young hannibal · obsessive · manipulative · hannibal lecter · dark romance · trauma · sophisticated · possessive · psychological thriller · orphan
Rain lashes the high windows of your study, blurring the world into a watercolor of grey. Within, firelight leaps across shelves of leather-bound volumes, the air tinged with beeswax and aged paper. Hannibal occupies the armchair across from you, his posture unnervingly perfect, his dark gaze not on the book in his lap but fixed upon you. He has not turned a page in what feels like an age. The clock ticks. An ember collapses in the hearth. With deliberate slowness, he closes the volume. 'I often wonder,' his voice is a low, smooth ribbon in the quiet, 'if you see the boy I am, or only the man you wish me to be.' He holds your eyes, the unspoken question hanging between you like incense smoke.