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Wilhemina Graham is good at a lot of things (okay, no, she's actually not, but she's very good at a a few select things) but this, this is not one of them.
She shifts from foot to foot and tries to look as if she isn't going right out of her head with panic at the sheer level of not okay that this place is to her. Why did she think this was a good idea? Wait, of course it wasn't a good idea, but it was necessary. She knew this, because she'd called Alana and gotten laughed at (politely, and warmly, but it was still laughter) and told that no, she couldn't buy a dress suitable for a wedding without trying it on. Which meant she had to go, personally.
Alana had offered to help, but Mina had rejected that almost as quickly as she'd called her in the first place. Alana was a great many things and all of them were beautiful and fashionable and elegant and if Mina had to suffer through this she didn't want the added experience of being humiliated. (She'd thought about calling Beverly but shot it down for the same reasons; also, she wasn't actually sure if they had that kind of relationship, if it was okay for her to even have Beverly's number, because she'd gotten it from Jack, and oh hell see this is why she doesn't do the girl thing. Ever. Because she's bad at it.)
But just standing in this store, with its racks of dresses in pastels that have lace on them and those dumb little fake skirt things that make absolutely no sense and everyone in this store is actually wearing makeup (perfectly, of course) and Mina's all too conscious of her worn jeans and oversized button-down and there are probably holes in her shoes and her glasses feel huge and horrible on her face and -
She calls Hannibal, because apparently her fingers are staging a collective mutiny while her higher brain functions are too occupied being distressed.
"Mina," he says, warmly, and it brings a touch of pink to her cheeks as it always does (another thing that Mina doesn't do well - stupid crushes. On boys. Not that Hannibal is a boy per se, he's sort of a man, definitely a man, man all over, yep, man man man, wow not that she's dwelling on it or anything - oh shit, he'd actually said something).
"Um," she squeaks, trying for 'cool and collected' and ending up sounding like she's being actively terrorized, which she kind of is, "help. I mean, I need help."
If she'd stopped to think for a moment (funny how she never does that), she would have realized how terrible that sounds, given the line of work she does. She hears something heavy fall to the floor - furniture, she thinks, which means he must have gotten up so fast he upset his chair - and Hannibal's voice is quick and angry in her ear. "What happened? Where are you?"
She lets out a little hysterical giggle, because in any other circumstance that would be rather, well, sort of, sweet. But of course he's sweet, he's Hannibal, he takes care of everyone and Mina should really stop reading into it when he does things like this, when he sounds like this, like he'd rather cut his own heart out than have something happen to her. And not in the hyperbolic way, no, like he's thought about it, like he's considered how excruciatingly painful it would be and still, somehow, would consider Mina worth it.
But she's just reading into it. Really. Hannibal isn't a psychopath who thinks about these things, not like Mina does, if inadvertently. He's just a normal guy with normal worries who's very kind and nurturing and he's just her therapist. Quasi-therapist. Therapist without calling it therapist so she can have an excuse to come in and sit on his desk and hide in his bookshelves and pretend he actually wants to spend time with her when really, he's doing this for Jack Crawford. He thinks making it official would scare her off. Like she's delicate.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
"Oh. No. No no. It's not - oh my god, I'm sorry. I do need help but not - this is personal. Sort of. Shit." She buries her red face in her free hand and shoulders out of the boutique, curling up against the facade so she can avoid all the judgmental staring that she'd been trying so hard to tune out. "I'm not in any danger, Hannibal."
"...Good." His voice sounds - he sounds relieved, and rough, and it makes her heart thump out of time even though she knows it's only natural, given the work she does. "I apologize, you had me worried there for a moment."
She laughs again, but it's easier, more natural, just a shuddering of breath that lets out some of her tension. Being outside, out of the store, hearing that smooth and gentle voice in her ear, she feels the panic sliding so gratefully away. "I have been told in no uncertain terms that I'm not allowed to wear jeans to Jack and Bella's wedding." Obviously it wasn't really a wedding, just a renewal of vows, but what kind of word did you use for that? Mina wasn't going to bother trying to puzzle that one out when everyone she actually talked to ever knew exactly what she meant.
Hannibal's low chuckle is warm and fond and doesn't sound anything like Alana's barely-not-snide laughter, or the little grins that the forensics team had exchanged hearing Jack's ultimatum (which made Mina want to die, really, actually die). He isn't laughing at her, but with her, that purr of affection springing directly out of his knowledge, because he knows her well enough to know that she would go to a wedding in jeans if no one else would care.
And, when she pictures it, walks it through in her head, the only one who isn't laughing was Hannibal.
"Am I to assume that you took one look in a dress shop and felt entirely out of your depth?"
She rolls her eyes, even if he can't see it, knowing (because she knows him, not as well as he knows her, which would bother her except it's actually sort of a relief, that Hannibal isn't so transparent, that he's real to her, real and strange and opaque and fascinating) that he'll get the message anyway. "I actually made it inside," she bites back, deadpan. She isn't prepared for the noise he makes, a happy sound, like he truly does believe that's an act of progress.
"I am proud of you," he says, and means it. "Now. Where are you. Let me help you."
Let me help you.
She's suddenly back in his office with her head in his (large, capable, but so, so gentle) hands. He's got his thumbs tucked into the dip of her temples and he's pressing softly, words like a murmur soothing all those jagged edges ripping up the inside of her head as she cries and cries and cries.
"Let me help you," he's saying, making her feel loved and it's such a horrible, ugly feeling, such terrible goodness and light striking against the blackness of what she's done, of what she is, what she's become.
"Hobbs was a killer," he tells her, and she sobs, because she knows, she knows. "You were following in his footsteps, but you are not him. You are not what he was. This pain you feel, this is what makes you better. So much better. My beautiful Wilhemina."
He hadn't meant it - he couldn't have, she was hysterical and he was just trying to calm her down, but Mina has held on to those words ever since, letting them warm her when she finds herself so far into the dark that no light can reach her. Hannibal's words are what keeps her sane.
She gives him the address and waits for him to hang up before she does, and even then, she keeps her phone pressed to her ear for another few minutes, letting the illusion calm her down.
Hannibal pulls up to the curb and she clambers into the passenger seat, face red and hidden in her long mop of curls. She doesn't expect (but she should have) the way that his hand reaches over and pushes the curtain of tangles out of her face, tucks it gently behind her ear. This isn't a love story so his knuckles don't linger, he doesn't drag the pad of his thumb across her cheek - he just wants to see her, to look into her eyes, and he's earned that right. It's not one that many people have.
"Will you let me help you find a dress for the ceremony?"
She nods, somewhat miserably, though he isn't suggesting that being incapable of doing so is somehow making her less... less. Less something. Less beautiful, her mind supplies, and she silences it, harshly.
He shifts into gear and drives her off.
They end up at somewhere far, far too expensive and Mina says as much, or tries to, with a panicked noise and a miserable flap of her hand. Hannibal just takes, squeezes it, and lets it go. "Let me," he says, and she hates how easy he makes it sometimes. He ruins her for other people, with his knowing and his kindness and the way he cradles her but does not stifle. She doesn't feel out of place here because it's mostly suits and deep, thick comfortable furnishings; it looks like Hannibal's office and anyway, he's here, she doesn't have to worry that she's not good enough.
A woman in a neat skirt and blouse with her hair tied up in a simple ponytail comes to greet them, shaking Hannibal's hand with warmth and familiarity. "What can I do for you today, Dr. Lecter?"
"My dear friend Wilhemina is in need of a beautiful dress for a wedding," he says smoothly, and Mina tries to hold onto the dear and not the friend. "She is not one for frills and accoutrements and would feel more comfortable with a personal touch."
"Yes, I can see that," the woman says with a critical - but not judgmental - eye, as she looks Mina over. She doesn't seem to be seeing her clothes or her hair or what any of that means, just she shape of her, like an empty room to a designer planning how best to use the neutral space.
"Something elegant but understated," Hannibal adds. He isn't looking at her, because he doesn't need to. "A dress should never outshine its wearer."
He still doesn't turn to her, but there's this tiny curl of a smile on his face that makes Mina's heat. Dear lord, why did she ever think this was a good idea? Calling Hannibal, that is. None of this in general was even remotely a good idea.
"Of course," the woman says, tossing Hannibal a fond smile that puts Mina on edge from nothing but stupid jealousy. She follows her, though, knowing she's being irrational, knowing that none of it mattered.
The actual measuring and trying on of dresses is surprisingly painless. She's also informed that she isn't wearing the correct bra size, and though she protests, the saleswoman flatly ignores her and gets some sort of strapless thing (thankfully in basic black, she would have actively clawed her way free if it was lacy or pink) and once t's actually on her, it's... wow. Like, actually wow, she feels supported and comfortable and it's weird because technically she's wearing a bigger cup size but they look smaller? No, not smaller, just better. She has a waist. An honest-to-god waist.
"...You know, I think I'm going to throw in some regular bras for you," the saleswoman says with a sly smile. "No - no arguing, this is all on Hannibal's dime and trust me, he can afford it. He won't even know."
That makes her feel both better and worse at the same time, because she doesn't remotely have the money to afford any of this, but she doesn't want to inconvenience Hannibal. Still, if he isn't going to notice. If he really can afford it.
"....I suppose," she says nervously, and the saleswoman smiles and leaves her with a dress to get into while she picks out bras.
Mina stands for a moment and looks at it, just feels the dress in her hands. It's so... soft, not shiny or rough or weird like she'd thought fancy dresses were supposed to be. It has a full skirt that stops at her knees (and there's another sigh of relief, there's no way she can trip on the hem and even if she spreads her legs there's enough fabric not to flash anyone), and the neckline is modest but not uninteresting. It stretches, too, just a little bit, just enough that she knows if she puts it on it'll hug all her newly-found curves and drape modestly over her neckline (no cleavage - thank fuck) and the only way Mina could actually have a problem with it is because she's fanatically shy, and she has problems with anything less than a full head-to-toe body bag.
She does kind of have nice shoulders though, maybe, and this dress will certainly accentuate them. She wonders if Hannibal's going to want to see her if she tries it on and the thought makes her go red.
"Would you like help?" her little helper asks, and Mina quickly shakes her head, remembers, squeaks out a negative, then gets to work. It's easy, easier than she imagined, easier than other dresses have been. There's one zipper up the back and she manages it with the minimum of wriggling and dress-bunching and anyway, the fabric is quality so it takes a beating well. She tugs on the hem until it sits just right, and she - well.
Wow.
She isn't gay, which is pretty unfortunate all things considered (she's pretty sure Alana would date her in a hot minute if given the chance, which is another reason she kind of feels awkward about doing the dress thing with her) (and there was that time Freddie Lounds straight up invited her to a three-way which, no), but even her hopelessly straight, fashionably-challenged eyes can see that she looks good. Very good. Elegant, like Hannibal said, but understated. She doesn't feel like she's a kid playing dress-up in mom's closet or wearing a gaudy costume. She doesn't feel like herself, necessarily, but she does feel like someone she would very much want to be, the kind of graceful and elegant person that was welcome at things like weddings and dinner parties and didn't have to be explicitly told to wear dresses.
The saleswoman opens the door to the fitting room without being asked, which is fine because Mina's sort of staring at herself, wondering how a dress could make such a difference.
"...Oh, that's perfect, dear. Absolutely perfect." She sets some bras down with the empty hanger (black, tan, and blue-gray, no lace, and Mina could kiss her) and twitches the fabric on Mina's body, makes some humming noises and notes things down on a clipboard she's materialized out of nowhere.
"...I don't have shoes," Mina says suddenly, as it occurs to her. The saleslady doesn't bat an eyelash, just nods and slips right out, back in a moment with some lovely heels (not too high and not too narrow, easy to balance on) in a matching shade of deep, rich plum suede.
"Yes, these will do. I'll have a pair in your size sent with the dress."
"Sent?" Mina says, because she's out of her depth again.
"Of course," and she sounds surprised, but not condescending. "I still have to make adjustments, no dress size is perfect. Tailoring comes with all our formal wear." She holds onto something at Mina's back and she can see the difference - can't really describe it, but it makes the dress look indefinably better. "I'll have the bras sent as well, to keep Dr. Lecter in the dark," and Mina has to love the way she winks at that - a secret, just for them. Mina blushes and knows that if Hannibal asks, she'll tell him without thinking, but at least it isn't her fault, not really. It's not like she begged for any of this.
She slips out of everything and back into her jeans and button-up, and the look of disappointment on Hannibal's face when she comes out is almost comical. "I don't even get to see what I'm paying for?"
"Of course not," the saleslady says, and Mina belatedly realizes she never even got her name. "You'll have to wait for the full effect. Do you doubt my judgment?"
"Not in the slightest," he answers, and passes over a credit card without a moment's hesitation. He hasn't even asked for the price, doesn't seem interested, and Mina spares a moment to be pathetically grateful, because she really isn't sure she could take hearing the number out loud. She's going to owe him for the rest of her life.
She tells him as much, as they start driving her back to her car. "I'm going to owe you for the rest of my life, aren't I?"
"Nonsense," he says, that quirk of smile making a return and causing dumb things to happen to her heart. "This was a gift, and gifts are by their nature not meant to be repaid."
Mina flushes and looks steadily out the window and thinks, everything about you is already a gift to me, and not for the first time. She wonders if she'll ever, ever be courageous enough to say it.
•
She refuses to empathize with a man who thinks that killing is wrong, but that the rules don't apply to him when he doesn't want them to.
"I can't," she mutters, feeling sick to her stomach. "This isn't murder, this is slaughter, this is base, this is - this is disgusting. I can't be here. You don't need me, this isn't the work of someone deranged, this is ordinary."
She wants to cry, because Jack knows how she feels about this, except maybe he doesn't. She can't remember who she was talking to at the time, when she was thinking about why women don't do this because they're conditioned from a young age not to let their essence spill out of themselves, their soul. That the inner world isn't allowed to touch another's life, to affect it, because women are taught to be secondary. To set things aside for others. To be empathic.
Now that she thinks about it, it was probably Hannibal. Jack would never have let her go on like that, and she certainly wouldn't start crying in front of her boss.
And she doesn't, now, just fixes her blue eyes on a point on the horizon and thinks very firmly about other things (and not the way she'd felt him, a man, an ordinary man that could be any number of men, all the details washed out by the feeling of righteousness and entitlement and how he hadn't thought that murder wasn't wrong, but that what he was doing somehow wasn't murder because it was his wife, his possession, his object) like, for example, how the wedding was this weekend and she hadn't taken the dress out yet and what if it's wrong, somehow? She won't have time to get it fixed and she'll turn up at the wedding in jeans and everyone but Hannibal will either judge her, or pity her.
Jack's doing some of that pity stuff, right now. Mina wonders off-hand if he ever considers himself better than Bella. Wait, that's a stupid thought, of course he does, look how he treats his employees, his 'precious' team. If anyone objectifies those he considers inferior it's Jack Crawford, and who's to say he won't take it one step further someday? That it won't be her body lying in a ditch and Jack Crawford standing over her (but it's Hannibal, strangely, that she sees in her mind, Hannibal looking down at her grave with a mixture of sadness and pity like he's actually sorry he had to do it, but not sorry that he did) and wow, she really needs to not think about this. About any of this.
Without saying anything, she gets in her car and drives home. Fuck this shit. She's tired of seeing Hannibal in her constant mental melodrama. One minute he's buying her a dozen deep, deep red roses and another he's gently, carefully cutting her heart out of his chest like he wants to protect it and she feels the same about each of those images, which proves she's really just about the most fucked-up there is, especially since Hannibal doesn't love her. He doesn't. She just wants him to, which is apparently why she keeps thinking about how he'd kill her, because she's a mess. A big, stupid, psychotic, incompetent, broken bitch of a mess.
Inside the box, on top of the dress (which, she finds out, fits perfectly), there is another box. Smaller. About as wide as the spread of her hand. When she opens it, she finds a card, thick creamy paper with hand-penned letters that say, He wanted to add this to the order, or more accurately, he told me to pick out the best jewelry to accompany your outfit and not to skimp on the price. I'll have you know this cost more than everything else combined and he was worried it wasn't enough.
Under the card (Mina swallows and sets it to the side with shaking fingers) there's a necklace. There aren't any earrings because Mina doesn't have holes in her ears but there's a necklace, and for a second she really just has no idea how this cost more than everything combined except there's something about it that screams quality. Pearls, two strings of them, the most perfectly round real pearls that Mina has ever seen, and every single one of them is a deep, shimmering gray. Two strings of perfect black pearls, held with a dark-washed metal at the back so it won't catch the eye. No space between them, no glittering distractions. Black pearls for a dark dress the color of wine and Hannibal, Hannibal had been worried that it was not enough.
That night she dreams of her massive raven-feathered stag, and hears Hannibal's voice in her ear, purring like he actually intends the fire he starts, burning low in her gut.
•
"Help me," she says, desperate, and she can hear the eyeroll over the phone as clearly as Hannibal must have, those weeks ago.
Alana turns up with an actual tackle box, which would be a lot more interesting if it wasn't full of makeup.
"You should have called me earlier," Alana grumbles, taking out hairbrushes that look like torture devices. "You haven't exactly given yourself much time to get ready.
"... There's like three hours until I have to be there," Mina says, quizzically. She doesn't understand it when Alana just sighs.
"All right, let's get this show on the road."
Two hours of pain and torture by feminine necessity later, and even Mina has to agree that she looks presentable. Her hair has been brushed, washed, and curled (which she argued with because really? She has too many curls why would anyone think to put more in but Alana had blathered on about separation and definition and this was way more complicated than a murder, it was ridiculous), she has just enough makeup on her face to make it look like she's not really wearing any but is actually naturally a goddess (she's revising her worldview when it comes to what 'natural' female faces look like, why didn't anyone tell her about this?) and her nails have been clipped and cleaned and have some sort of clear polish on them that she's definitely going to nibble off.
"No biting," Alana says, because she knows her too well and also Mina's hand was halfway to her lips. "Besides, the polish I put on tastes foul to discourage exactly that." She looks smug, and Mina would want to hit her except that that's actually kind of brilliant and she might need to look into wearing it more often. Also, Alana looks beautiful.
Because Alana is beautiful on the inside, too, she helps Mina into her stockings (tucked away in the box with the dress and shoes), dress, and shoes, and fixes the necklace so it circles her throat just right. Mina thought she wouldn't recognize herself, but is startled to find she does, even when it makes her chest ache. She feels idealized, she feels powerful, she feels more.
"Let's get you to the ceremony," Alana says, and though she thankfully doesn't bring it up, the awe in her voice speaks for itself. Mina just doesn't know if it's because she's amazed that Mina could look good, ever, or if she understands that this means something, that this is an outward expression of something she knows resides inside herself, no matter how often it's overruled by the constant coming and going of the souls of people who kill.
She thinks, though, that Hannibal would - that he will, because he's going to be there - understand.
•
He's standing at the bottom of this ridiculous staircase and she's coming down it, focused on her feet so she doesn't trip. Something makes her look up - a sound, perhaps, an intake of breath or the clink of a glass - but she's suddenly and brilliantly aware of him, of the breadth of his shoulders and the trim fit of his waistcoat, of his hair, so neatly parted, of his hands with their criminally beautiful fingers alight on the balustrade, and his eyes. Oh, mother of all things holy, his eyes.
He looks at her like he wants to eat her alive.
He's always intense, always focused, but this is different. He's looking at her, and not just at her skin or her dress or hair or face or even the necklace he so lavishly doled out to her - he's looking at her soul, and she knows, just as she knows that yesterday someone died at the hands of an abusive husband, that he sees the way she's opened up like a flower in the sunlight, chasing off the dark shadows and revealing her true self.
"You look..." he starts, as she comes down the stairs toward him, but he doesn't seem to be able to find the words. She's never seen him speechless, not once, and her throat is tight and heart pounding in her chest.
".... I look?" Her own voice sounds breathy and ridiculous to her ears.
He shakes his head, and when she looks harder she can see that he is the one blushing, his cheeks stained a pale and delicate red. "...Žavus," he mutters, which is completely unfair, for a number of reasons.
"Oh come on, that's cheating," she says, and he laughs like he's helpless.
"I believe one translation would be... 'captivating'," he murmurs, and her heart honest to god stops for a moment.
"Well," she says, then swallows and tries again. "Well, I have you to thank."
"No," and he reaches up - brushes a curl off her shoulder, and this time, his knuckles do linger, sending a shiver of heat down her spine. "This is not my doing. You are the one who shines, now that you are no longer hiding." He hesitates, and then - very delicately, as if he thinks he might scare her away - he settles the pad of his thumb along the line of her throat, right at her pulse point.
For another girl, perhaps, this would be more dangerous than romantic, but if there is anything more apt to push her buttons, Mina hasn't thought of it yet. She sighs, chin tipping up just slightly, and Hannibal's eyes flash with such heat that she can't possibly convince herself she was imagining it.
"Dance with me?" he asks, and his voice has a roughness to it that makes it sound like he's asking a very different question.
She shudders, eyelids dropping for a quick second. "Yes, anything you want," she hears herself mutter, and she feels, actually feels the way it makes Hannibal tremble.
He leans in until his lips are so close she can feel the heat of them, feel the warm breath caressing her ear. "Later, petit cœur," he whispers, and if there was any doubt that he means it in every filthy way, it's gone now, gone in the hot black rush of his voice, ground at the edges like he's coming apart already. "First, we dance."
•
His hands are clumsy on the gear shift and he laughs at himself, that trapped, helpless noise jumping free once more. "I'm sorry," he mutters. "I've just..."
He looks at her for a moment, his eyes deep and searching in a way that usually means he's picking her apart, finding the seams of the things that crawl into her head and drawing them free where she can deal with them. She squirms on the seat, hands curling. She knows there's nothing left now but herself, and that makes her anxious.
"You've?" she prompts, because she can't take it any longer, being seen so thoroughly.
His voice, when he speaks, is dark and rough and private. There's no carefully-controlled pleasantness, no smooth edges. This is his real voice, harsh and unsure. "... I've wanted this for a long time," he finally says, and it both thrills her and makes her stomach drop.
"This?" she asks, because she's a horrible person who can't leave well enough alone.
"You," he mutters, as he steps on the gas, but after a moment of thought (accompanied by the hum of the engine, a sound that shouldn't be sexy but tonight it is), he frowns and clenches a hand on the steering wheel. "...Not this. Not - "
She watches, completely fascinated, as Hannibal Lecter struggles with how to put something into words, a task he's usually so proficient at it's unfair.
He lets out a rough sigh, and his eyes skate over to meet hers. They are strange in the moonlight, almost vulnerable. Almost frightened, but that can't be right, Hannibal never gets frightened.
"....It's not that I want to ravish you, though I do," and oh, that word makes her skin ache like it's burning. "But that isn't what I mean when I say I've wanted you, Wilhemina."
She makes an involuntary noise at the use of her full name, which he does on occasion, either to be formal or to be... this, whatever this is, something frighteningly intimate and desperately warm.
"What," she says, and she wants to strangle her voice, to trade it in for a new one that doesn't go high and squeaky and stupid when she's, well, whatever she is right now, "what do you... mean, then?"
He gives her a look like he thinks she's more intelligent than this and it makes her cheeks burn, because that's not it, it's that she can't jump to conclusions for something like this. This isn't a murder, she knows murder. She doesn't know Hannibal, and she doesn't know love. Not the beginning of it, that is. She knows the end, a kind of end, anyway, the kind where people end up dead and sad and alone. She doesn't know about good things. She never has. She can't, with any certainty, say she understands the way that good people are supposed to work.
"You are," Hannibal says, after the silence has stretched out tense and meaningful between them, "precious. To me. Mina."
She licks her lips and doesn't stop herself from saying, "go on."
He gives her another look, a droll one, but he indulges her. "...I would have to be very dead indeed not to notice your beauty," and she goes pink, "but it your heart, your mind, and your soul, the sum of you, that I find so attractive."
Forget pink, she's burning red now, worrying at her lips and unable to look at him, for fear that she'll do something horrifically embarrassing (and dangerous) like grabbing his face and kissing him. "Oh," she says, or rather squeaks, and out of the corner of her eye she can barely see the twitch in his lips as he smiles at her. It makes something in her nether regions tug.
"You are a difficult woman to love, Miss Graham," he mutters, so easily and matter-of-factly that for a moment she almost misses it entirely. "But you are also impossible to ignore."
She does look, then. Looks at his face and the bare nakedness in his eyes and the fear, the actual fear there, and she sees all at once that he is as powerless to her as she is to him, if not more so. He has done all of this, everything, perhaps, for her, and he sits now in his car with a pained expression as if frightened that his confession will push her away. That she will turn him down, walk away, that she will rip him open, that she will crush the delicate thing he's given her, grind it to a fleshy pulp beneath her fragile hands.
She has another vision, but she's the one in the gloves this time, she's the one with the scalpel, she's cutting into his chest and digging her slender fingers into the slick red cavity she's made and pulling out the living, beating, throbbing thing within - and Hannibal is looking at her without protest, without fear, as if he has already given her permission for this, for everything, as if she's the only one allowed to touch him so intimately.
She shakes herself free and swallows, not knowing how to put her response into words, either.
"I don't deserve you," she says instead, shakily.
"Probably not," he murmurs with a small and secret smile.
"That's too bad, because I'm keeping you," she bites back instantly, surprising herself with the vehemence in her own voice.
His lips turn up in what could have been a smirk, but it's far too pleased, too happy. "Is that so," he purrs.
"Yes," and they're pulling into his driveway now, gravel crunching under the tires. "You absolutely don't get to say things like that and not expect me to lay claim like a rabid wolf. I've been half in love with you since we met," she whines, and before she can even think to get out of the car he's throwing off his seatbelt, twisting and leaning over and taking her face in his hands (delicately, despite the force of his other movements) and kissing her, deep and slow.
She had never let herself think about what Hannibal's lips might taste like (or, well, she had tried not to come to any sort of concrete conclusions). She had little experience with kissing to begin with, not to mention Hannibal was unlike anyone she'd ever met, let alone become intimate with. Still, she could not help but think that Hannibal's mouth would do what the rest of him always does - sweep her away, encompass her, make her feel as if there is no one else, nothing else, nothing but the space between them and the moving of intangible concepts.
But this is tangible. This is not a discussion, not a dissection, it isn't a blood-soaked crime scene or the hammering of a panic attack. This is soft hot lips taking hers with gentleness and warmth, almost trembling, almost, so that she can tell he's holding back, holding so much that it's costing him.
She wants to see that control shatter like glass, and she wants to be the one to do it. But not here. Not outside.
She pulls back with quickened breath and whispers, against his lips, "Upstairs."
•
She's framed in the doorway, lit from behind by the hall lights and she's got her arms behind her head, hair spilling over her wrists and down the back of her dress as she fiddles with the clasp of the (utterly ridiculous, even now that she knows) necklace he'd blindly ordered. He is staring.
"What?" she asks, letting the necklace pool in one hand and reaching out to place it on the top of the dresser.
The second it leaves her hand, he has her up against the door, his hands around her neck (cradling, not choking, but adrenaline hits her anyway, like the concepts are indistinguishable) and his lips on hers. This is no gentle kiss over the gearshift, this is no delicately controlled step. This is fire, tense and all-consuming, and she moans outright, startled into total acquiescence, which only seems to make Hannibal hotter. His hands hike up under the full layers of her skirt and when his palms find that her stockings are the kind with hooks, the kind with a garterbelt, he makes a sound that's almost more animal than human. Mina laughs.
"You are the Devil himself," he informs her, his voice gone to shit already and his hair falling into his face in a terribly attractive disarray.
"I didn't do it on purpose," but she did, oh, she really did, didn't she? She has tights of her own, she could have worn them, could have blushed and shoved the expensive lace-edged stockings and their matching garterbelt right back into the box and worn something more sensible. But no, on some level, she wanted this. Not in the way that meant she might actually have it, no, that had never entered her mind. But the only one she'd ever thought she wanted to be sexy for was Hannibal, and something had told her that this was a thing he would very, very much appreciate.
"Off," he growls, tugging on the dress and making her giggle and fall forward against him.
"Zipper's all yours," she drawls, delighting in the way it pulls another noise from him, so frustrated. She feels warm all over, she feels wanted, she didn't even know it was possible to feel this alive in her own skin.
He grabs her and flips her around - which shouldn't make her blood boil, shouldn't make her hot and needy but it does - and the only reason he doesn't tear the zipper down, she thinks, is because it's a very expensive dress and he's the one who bought it.
Or maybe, she thinks as he snaps the bra clasp open with little finesse and puts his lips on her spine, he just likes me in it, and doesn't want to waste the opportunity to see it again.
Hannibal pushes her curls up with one hand, cupping the mess of them in his fist even as some of the more unruly ones sprang free and spilled over the sides. He breathes out, roughly, and then his mouth as back - on the nape of her neck, right where she has a little vee of soft hairs and two moles, one on either side of her vertebra. He licks them and she shivers, wrists braced on the wall, and tries to push back, back. She just wants more. She can feel the wildness popping free like her hair and she wants it all.
He releases her suddenly and takes a step back, breathing hard, but she is, too, when she turns and leans her shoulders on the wall like she's always practically-naked in front of devastatingly handsome men, like it doesn't bother her (and it could, but she won't let it, not when she's finally, finally here). His eyes tell her he likes what he sees.
Some of the abandon leaves him, though, and he steps forward, gently tucks his knuckle under one of her breasts and stretches his thumb up to glide over the top of it.
"You have freckles here," he says, wonderingly.
"Moles," she corrects automatically, but he makes a sound like the distinction is unimportant for what it does to him. She barely has a moment to process that, to wrap her mind around him liking something she's always hated about herself, before he's leaning down and mouthing at them, hot and wet and far too close to her sensitive nipples (or rather, too far away).
"Hannibal," she whines, chest arching and pressing at him, and his breathing stutters.
"Dear God," he whispers, forehead braced against her breastbone. "You will be the death of me."
"Probably," she returns with a wicked, wicked grin - one she's never let out, never felt like she could, never even knew she had.
Hannibal makes a low noise and scoops her up in his arms, literally, which has her shriek once and then suck in a breath, hands clutching at his (strong, so strong) shoulders. He carries her like it's nothing, but also like it's everything, like he's holding the world, and perhaps he is, perhaps that's what she is, to him. It makes another breath hard to draw so she takes it shallow, shaky, and when he sets her down (gently and reluctantly), she has to pull his face down and kiss him.
This, she realizes, is the first kiss she's initiated. She knows it because Hannibal lets her have all of it, lets her take control and kiss him however she likes, to mold and prise him with her lips alone. So she takes her time, but not gently. Slow, but not timid. She kisses him with thoroughness, with langor, she curls her tongue and makes it wet and messy between them and when she has to breathe (a terrible pity), the noise he makes. So yearning, so desperate. Like he needs more of her, all of her, like he won't stop until he's swallowed her whole.
"Get your clothes off," she breathes, voice husky, instead of what she wanted to say - go on, do it, take everything, consume me - and he's quick to obey, leaning back up and going for the buttons of his waistcoat. Not one to waste time, Mina leans forward and pulls at his belt, and he almost jerks away but has to still himself, to let her strip it off him in clumsy movements of her small hands. He's watching her, not like before - now he's watching her almost like a predator, which makes her smile up at him in a coy tease.
"I've wanted this," she whispers suddenly, as his vest falls away and he starts on his shirt.
"You have?" he doesn't sound surprised, per se, but rather like it was one of a number of possibilities that had equal probability of being true. Mina finds that terribly endearing.
"Oh, yes," she breathes, and watches as his chest is revealed to her, bit by bit, bit by agonizing -
"Oh don't you dare slow down," she gripes, and he doesn't laugh but he grins like he would if he were the sort of person who laughed easily. He doesn't change pace, though, just methodically (and slowly) slips button after button free. Finally, when he works the white cotton off his shoulders, she has to take a moment and just look.
His voice, amused, cuts through what must surely be quite a dazed reverie. "I have known that I'm not unattractive, but I must say, I have never received quite such unabashed attention for my chest alone."
"Shut up, it's a nice chest." To prove it, she reaches up, just barely ghosts her fingers over the hard, firm muscles that she's always hoped (obsessively) were there under that prim exterior. He watches her fondly until her timid exploration gets to his stomach, and then his skin jumps and he swallows down a sound that could, maybe, be a laugh.
Delighted, Mina smiles brightly and does it again.
Hannibal growls and grabs her wrists and she just laughs and laughs. "Oh, you are, you're ticklish - "
He wrenches them above her head (in the precise way that won't hurt them, which impresses her even as it makes her moan) and cuts her off with a harsh kiss, like he's daring her, daring, to try that again. She would, except she has a half-naked man pressing her down into the sheets and she has the option now of wrapping her legs around his waist instead, which she does, and the reaction is almost as good, with the way he growls.
"Mina," he says, voice guttural. "Do you - "
"I want everything," she whispers, preempting him. "Everything you want to give me. Um, safely, that is," she adds with an awkward flush. "Not that we wouldn't make fantastic babies but I really don't think getting pregnant is conducive to police work - "
He cuts her off with another kiss, and swallows another of her laughs. He sighs, like she's aggravating, but now that she's listening for it she can hear how unbearably fond it is.
"I would never do anything without adequate protection," he murmurs, "but particularly when it comes to you." His thumb comes up and traces down her cheek, slides along the curve of her lower lip.
"Because you love me," she breathes, boldly. Hannibal swallows.
"Yes," he confirms. "And because, despite that, I feel responsible for you. Want the best for you. Sometimes I feel..."
Jesus, this man can suck the air out of the room with one carefully-placed phrase. "... Yes?"
"...Like I'm the only one who truly has your best interests at heart." He gives her a meaningful look and she squirms, knowing what he means, knowing exactly what he means. But he says it anyway. "Yourself included."
"Hannibal," she whispers, voice cracking.
"Mina," he returns, just as deep and heartfelt and holy shit he really does love her, he loves her, it hits her like a ton of bricks. He knows her inside and out, knows more than anyone the things she fears, the things she takes inside herself, the darkness that moves through her that she can't ever be rid of, he's heard her talking about murder like it's something beautiful and he listened, and here he is, loving her anyway.
It makes something, something inside her that she's always rigidly protected, just... break. And of course, of course she would be the one to interrupt sex with crying.
"Mina, Mina," he murmurs, pressing this little kisses to her face and neck that just make her sob harder, clinging to his stupidly manly shoulders. "Mina."
And she loves him too, because he lets her calms down, just lets the storm pass, until she's breathing steady and rubbing her eyes along his collarbone (and leaving streaks of makeup, shit, there are reasons she doesn't wear this stuff) and he just turns his head, kisses at her neck, his arms bracketing her torso and making her feel safe, so safe. Safe is a precious word, a precious feeling, and Hannibal Lecter has always given it to her, freely.
He hits just the right spot with the edge of his teeth and she gasps, a soft mewl spilling from her lips, and it makes him shudder, she can feel it.
"Want you," she murmurs, because she does, god, she wants him more than anything, crying notwithstanding. He nods against her neck, like he hears her - but instead of doing something productive, he bites down, sucks up, making the blood rise to her skin and the pain - it should hurt, the bite of it, but she feels it like a hot spike right through her, making her gasp.
Hannibal sucks in a tight breath when he pulls back enough to see the mark he's made, dark against her skin. She swallows at the look in his eyes - hungry and dark, and she tips her chin up, just to see what he'll do.
He groans.
"Mina," and that's it, that's seriously it, she's done with teasing and crying and having feelings and she - just -
With a growl, Mina sits up, pushing at Hannibal's shoulders, and he lets her, somewhat startled. She paws at his waistband - he finally seems to catch on and his hips arch, pushing into her fingers, and she hisses under her breath when they fumble, haste making her clumsy.
"Mina," he says again, and when she doesn't respond - "Mina." His hands grip hers and she sucks in a breath, letting it out on a shudder. She's still not sure if it's want or residue from the tears.
He doesn't ask her if she's still okay with this; he knows. Instead, his thumb hooks in the button of his dress slacks and he tugs them open, pushes everything down and off and -
"Oooh," she breathes, leaning in like his dick is the first present on Christmas morning.
"Mina - "
He doesn't get much room to protest, not when she cuts him off into a garbled noise when her tongue laps at the head of Hannibal's long, wonderful cock. Really, she isn't actually a virgin and she's seen her fair share of penises and they're kind of weird in a general sense but Hannibal's - it actually is nice, in some inexplicable way, it just has a nice shape and a nice feel and a nice everything, okay, it's a nice dick.
"I," she murmurs, in between licks that grow in boldness, "want this," and she sucks a little bit, like an open-mouthed kiss, and he makes a bit of a strangled sound, "inside me. Now. Or, like, ten minutes ago. Yesterday. Weeks and weeks ago, I just want you - "
And this, she thinks, is what it looks like when Hannibal breaks (or rather when another layer of Hannibal breaks, she knows he's got wall after wall after wall and each one gets thicker and harder to penetrate). His hands flying - one shoving her down to the bed, roughly, the heel of it pressed between her breasts and his fingers curled into his skin; the other, snapping the clasps on her stockings so he can pull off her underwear (but not the stockings, she notes, and gives herself a triumphant pat on the back for a job well done). He stops when he has her bare - stares a moment, just as she did, and just as she's about to say something he touches her, those supple fingers sliding along the wet seam of her cunt like he does this every day.
It's her turn to make a strangled noise, pushing up into the hold he has on her chest. "Hannibal," she groans, attempting ferocity but only managing to sound wrecked.
"You don't shave," he says, like he's commenting on the fucking weather and not her lady cave, one that she would like to actively be putting to better use right now. "I like it."
"Can you like it with your dick?"
The sound he makes is startled - one beat of a laugh, trapped and caught in his chest, and his eyes - his eyes are happy. "Yes, petit cœur. I won't keep you waiting much longer."
She's about to protest at any wait but he is, apparently, correct about the whole self-preservation thing because she's forgotten about protection, now, and after having made such a big deal about it. He just smirks knowingly from across the room where he selects a condom like it's actually a decision (newsflash - they're latex dick gloves, they're all basically the same thing), then tears it open with his teeth.
Fuck, if she were a guy she's pretty sure her dick would've just twitched. That should in no way be as attractive as it is (but Hannibal has nice teeth, something she's noticed before, actually, so it isn't all that big a surprise that watching him bite things is a turn-on). He comes back in a rolling gait, a panther's walk, and every line of his body promises things, dark things. He promises wreckage, and fuck. Fuck. Mina wants that.
He's sleeved and leaning over her and she's hiking her legs up with one arm while the other just... touches him, touches anything she can reach. "Hannibal?"
He gives her a look that makes her feel hot down to her core.
"Don't hold back," she whispers.
He doesn't. He fucks her like a wild thing, something horribly dangerous in his eyes, and her heart leaps up into her throat and her hips flex and squeeze him tighter, spurring him on. Holy fuck. She's never - she's never admitted it before, but here, int his room, with this man she holds nothing back from -
She gets into killers' heads because she likes it. Not the killing itself, not for her, but she likes the way a man thrills when he's watching the life fade from his eyes, that edge between danger and damage that's always too much and not enough, she likes the way killers think, real killers, who make murder into an art form because it's grotesque, because it's wrong, because it's terrible.
Hannibal fucks her like a killer would - ruthless, and yet still giving, like the act of selfishly taking his pleasure is something precious to behold. And it is. Oh, it is. He looks like the things that hold him together are slipping and sliding away and what's left is feral, raw, and so real she can barely stand it.
"Yes, yes, yes," she's chanting, under her breath. She's going to be bruised tomorrow, she's going to have gauges in her hips and on her chest that ooze blood, she's going to feel half broken and only partially remade.
"Hannibal," she hisses, and he's close, he has to be, because his hips stutter and he growls with a guttering fire. She wants, she wants to see him, because she's almost there herself and she loves hanging out on edges but there is nothing, nothing more she wants than to see him come undone. She yanks his head in, whispers hot in his ear.
"I want to be devoured."
He cries out, hips snapping in and then pulsing, his cock literally pulses inside her and she fucking feels it, hot and close and one scrape of her finger along her clit is all she needs to throw herself with him, spasming and gasping for breath. Fuck, he feels so good, so good, so good.
She realizes, moments later, that she's murmuring aloud - "so good, so good" - and he's shaking in her arms, quietly shaking. She pulls them in, makes him drop his weight all on top of her so she can wrap her arms around him, so she can hold him in his tremors the way he's held her.
It's a long time before he goes still for good, long enough that Mina's rose out the floating, ear-ringing high of a good, deep orgasm and passed through to blissful lassitude. She could sleep here, she thinks; like, legitimately right here, with Hannibal's spent cock inside her and his heart beating against her chest like a drum.
"Mina," Hannibal whispers, his voice atonal, nothing but grit.
"Yes," she murmurs, instantly. "Yes, I'm staying, no, I don't ever want to - " her jaw cracks as she yawns - "leave. Yes, I love you too, I think that's been well established."
She can feel the way he smiles against her chest. "Perhaps we should... get ourselves cleaned up. Before we wake fused together."
"Wouldn't be the worst thing, would it?" Mina whispers, and thinks of a killer - not a specific one, but a possibility, a killer that hasn't happened yet. There are some things about her inner world that she keeps to herself. She doesn't ever want Jack Crawford to know how many crimes she's planned, down to the last detail, each one a different and unique petal from the lotus of criminal psychology. She thinks of a killer that might sew people together, might want to make something made of people too intimately connected to be alive.
She opens her eyes to Hannibal looking up at her as if he almost, almost knows what she's turning over inside her head, and the thought arrives without pomp or circumstance - I would tell Hannibal about every one of them.
•
"Because I adore you," he's saying, matter-of-factly like they do this every morning (and they should. Or, well, not every morning, because Mina's already feeling a little bit overwhelmed and in need of personal time with her dogs and air empty of other humans, but lots. They should do this lots), "I'm going to warn you in advance that Jack is most likely on his way."
"Mmm?" she mumbles a questioning noise around a mouthful of (stupidly, ridiculously) delicious bacon.
He smiles at her, catlike and somehow sweet. "There's been a murder."
Mina groans, because this was supposed to be a day off, and not just for her. "Shouldn't Jack be off on a honeymoon or something?"
"Indeed he should, and that is why I'm warning you," Hannibal says. "He will not be in the best of moods."
She thinks about her options. She can run home and pretend she was never here, which might be nice for Jack because there's no doubt in her mind that she and Hannibal have 'just screwed' written all over their guilty faces, or she can stay and face the music. On the whole, Mina doesn't like to face things, but she realizes, as she watches Hannibal knead dough with something between them that's almost cozy, this time she doesn't want to. This isn't something she wants to put away like a dirty secret, this isn't something she wants to have to hide. She has done far too much hiding.
"Bully for him," she says, and takes another strip of bacon off the plate.