3. “You know why you’re here.” 🔪 (wllicm)
You know why you’re here.
“I do,” Hannibal responds evenly. Perhaps a different man would be begging for his life, or praying to a god that most certainly had better things to do, but Hannibal is merely curious. I wanted to see what you would do. Perhaps Will will kill him now. It would be a death he enjoys, he thinks. Certainly one he’s earned, though he’s sure he and Will will disagreed on whether it be through his merits or his lack thereof.
Will drugged his wine, clever boy, and he’s only come to a minute before. Hannibal had smelled the chemicals in the bouquet, but hadn’t been able to resist the temptation regardless. No doubt Will had counted on it. He cranes his head to survey his surroundings, and is delighted to find Will has strapped him to an autopsy table. His autopsy table, the one he’s butchered some of his best cuts of meat upon. A bit gauche perhaps, but the symmetry compelling. Will exposing Hannibal’s darkest secrets, both physically and symbolically.
“If you endeavor to dissect me, I’d be happy to offer a few recommendations,” he says, with complete sincerity. “While I have every faith in your abilities, a botched job really can cause the most crushing disappointment. I’d hate to disappoint you, Will.”
Hannibal can see how Will tries to suppress the slight uptick of his of his lips, sees equally well that the choice to give into it was an active one.
“You once told me you would use your hands to kill me,” he whispers. “It would be intimate.” He is bound and there is a blade digging into his stomach out of his line of sight, and he is growing more and more certain that he will die on this table.
He’s hasn’t felt this close to another human, since he ate a bowl of stew and tasted his sister.
