pain narcotics, particularly when ground up into food and drink, were remarkable.
Hannibal, Alana, and Crawford all took a seat at the hasty meeting: the doctors in their capacity, and the officer of the law in his. How effectively they might perform in those capacities in light of their connections to Will would be debatable. But then, few would know Will better.
At the presentation of the distortedly drawn clock by Alana, Hannibal retrieved his own piece of line art from Will's hand. When the female doctor suggested encephalitis as being the cause for the difference between the two drawings, Hannibal could not hold back the momentary cold glint in his eye. Alana, too enthralled by the thought of her friend's potential case for involuntary manslaughter, missed it.
Hannibal retired to his study and pulled an old Shakespeare tome from his shelf to read. He passed his bookmark no more than a few pages when he sensed he was not alone.
A few moments of deep, questing inhales through his nose indicated a scent of dirt, fear, pain, smog, and prison-grade detergent.
Hannibal turned to address the gargoyle perched amidst his balcony shelves. "Hello, Will," he greeted evenly. "How are you feeling?"
Will replied, just as evenly, "Self-aware."
"You frightened Alana Bloom."
"She was confused about who I am."
Hannibal was enticed by the prospect of sowing more confusion and self-doubt. How gleeful he was inside, that his favorite plaything had returned! His hypothetical scenarios pervaded Will's staunch insistence of knowing who he was, shot it through with black cords of doubt.
"Take me to Minnesota."
Hannibal inwardly smiled. He knew the gardener upstairs was dead to the world until morning.
By the time the FBI realized Hannibal and Will were travelling to Minnesota, Crawford was scrambling. He swung into Dr. Bedelia's practice, Alana at his heels, on the off chance Hannibal had kept the appointment in his desk's open datebook.
The blonde psychiatrist's confirmation of Hannibal's missed appointment with her was disturbing especially to Alana. "He's slipping in and out of delusion," she fretted. "He could kill Hannibal and not even know it."
Bedelia said the strangest thing, then. "If anyone could have helped Will Graham, it would have been Hannibal. In fact, he may still be trying."
One had to wonder if she meant Hannibal helping Will to commit crimes, trying to heal his battered mind... or some combination thereof.
It was exciting, watching Will grow into conclusion. Like the final labored pushes until birth.
Hannibal reveled and mourned simultaneously. Reveled in his creation bearing fruit: mourned in his overall failure to craft Will into a killer like himself. He had wondered throughout their entire relationship, ever since first learning of Will's unique mind, if he might manipulate and sway the man away from the side of the angels.
"I am certain one of us killed Abigail," Will murmured. Suddenly, he had a FBI-issue firearm trained on Hannibal.
Hannibal was slightly concerned. Now that Will had put the pieces together about Hannibal's multi-faceted identity, what protection their friendship had given either of them evaporated. Both were untethered, now. They could do as they pleased to each other without sheltering from repercussions under a false banner.
It didn't stop Hannibal from continuing the farce of a friend-psychiatrist aiding his destabilized friend.
Will's understanding brought all the pieces together in one glorious moment, like ingredients in a dough. "Wind him up," Will gritted out shakily. "And watch him go."
Just as suddenly as one gun appeared, a second one bucked in the hands of Jack Crawford, shooting Will in the shoulder. As Will slipped into unconsciousness, he whispered only one word. "See."
Hours later found them in the same arrangement, sans the guns. Hannibal explained the inflammation of the brain and the treatment Will was undergoing in the bed before them. Crawford nodded, a haunted look in his eyes. Hannibal could practically read the FBI agent's mind: what did I miss?
The accented psychiatrist took a moment to bare his soul. "I believe I failed to satisfy my obligations to Will, more than I care to admit."
"Well, he's not your victim, Hannibal," sighed Crawford.
Hannibal had to control his inner beast's assertions to the contrary.
Maryann woke up in the night like she was rising from under deep waters: gently, but with a rush of breath. The quietness of the house wrapped her in a blanket of solitude that was familiar, but not quite like her own home's. Here there was no cuckoo clock to cheep the hour, or the soft purr of the cats basking in a sunbeam on the floor.
She enjoyed it nonetheless.
Rolling onto her back with a content sigh, she marveled at the heaviness in her limbs. The hospital stay must have really taken it out of her, physically. Mentally, however...
Maryann bit her lip in belated embarrassment at her actions with Hannibal in her kitchen. She feared she might have given the wrong impression about her cohabitation. She was not the type to 'shack up,' right?
Yet here she lay, in a palatial abode that was not her own, on a thread count quite possibly in the four-digit range, unsure of her purpose in being there.
Was she simply taking the easy way out? She'd known women who immediately moved in with the men they were crazy about. To Maryann's approximation, their relationships ended quickly and bitterly. She didn't want that, at all.
Maryann could feel the tiny sprout of something more than simple care blossoming in her heart. Hannibal was handsome, and mysterious... and incredibly dangerous. She fell prey to a snarl of a quandary; how could she juxtapose the man who implied he wanted to kill her, with the man who had in his own twisted way saved her life from Abel Gideon?
She could not lose sight of the 'twisted' aspect. All the tiny clues, all the little things she'd seen, all the foreign shadows she'd glimpsed in Hannibal's eyes added up to true, sincere jeopardy.
And yet, here she lay, fed and warm and with the lingering taste of his kiss in the corners of her mouth. That was not how her cats treated the mice they caught.
Of one thing she felt certain: her life was not in immediate danger. If Hannibal could control his predatory impulses for the chance of something special between them, she could similarly find a way to control her prey instinct.
Hannibal had left her a voice message that she groggily listened to, denoting his lateness as something he would explain when he returned. He reiterated in his politely steely manner than she was not to cook, but that there were plenty of salad ingredients. Maryann snorted a laugh. Leave it to a non-gardener to think only within the refrigerator: she saw the whole wide world of her garden as her table.
Hannibal plucked Will's scent from the array of the prison like he would his own; with all the ease he had plucked marionette strings on Will's limbs. "Hello, Will," he announced himself. The exact same tone and inflection as all other previous greetings was in direct, stark contrast to how much everything else about their relationship had changed.
Will looked at Hannibal like an unwitting Jesus would look down on Judas from a cross, having taken all blame for Hannibal's sins. "Hello, Dr. Lecter."
And Hannibal smiled.