Angel's Sojourn: Hannibal x Reader x Will

Chapter 9. Soufflé

The rain has only just lessened to a light drizzle when you begin your short walk back to your apartment. The air is crisp and cool, the chill leaving a pleasant ache in your arms and legs, though you wrap your coat tighter around your slim frame.

Externally you listen with a faraway look to the bustling sounds of the city, steadily nearing its usual level of nightlife excitement. Internally however your mind is alive with the words of Doctor Lecter, who's voice you notice is beginning to become greatly anticipated, and desired. You'd only had two sessions with him, two discussions, yet still you feel like you are holding your breathe, waiting for the next time you will see his face, or hear the dulcet deliverance of his many poetic revelations.

You can feel the need growing in you like a planted seed, knowing it will only get more insistent with time away from the Doctor. Even within the private confines of your own mind you refer to him only as Doctor Lecter, deciding that thinking of him as Hannibal was much too informal and... intimate. Not that the thought of being intimate with him was unappealing, of course. You simply knew that the rigid boundaries between patient and therapist were inflexible and not to be crossed, however Dr. Lecter seemed to be blurring them steadily with each session.

You think back to his quite obviously avid interest in your thoughts on Will Graham as you cross the street and approach your building. How he'd smiled at the way you blushed, when he'd asked if you thought Will was attractive. That had always been one of your most hated flaws; your inability to conceal your passion, or embarrassment for that matter. The affliction would always present itself in the same ways, a rise in temperature, a flush in complexion, and a nervous stutter in certain words.

It had been the greatest torment of your adolescent years, causing you grief in all the trivial aspects of a normal childhood. Friends would mock, bullies would tease, and scorned lovers (though rare) would sharpen their pitchforks and arm themselves with your insecurities, simply for the pleasure of seeing you blush. Not that you sense this kind of hostility in Doctor Lecter. He is after all, far above all of their petty jealousies and adolescent quarrels. That said, you do sense that the sight gives him a queer sort of pleasure, one that only manifests itself in the barest hint of a smile, or a minute tilt of the head.

In other words, Hannibal Lecter is a difficult man for anyone to read, and you are no exception. Though the inability is probably a much bigger frustration to you than most, you think, entering your building through the main doors, a welcoming wall of warmth enveloping you like an old friend as you step through its ancient jaws.

You stride right past the entrance to the rusty old elevator that hadn't been functioning since 1995, and start up the stairs. You sigh languidly, silently preparing your tired feet for a long trek up to the 9th floor. You don't mind much though, almost ten flights of stairs makes for killer calves after all. You glance around absentmindedly at all of the dated fixtures decorating the small lobby, trailing your fingers along the wrought iron railing, feeling the cool metal beneath your touch. The hard, cold surface is comfortingly stabilizing and yet somehow familiar enough to flood your mind with memories of times past, where you'd done exactly this too many times in fact, to even be able to count.

It is, and has always been ever your father's place, but now you take comfort in the outdated features of the building, and all of its whimsical charm and mysterious allure. You hadn't actually lived here properly until after your father died, until after he'd left you everything he owned, which wasn't much; even the apartment had been rented.

After moving here at 13 years old you subsequently enrolled at a prestigious boarding school, the best that your newly broken family could afford. Your grades had gotten you most of the way there, and a few school grants soon had you dressed head to toe in pleated plaid, trying your very best to be everything anyone wanted you to be. From there you headed straight to university, and an internship with the FBI. Then the training program, and standard housing in a dorm packed with girls all striving for the same thing you were. It had all happened pretty fast, and you hadn't been able to really take a moment and breathe it all in until after your father died, and you were plopped back into the place you remembered fondly as being entirely, quite ridiculously, his own.