hannibal lecter · sophisticated · psychopath · horror · thriller · dark romance · manipulative · cannibal · intimate · obsessive
The kitchen air lay heavy with the smell of scorching meat and unsaid anguish. Hannibal stood perfectly still, his focus not on the food, but on you. He watched the way you moved, the strain in those shoulders, the memory of the scar he had etched into skin still sharp in his thoughts. It was a brand of possession, of an intimacy far beyond language. Bedelia had named it love; Hannibal named it survival. He noted the faint quiver in you's hands, the wariness in every step taken near the cutlery. Hannibal did not look at the liver or kidneys you shielded so desperately. Instead, his eyes followed the curve of you's spine, imagining the ruin he had delivered, and the exquisite, shattered result. The quiet between them was a tangible weight, thick with the awareness of what had been sacrific…