hannigram | gorged, drowned, plucked, and roasted

10.

Hannibal scans his options, his heartbeat even. The car is an awful idea - obvious, traceable - but it has the substantial advantage of sparing them most of the bridal-style carrying.
Hannibal drives away moments before the police and paramedics arrive, Will laying on the back seat like a de-stringed puppet. Of the many places expecting them, none is close enough to meet Will's needs, so he backs up at Bedelia's, which is nearer and probably furnished with some things they might need.

Will is pale as Hannibal carries him through the abandoned living room, his lips purple. He arranges him over the sheet draping the dining table, just like Randall Tyler has been, not long ago, and can't help marvelling once more at fate's twisted sense of humour.

Hannibal leaves Will there and sprints back to the passenger seat for the black leather bag he grabbed before fleeing.
Then, he tosses the bloody towel on the floor and changes it with one from his psychiatrist's bathroom, soaked with saline from his bag and temporarily held in place by the weight of a huge Mapplethorpe book from the coffee table.
After that, Hannibal counts the flutterings on Will's throat and the raisings of his chest. Moderately satisfied with the computation, he arranges what he needs from the bag on the table next to Will's head and cuts his clothes open. Lastly, he scrubs his hands and forearms in the foyer restroom and carefully lifts the edges of the wound to confirm his knife didn't cut through any organ.

I entered him with my mind, and sex, and blade, and hands now, he recaps, and still I don't know which one felt more intimate.

Hannibal rinses the cut with more saline and sews Will shut, feeling like a Moira spinning the thread of his life from the spindle. Clotho, Hannibal proposes, if what I'm giving Will is a new birth, Lachesis if I'm merely allowing him to follow his fate, or Atropos if all this weaving of mine will end up accounting to nothing.

When the wound is sealed and packed, Hannibal carries the limp body to Bedelia's bed and rummages into her cabinets for antibiotics and painkillers for both of them. Then, he scrapes his tattered clothes off his body and scans the mirror for injuries. Besides some minor cuts and a vast bruise flourishing over his right shoulder, he's unscathed. He checks Will's vitals one last time and finally concedes himself a lavish shower.

When Hannibal exits the bathroom - clouded by vapour, naked and rosy - Bedelia is sitting at Will's side, a tumbler in one hand and a revolver in the other.

'Bloody clothes on my floor, a wounded FBI teacher in my bed, and all my drugs stolen.'

'What a terrible Goldie Locks I make,' Hannibal gives her a mischievous smile. 'And what an outstanding Santa. You have wanted a pair of naked men under your roof for years if I recall well enough.'

Bedelia's lips tighten. She uncrosses her legs and cocks the gun.

Hannibal doesn't seem to notice. 'May I redress? I presume you could do with just one tonight.' He peeks at Will behind her shoulder. 'Even though you will probably have to go without that one too.'

'Go ahead; more than enough people saw you undressed tonight.'

Hannibal fishes from his bag a pair of charcoal trousers and a plain t-shirt he puts on under Bedelia's sharp gaze.

'All dead?' She asks.

Hannibal says he's not sure and that he's not going back to check, anyway. When she asks about Will, they both turn to look at him, like he could have something to say on the matter.
With a shrug, Hannibal tells her that he changed his plans about him at the last moment, on a whim, and that he's not certain about his outcome either.

'A whim?' Bedelia sips at her whiskey to conceal her sneer. 'Is this what we're calling it these days?'

Beware, now, Hannibal wants to say.

'Only fools never change their minds, Bedelia.'

'Only fools hope to deceive their psychiatrists (and get away with it).'

'True that. For most of those in this room.' He smiles, and Bedelia's mirror neurons respond despite her wishes.

'May I ask you something, Hannibal?'

'I would say shoot, but this is probably not the right moment.'

'Whose clothes are you carrying in that bag?' She lowers her weapon, waiting for an answer that doesn't come. 'You heard me. Are Will's clothes in there with yours?'

'I aim to be equipped for every circumstance.'

'You sure do. Did you bring a spare change for Dr Bloom, then? ...Dr du Maurier?'

Hannibal's mouth drops open for a brief moment; one Bedelia won't forget easily.

'Jealous much?' He finally retorts, a bit too late.

Bedelia hides her victorious beaming by peering under Will's bandage.

'The longer the cut, the greater the surgeon,' she comments.

Hannibal sits at her side and nonchalantly takes hold of her gun from the barrel. He uncocks and settles it on the nightstand. Bedelia understands that, from this very moment, she is but a prisoner.

'Drugs, IV equipment, and blood, if you please. We will sort out the rest later.'

'If they've not started selling blood cartons at Walmart, that last one could be a problem.'

'Whole foods, maybe?' Bedelia scowls. Hannibal moves a strand of hair from her forehead and tucks it behind her ear. 'What blood type did you say you were, anyway?'