Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

God, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor.

Staring at the incomprehensible scene in front of her, Kiara Harris repeated the facts to herself. There were other facts, terrible facts, but she chose to ignore those. She only repeated those facts which she knew to be true.

She’d just had a twelve hour shift at her shitty little factory job. She’d gone to her shitty little apartment and fell asleep in her shitty little twin bed. And what lulled her to slumber? The dulcet tones of Will Graham being gutted by his murder husband Doctor Hannibal Lecter, with a cold mug of chamomile languishing on her nightstand.

The fact was that she’d woken up. Not really a crazy fact in the grand scheme of things, but the fact of where she was escaped her comprehension.

She was here, standing over the mutilated body of a man and covered in blood. The tangy smell suffused the very air around her, leaving her floundering and gasping for breath in a tidal wave of red copper. It was on the walls, on the floor, on her hands. Blood was pounding in her ears and a vise was starting to tighten its way around her lungs like so many tiny puncture wounds. The world around her had that dripping, technicolor quality only present in nightmares of the highest order.

Kiara swallowed a scream at the sight of rusty red scissors in her hand.

Wishing deeply for her bitterly cold mug of chamomile, because that was nice and normal and this was immediate and abnormal, she realized that something seemed familiar. Hopelessly, intractably, undeniably familiar.

The metal scissors. The way the man’s tongue was flopping out through the gaping hole in his throat. The clear plastic gloves she was wearing, covering up those red-painted hands which…

…weren’t hers.

Kiara blinked slowly, sleep still gathered in her eyes. She looked at her hands, the scissors, the man, then back to her hands. There was a sinking feeling in her gut—a repugnant, sticky little ball of suspicion that she knew would only grow. It was as if a particularly virulent strain of fungus had taken up residence in her stomach, intent on polluting her body from the inside out. Leaning over the dead man’s perfectly polished desk (aside from the goopy arterial sprays, of course), she caught a glimpse of her own reflection.

Kiara’s blood transformed into something exquisitely thin and icy.

The face which greeted her was not her face. It was the face of the titular character of NBC’s Hannibal, chillingly portrayed by famous actor Mads Mikkelsen.

Dull, shuttered eyes reflected in warm mahogany revealed none of the emotion which suddenly washed over her. What the fuck is going on? Was she still asleep? Having some sort of break from reality? A really, really strange lucid nightmare? To ensure she was asleep, she took a few deep breaths, and hit her hands lightly against her chest to achieve physical sensation. In normal dreams, this feeling was dulled; almost like she was hitting herself through a giant barrier of foam. But here, she could feel every firm muscle and rib her (his) hands collided with—through the barrier of a three-piece suit and plastic body suit, of course.

These new facts made everything much worse. This was definitely not her body type. She was small and not that fit, thank you very much. The presence of such lean muscle on…her?...only served to strengthen the distant buzzing in the back of her head.

Shuddering, she took a moment to compose herself. Of course she was dreaming. She must be! Kiara had never had normal dreams; they were always fucked up to untold levels and unrealistically vivid. Actually, she dreamed in such a bizarre fashion that she headcanoned that Will Graham had dreams like hers, but she never let any of her fellow Fannibals know that in case they thought she was projecting a little too much onto Will Graham.

Simply speaking, her subconscious was a right bastard and she’d give herself a stern talking-to later—but there was no way she was somehow magically transported into the body of famous fictional cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the immediate aftermath of a murder. She’d go along with the dream, but only because she wanted to. She was curious to see what would happen, that’s all.

Kiara tried to ignore the fact that that line of reasoning was precisely what landed Will Graham in such hot water at the hands of Hannibal.

She shook her (his) head.

You know what, she wouldn’t make those same mistakes. Kiara was media literate; she spent way too much time shut inside and on the World Wide Web for that not to be true. She was a born-and-bred creature of the Internet, and she knew what fanfiction tropes were. She wrote fanfiction, for God’s sake. Reams of it. And she’d seen the movies. Freaky Friday. Freaky. Big. 13 Going On 30.

The list was endless, and the facts were this:

Kiara had fallen asleep watching Hannibal.

Somehow, instead of dreaming like normal, her consciousness had taken an ill-advised vacation into Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s body.

Now, she was responsible for escaping from the crime scene.

Good going, consciousness.

Flexing foreign hands, she did her best to ignore the overwhelming odor of blood in the room and the sickening adrenaline she was getting from it. Kiara’s whole body was shaking, and it quietly disgusted her that her fear felt like excitement. As she turned around, ready to get out of the office and find a bathroom to cry in, a zombie appeared in the doorway.

Well, not a zombie. Georgia Madchen, whom she remembered mostly from the stomach-churning degloving scene. Poor Will. Letting out a hard, hot breath at the sight of her, Kiara thanked God she was a huge fan of Hannibal. Seeing that creepy living corpse walk into a room without knowing the context would have made her shit her pants. Not that she wasn’t going to shit her pants; serial killer reflexes be damned. She opened her mouth to say something to the yellowing, rotting figure before her, but then recalled that she’d be giving herself away.

Not herself.

Doctor.

Hannibal.

Lecter.

Kiara narrowly avoided letting out a sob.

Maybe she should hang around, wait for a pale and shuddering Will Graham to materialize in the doorway and catch her red-handed. Literally. Hannibal was a greasy, horrifying, pathetic wreck of a human being, and he deserved to be caught. She’d be able to deliver his rotting carcass straight to the authorities, gift-wrapped and compliant as all hell. Kiara knew she didn't have the skills to fight Jack Crawford, that was for damn sure. Much less a SWAT team. Provoking a fight with him and the FBI while being brought into custody would be the height of foolishness.

Then again, she had no real idea as to how this nightmare had happened. And she’d rather not spend what could possibly be the rest of her life (she choked on that thought) in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, paying the price for Hannibal’s crimes.

Best to play by the rules and see what would happen. Copying Hannibal (and wasn’t that just the slimiest thing, copying Hannibal the goddamn Cannibal), Kiara handed Georgia the scissors and turned left out of…who’s office? Oh yeah, Dr. Sutcliffe. What a dick. Frankly, for doing what he did to Will, she wasn't too upset about his death in the show, but it was still a nasty way to go.

Kiara now knew that it didn’t get any less nasty up close and personal.

Facing a hospital corridor, her heart dropped to her feet. She admired the show for its surreal, magical-realism qualities, but a crucial foundation of that atmosphere was that you never learned how, exactly, Hannibal fled his crime scenes. Kiara would have to use some common sense, which would hopefully befuddle the FBI because in the world of Hannibal, common sense was sorely lacking.

In the episode, Will was right down the hall, but obviously Hannibal had enough time to flee the building before Will woke up.

Oh God, Will. Kiara’s stomach bottomed out as she realized just what his status as ‘superpowered empath’ meant for her.

He’ll see right through her—know right off the bat that she wasn’t Hannibal Lecter. Unless she acted really well? She’d taken a few acting classes when she was in college; she wasn’t totally out of her depth.

That was wrong. She was completely out of her depth. She had to put on the performance of a lifetime if she wanted to fool Will fucking Graham, the best profiler the FBI had, a man who had perceptive capabilities far beyond what anyone in real life possessed.

But at least she’d had ample practice playing ‘Zip Zap Zop’ in college theater.

No time to worry about Will. Taking a deep breath through lungs which weren’t hers, licking oddly well-moisturized lips which didn’t feel familiar, (what kind of chapstick did Hannibal use?) Kiara quickly strode down the hall towards the emergency exit. She would have run, but it felt a little like running in a school hallway and she’d rather not break any more rules or laws. Hannibal’s kill suit squelched against her as she moved, and she fought down the urge to splatter DNA evidence from her mouth all over the scene of the crime. Reaching the door, she looked down and lost her breath.

The door operated with a handle, and her gloves were covered in blood.

Kiara didn’t even know Hannibal’s body was capable of producing tears outside of the two specific scenarios of stuffy opera balls and whining about his own successful plans to put his best friend in prison, but she found her borrowed eyes suddenly wet. More DNA. Shit. Shit shit fuck shit ass Jesus Christ kill me now.

“Shit balls,” Kiara said.

It was the first cuss word she’d ever heard Dr. Hannibal Lecter say. Not the first cuss word she’d heard Mads Mikkelsen say; no, she’d watched far too many interviews with that man. But this was Dr. Lecter. His cadence was completely different, much more clipped and performative than Mads’. Everything Hannibal said had an air of aloof pompousness—even ‘shit balls’.

She was tempted to say more, to foul his (already fouled, the man eats people and doesn’t that reignite the urge to vomit oh my god you’re a cannibal) pretentious little mouth, but there were more pressing matters at hand. She raised an arm that was disconcertingly larger than her normal arm and attempted to find a blood-free spot. There! The elbow! Smiling a relieved smile, once again shocked that his face was capable of moving beyond a microexpression, she pressed down on the handle with her elbow and entered the stairwell.

Kiara was immediately taken aback by the smell. Sniffing the air, she recognized it as cleaning solution, primarily ethanol with multiple popular grease-dissolving surfactants and a hint of artificial orange—blood orange. (Where the hell did that font of info come from?) The scent was so strong, Kiara felt like one could commit suicide by proxy just from inhaling the air. Scents were never normally this strong; Kiara actually had a really shitty sense of smell. But Hannibal’s main superpowers were smelling really well and being a wealthy dickwad, after all. Oh god, if she could smell good did that mean she’d become a wealthy dickwad too? Perish the thought. If she wanted to uphold her motto of ‘eat the rich’ she’d have to start self-cannibalizing.

A hideous little laugh escaped her.

Thank God no-one was in the stairwell. She’d been standing there in Hannibal’s weird kill suit for God knew how long. Before she could start to panic even more, Kiara reasoned to herself that it was after-hours; no-one was around. Except Will. Better not forget about Will. Shit, she’d better scram.

Kiara quickly walked downstairs, avoiding touching any handrails. Surely Hannibal had a better escape system than ‘don’t touch anything and power walk until you’re free of the scene’? Fucking hell. Whatever that system was, Kiara wasn’t able to noodle it out on short notice. In no time she reached the ground floor and was faced with another door. Nodding to herself, Hannibal’s overly oily hair releasing itself from its pomade prison and flopping onto her forehead, she once more used the clean elbow to pry open the door.

Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Hannibal’s ridiculous pimped-out Bentley was by the emergency exit, basking in the glow of fluorescent red lights. It was parked up against the curb, close enough to make for a good getaway but not securely stationed in the parking lot—which meant it avoided most security cameras. Wait. Wait wait wait. Hannibal better have not parked around a bunch of cameras.

Throat tight, Kiara immediately swiveled around to look at the building. No cameras that she could see. Of course there weren’t any. The man was a serial killing sommelier; he wouldn’t be so common as to be caught dead by a security camera. He probably thought video evidence was for plebs or something. Not fancypants aristocratic serial killers.

Cursing, Kiara almost lost her footing, but managed to avoid splaying her blood-covered body all over the asphalt. The heat of tears unwelcomely presented itself once more, but she managed to keep them in as she fiddled with the random zippered pockets on Hannibal’s kill suit. Jesus, what did he keep in here? Razor-sharp hundred dollar bills? A dessert fork? Letting out a little high-pitched gasp she didn’t know Hannibal was capable of making, she found his car keys and immediately began to clamber into the Bentley.

Opening the door, she stood still and stared at the interior. It’d be silly and stupid to just drip blood all over the car seats as she drove. Sort of like an evil version of getting water all over the seats after going for a swim. A bit of pride swimming in her gut at catching her mistake, Kiara walked around back and popped open Hannibal’s trunk.

His serial killer trunk. Kiara half-expected to see loose rolls of duct tape and zip ties flying around.

Taking off Hannibal’s kill suit was an entire production Kiara would rather not endure again. It was completely messy. There was blood in every crinkly crevice of the damn thing. That smell mixed with plastic almost made her lose her lunch once more. There were startling and disturbing tools in its pockets—not a dessert fork, thank God, but she unfortunately found a pair of pliers and a nail file. Hell no. Nose scrunched up, she did her best to ball up the rotten thing and stuff it in a convenient, large, plastic-lined box in the trunk. Checking to make sure there was no blood on her clothes (this was one of Hannibal’s less offensive suits, in her opinion—a nice navy blue plaid ensemble), she properly slipped into the driver’s seat and gunned it out of the hospital.

Driving at night was unsettling at the best of times, but waking up in the body of a fictional serial killer made it about a billion times worse. Despite her terrified panting and roiling stomach, Kiara’s hands were steady and her brow was dry. The Bentley’s headlights were far better than the ones on her used Camry, but despite the marked improvement in light quality Kiara noticed that her night vision was unusually sharp.

Looking at Hannibal’s hands on the steering wheel was awful. Instead of her normal, small, slightly callused hands, she found herself staring at powerful, manly, veiny hands that she knew had torn apart bone and cut up muscle.

Kiara kept her eyes on the road.

She’d expected to just drive around aimlessly until she parked in a lot and had a good cry, but Hannibal’s body seemed to be going somewhere in particular. Kiara prayed to whatever God might exist that she was being taken to Hannibal’s overly large mansion and not some totem pole of bodies.

After a while, Kiara noticed that the buildings had changed from the typical city look of “raggedy as fuck” to something much more pristine. She could practically smell the money oozing off the colorful facades of each house. Large trees were lined up against the road, dark branches blocking the powerful golden light of the streetlamps. With her newly-improved night vision, they almost looked like little suns alight in the darkness. She wasn’t from Baltimore—wasn’t even sure if the TV show’s version of Baltimore had anything to do with the real Baltimore—but what she was seeing was wealthy, well-kept, and beautiful. As she gazed at the houses, curtains drawn against the night, her left hand flicked the turn signal into Hannibal’s driveway. (It would be shockingly rude to not indicate, after all. She hated it when people just drove around without indicating.)

Despite the past few hours having been a surreal mess of blood and fantasy, despite the ever-present wrongness of being in an unfamiliar body, despite everything…this was what shocked Kiara into a complete stupor.

Hannibal’s manor.

There was no other word for it. Of course, Kiara had seen it in the show, but that didn’t prepare her for the real thing. (Heh. Real thing.) A stately three-story monstrosity, pale brick and burgundy shutters jutting out of the ground like bone garnished with entrails. It was huge; far too huge for one man. He held dinner parties, sure, but wasn’t enough of an excuse for a house that big. It made Kiara feel like she’d been living in a shoebox her whole life. She swallowed, hard.

Hannibal was a consummate consumer; it makes sense that his home would reflect his appetite.

With the car parked, Kiara gingerly stepped out onto the driveway and finally threw up.

It was a sweaty, miserable affair, with much hacking and knees being roughed up on the impeccably maintained concrete. Nothing identifiable came up, only some clear bile. Kiara half-thought she’d cough up an ear a lá Will Graham. But alas, the pile of liquid waste on the ground could be ignored. What couldn’t be ignored was the giant box of evidence in the trunk. Shit. Shit. The show never explored what Hannibal did to get rid of his evidence; perhaps he burned it? Surely he burned it.

Wiping her hands on her suit jacket, taking a perverse pleasure in the uncouth action, she popped open the trunk and looked down at the box. It had started to rot in the heat of the trunk, and its smell was even stronger than before. But Hannibal must have an iron stomach, because for the first time since the nightmare began Kiara didn’t feel the urge to vomit. Setting her jaw, she lifted the box out of the trunk and locked up the car. Dress shoes clacking on the pavement (why Hannibal wore dress shoes out killing, she never understood), Kiara fished for Hannibal’s skeleton key and unlocked the door to his manor.

No, it wasn’t a manor. It was a mausoleum.

Weak slivers of blue moonlight trudged into the stone room, the air dead and empty around her. Evidence of master masonwork was everywhere in the opulent marble floor. There were various pedestals containing cold statues. The entire space had the air of a museum of which someone had taken particular care to curate an impression of success—and not much else. Hannibal’s foyer was a large, echoing space; one that was clearly meant to be full of people. When there were no people, only their echoes remained. Not even their scents lingered.

It was incredibly lonely.

And labyrinthine. The show never gave the viewers a good blueprint as to Hannibal’s home layout; they pretty much saw the kitchen, the entertaining space, and his office. The most likely place to have an incinerator would be the kitchen.

The kitchen. Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s kitchen. Kiara had to go find an incinerator in Hannibal the Cannibal’s kitchen.

She nearly dropped the box of blood.

Recovering herself, focusing on her adrenaline, Kiara zoomed her way down a long, ominous hallway. Each step ricocheted unpleasantly down the corridor, and each breath was a little too icy to be comfortable. It seemed that Hannibal liked to keep his house cool. Maybe the cold preserved all the greasy product he piled into his hair. At the end of the corridor, her efforts were rewarded. There it was—the famous kitchen.

If you didn’t know what was cooked there, it was actually quite nice. Way nicer than Kiara’s little kitchenette and hotplate. Even in the dark, the metal of the room glinted invitingly. There were appliances she was sure Gordon Ramsay himself would cream his jeans at, and everything was impeccably, suspiciously clean. Instead of smelling like artificial orange, it seemed to have a cooling scent of vanilla and mint. No doubt it was some homemade cleaner Lecter used.

Wandering further into the space, Kiara accidentally bumped against something and promptly howled. It was a completely animal howl, borne of desperate fear and confusion. Shaking, she brandished the box of evidence at her attacker.

The attacker was a meat grinder.

Staring at the dark holes human sausage came out of, each one outlined brightly in the moonlight filtering in from Hannibal’s French doors, Kiara felt her face split into a smile and she almost huffed a laugh. Almost. She didn’t laugh. Well, a little sound came out, but nothing more than that. If she started laughing now, Kiara wasn’t sure what would happen. So she swallowed down that painful ball and started the hunt for an incinerator.

Movies told her it would look sort of like an oven door but have fire in it, so that wasn’t helpful at all. And the only things in the wall were Hannibal’s oven(s!) and his refrigerator, which she was definitely not touching. How the hell did he dispose of evidence?

Turning around, Kiara noted the wine cellar.

Oh, no.

Staring at the gaping maw of wine bottles, each perched on a rack like loose teeth, a sick certainty slithered into her lungs. Hannibal wouldn’t keep an incinerator in his kitchen—that was far too eccentric, even for him. No, Hannibal would keep it somewhere no-one would ever see it.

In his Murder Basement.

No, no, no. She had been through enough for one night. She was not going to trundle down into Hannibal's little dungeon of corpses and pain. She was gonna go the fuck to bed and pretend this never happened.

Then Kiara’s hand slipped on a bit of blood that had leaked out of the box.

Dread sifting in the shadows of each step, she led herself to the inevitable conclusion of this journey. Open the secret wine door; down the hatch she goes. Watch her run. It was dark, as was the rest of his house, but this still didn’t bother her. It was beginning to bother her that the darkness didn’t bother her. The cement steps were unfeeling and harsh in their hardness. Kiara had expected the whole place to smell like death, but to her surprise it smelled sterile. Like nothing. Somehow, that was worse. When she finally made it to the bottom of the descent, she dropped the box on the floor without further investigation and and fled up the stairs.

Imagined demons chased her, nipping at her heels and clawing at her back. She hadn’t been this scared running up a flight of steps since she was little. Her heart was beating wildly and her legs were pumping, running up and up to escape that grotesque room with its grotesque box of evidence. In far too long, she made it up the steps and shut the wine door as quickly as possible behind her. Hannibal was one of those insufferable people who put an automatic stopper in the door to stop it slamming, presumably to protect the wine bottles. It wouldn’t shut fast enough. Shuffling, she slid to the ground and scrabbled against the floor, willing the door to shut.

Pressed against the now-shut door, Kiara started to cry.

The sobs were great in their power but astonishing in their silence. Hannibal cried hard and cried silently. Blood rushed to Kiara’s head, hurting her eyes and making her cry even more. Snot dribbled down the back of her throat, and took up residence in her lungs. Distantly, she noted that she was curled up on the floor and couldn’t see. Why couldn’t she see? Oh. Her hands were covering her face, which was extremely wet and sticky at the moment. Her temporary confusion was pathetic, and set her off even more. Her throat worked powerfully, unknown muscles bobbing up and down in a retching motion. Even with all this activity and maelstrom, the only thing she could hear was the whisper of her clothes and the occasional harsh breath.

Damnit! Why couldn’t she scream and wail? This—motherfucking—emotionally constipated stupid man—stupid everything—

Kiara began to slam her hands on Hannibal’s knees, trying to wrench out some of the hurt inside. Her emotions flowed and roiled, and they were just barely managing to ooze through the tight stitches of Hannibal’s person suit. Kiara felt like a balloon that wasn’t allowed to burst. Hitting her knees wasn’t helping, so eventually Kiara silently sobbed herself into exhaustion and laid on the floor. She had no idea what time it was. It didn’t matter.

The hardwood floor was cool and hard against her back, deliciously biting and relaxing. Even through Hannibal’s suit, she could feel the grains in the wood. The air smelt like salt. There wasn’t anything for her to do, she reasoned. The evidence was hidden, it was still dark outside. She should just close her eyes.

So she did.
_____________________________________

Kiara’s heart was awake before her mind.

Not metaphorically, of course; literally. There was a strange surge of energy into the organ, and a strong beat. In a limbo, she lived in that world for a while: the tug of life in the aorta, a memory of some kind of movement pulsing through her body. A bright, pounding light was turning the world into pink fire in her eyes, and she bolted upright, bending completely at the waist from where she had been lying flat on the floor.

She’d never woken up so quickly in her life. Fully alert, she awkwardly lost her balance a few times before fully righting herself. Subconsciously straightening the suit she was still wearing, Kiara left the wine cellar and scanned the kitchen. Everything was as it had been the night before. Weak gray sunlight was streaming in through the glass doors, setting the metal in the kitchen on ethereal fire. That must be what woke her up—the early morning light. Perhaps Hannibal always woke up at the asscrack of dawn. Yet another infuriating thing about the man.

Oh, right. She’d almost forgotten. She was still in Hannibal's body. That ruled out going to sleep as a way to break the…spell, or whatever it was.

“Why couldn’t I have fallen asleep to My Little Pony?” Kiara grumbled. Her tongue tapped strangely against her palate, moving in tandem to Hannibal’s accent. Eurgh. Even talking was uncomfortable.

“My Little Pony,” she repeated, just for the novelty of hearing it in Hannibal’s voice. Her Fannibal friends online would kill to hear a sound bite of that. The repeated words, however, alerted her as to the dire state of her breath—it smelled like something died in there. Surely Hannibal didn’t have such naturally terrible breath? Either way, she ought to find his bathroom and freshen up. People would think something was wrong if she (Hannibal, her mind whispered) didn’t look put together.

Kiara almost laughed at that. Seemed she’d felt the urge to laugh at a lot of things.

Standing in his kitchen, she realized what she must look like. Dr. Hannibal Lecter, dressed in a now-crumpled blue suit, stood against the morning sun with greasy hair whispering “My Little Pony” to himself. Freddie Lounds would give her left titty to see this.

Mechanically, Kiara moved to where she remembered seeing the staircase last night. It wasn’t as monstrously grand as his foyer—it was just barely more tasteful. Well, Kiara couldn’t exactly say what was tasteful and what wasn’t. It wasn’t like she was born and bred in wealth. But she knew that she didn’t like Hannibal’s bizarre statues. Animals, humans, bronze, marble. They were just creepy. How the hell did no one suspect him sooner?

After opening a couple of wrong doors which revealed nothing but freshly-dusted, empty furniture, she finally made it to Hannibal’s bedroom. Kiara couldn’t lie—she almost gasped at the sight. His bedroom was awesome. The Japanese prints alongside his bedframe were especially alluring. The whole place had so much beautiful art in it; right down to the craftsmanship of the ebony wainscotting. She’d almost describe the atmosphere as cave-like, but it was too clean and too aromatic to deserve that descriptor. It was more of a sanctuary.

What was she doing, standing around waxing poetic about Hannibal’s interior decorating skills? Shaking her head, she made her way to his en-suite and was promptly greeted by a little glass shelf positively sagging with oils and perfumes and God-knows-what. Each product was encased in a differently colored and shaped cut crystal jar, with impenetrable labels in cursive gold filigree. They were probably all made by little old Polish grandmas in 1904 using a perfume recipe handed down since Moses parted the red sea or something.

Looking at her reflection in the dim (Hannibal probably thought it was ‘atmospheric’) light, Kiara felt a strange untethering of her mind from her body. To put it lightly, she looked absolutely nothing like Hannibal, and seeing his skull-eyed face staring at her in the mirror quickened her heartbeat in the foulest fashion. Almost as soon as she had focused her eyes, she looked away and randomly selected a product that advertised itself as a pomade. Hannibal certainly didn’t need more oil in his hair, but as he seemed to consider a helmet-head haircut the height of fashion, it would be remiss of Kiara to style it more flatteringly. Sighing, she squeezed a healthy glop of the self-proclaimed ‘alpine scented’ stuff into her hands and combed it into Hannibal’s hair.

His hair was stiff with artificial oils, but not entirely unpleasant. Her own curly hair didn’t have that silky-smooth texture, and it was a novelty to be able to feel it on her own head. She’d always wondered what having straight hair would be like. She certainly didn’t have to wonder anymore.

Patting down Hannibal’s hair into a suitable helmet shape, her soul dying as she did so, Kiara moved on to selecting an adequate cologne. What went with ‘alpine’? ‘Gossamer Bush’, ‘Heart of the Woods’, ‘Gold and Marble’…Jiminy, they should just be named ‘Pretension No. 5’. Frustrated, Kiara randomly picked ‘Olympus’. The scent combination was not offensive to Hannibal’s stupidly sensitive nose, so she figured it was okay. How did he do this every morning?

Kiara made quick work of brushing his teeth (with some artisan toothpaste that advertised itself as an all-natural export of Italy) and his breath became less terrible. She went back in for a second brushing, this time fully clearing up the stink. Instead, her mouth now smelled vaguely of lavender. There were worse things.

Leaving the bathroom and its all-too-large mirror, Kiara moved towards his closet to find another change of clothes. This suit was way too crumpled for Hannbial’s usual M.O. Plus, he’d probably die of shame if he was seen wearing the same suit twice in a row. Setting too-large hands on the closet doors, she slid them open smooth as butter and gazed upon the wealth of cloth within.

Plaid.

Endless plaid.

A whole rainbow of plaid. Hannibal probably called it ‘tartan’. Some of the suits were pure monstrosities. She’d never liked his baby-blue number from the pilot episode, and sure enough, there it was. Withering in the corner like an unwanted child. For the life of her, Kiara couldn’t remember what suit Hannibal wore in the episode after Georgia Madchen was killed. Biting her lip, she selected her favorite suit of his—a dark charcoal gray patterned with red plaid. It didn’t take too long to pick a cream colored shirt, and a red and white paisley tie. Paisley and plaid. His fashion was truly avante-garde.

Kiara pointedly ignored her closet of abominable clothes back home. Hannibal had nothing on her.

Clothes picked and laid out on his silk, extra-fucking-large bed, Kiara looked down at her fully clothed body. There was a problem, a big problem, that she’d been ignoring. Not that it was bigger than her main problem, which was that she was trapped in an alternate universe as a serial killer, but it was still a problem.

Kiara was a cisgender female, with female biology. She was comfortable with that. Hannibal Lecter was decidedly un-female. Kiara almost wanted to laugh. How was this what was tripping her up? She’d just hid murder evidence last night, but she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Hannibal’s penis.

A most ungainly sound escaped her throat at that thought. It was as if a pig had died on her vocal chords. Right. Better to get this done. Luckily, she wasn’t a stranger to wearing a suit—she could do this quickly.

As fast and effectively as possible while trying to avoid looking at his entire body, Kiara fully undressed and put on all the necessary things needed to exist as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The silk boxers were new, but she should have expected that the good doctor wouldn’t be caught dead in Hanes tighty whities. Overall, the experience was deeply bizarre and altogether uncomfortable. She’d never wanted to know how it felt to have your ample chest hair accidentally get caught in a shirt button, but here she was. Thank God Hannibal’s muscle memory took over with the Windsor knot, though—Kiara hadn’t the slightest in how to tie a tie.

Briefly, she smiled at the memory of watching Hannibal crack videos which almost always included the blooper of Mads forgetting how to tie a tie. Better times. Now she was getting to experience all that firsthand in the worst possible way.

Feeling oddly predatory and powerful dressed to impress, Kiara wiped her already-clean hands on the suit and looked around. What was she even supposed to do? What did Hannibal ever do besides kill people and make heart eyes at Will Graham?

One thing she could do was turn herself in.

That was a thing she could do.

No, no. Not yet. Not now.

A buzz interrupted the thick tension in the room. Kiara nearly screamed. It was just Hannibal’s ancient little cell phone, vibrating forlornly on his nightstand. She snatched it and looked at the screen.

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Lecter, but I have to cancel today’s session. Emergency.”

The contact was one Amelia Bourdain. Kiara didn’t recognize the name, but she was grateful for Amelia’s emergency. Even if that made her an asshole. Amelia Bourdain’s emergency reminded her—Hannibal had a job. With people depending on him. She couldn’t do that right now. Opening up his phone, fingers flying as if she used this thing constantly, she sent a mass text to every one of his ‘Patients’ contacts informing them that she’d be indisposed for an unknown amount of time, and would reach back in a few days or less with more information. So what if someone complained?

They’d be better off being spared Hannibal's therapy.

Chore complete, Kiara had to decide what to do next. How did one decide what to do next? There were so many roads, so many options, that she couldn’t possibly sit here and furrow Hannibal’s prominent brow trying to parse them all apart. No, she had to figure out something else. Moving quickly, she inspected the contents of Hannibal’s nightstand. Perfect; a pen and notepad. The pad of paper—or parchment, rather—was so thick and richly textured as to have been made in the wilds of Egypt by a group of paper-making elves. And Hannibal’s fountain pen was a sleek, shiny black, with a gold statement band down its middle. It seemed to fit perfectly in Kiara’s hand, a hand that she knew had only ever held Sharpies and number two pencils.

The dissonance grew.

Swallowing, she awkwardly leaned down to the hip-height nightstand to collect her thoughts.

OPTIONS, she scrawled. Normally she wrote in print, but her pen flowed across the page in beautiful, neat cursive. She could take the time to override Hannibal’s muscle memory, but it was more important to get her thoughts out than change (her? his?) handwriting. She could figure that out later. For a second, the pen hovered over OPTIONS.

Option 1:, she wrote.

Continue acting as Hannibal to the best of my ability. Wait for something to come up and explain my situation to me, but stick to the script as much as possible and not deviate. Seems hard. Will would probably sniff me out.

Option 2:

Deviate completely from the script and turn myself in. Don’t like this option because I don’t wanna go to prison. And it negates my ability to figure out what the hell’s going on.

Option 3:

Stick with the script but search for clues as to what happened on the side. This seems like an okay one? But I don’t wanna have to kill all…

Kiara accidentally blotted the pen against the paper. Cursing, she rubbed her now-inky fingertips (careful to avoid any cloth) together and continued writing.

Option 3 Mark 2:

Stick with the script and search for clues. Don’t necessarily have to do exactly everything in the script.

Option 4:

Deviate from script and search/don’t search for clues, but DO NOT turn myself in. Even though that’s what actually ends up happening in the show. Fuck. Most viable option????

Those were the only routes she could think of. If others presented themselves, she’d gladly take them, because the list in front of her read like a series of bad headlines. Not in the least because she didn’t have each scene in the show committed to memory, which meant that no matter what she was gonna be surprised by something. She could only hope that it wasn’t going to be too awful.

Looking at the list, Kiara rubbed her chin in her hand and then slid her head down, covering her eyes. What was she doing? What she just wrote down looked like a crazy person wrote it. Was she crazy? Even with her eyes closed, the complete feeling of wrongness in her body would not budge.

Opening her eyes, Kiara was greeted by the sight of a male hand that had never once belonged to her attached to her elbow, which also didn’t belong to her.

“Perhaps I am crazy,” she murmured to herself. “But I have to roll with it.”

Hearing so pedestrian a phrase as ‘roll with it’ spill from Hannibal’s mouth prompted a giggle, which was quickly cut off by a fortuitous throat-clearing. Kiara grabbed another slip of parchment and continued to write.

RULES:

No killing. I don’t care if that means deviating from the script.

She was confident about that one. There was no way she’d fall that far. She might had been tossed into the driver’s seat of a particularly murderous car on a particularly murderous show, but she was still driving.

Cannibalism??

Ah, there it was. Hannibal the Cannibal. The most famous gimmick of the entire franchise.

I didn’t kill them—is it still unethical to eat them? This isn’t my body, should I honor it the way Hannibal would??? Is that unethical??? Or is it ethical to let them be???

Frankly, Kiara couldn’t face going back down to that basement anytime soon. Or think about that question any longer. She’d just starve or become a vegetarian until she figured out what to do about that can of worms. Or a can of liver, heart, lung…No, no, no. But what do people taste like? a little voice piped up in her head. Kiara told it in no uncertain terms to fuck off.

No malicious acts.

After writing that one, she placed the pen on the nightstand and breathed.

Pulling this entire thing off without committing a malicious act would be a miracle. But if she wanted to stick to the rules, she’d have to start following them. Nodding sternly at the air, she folded up the list of rules and stuck it in an inside pocket of the suit. Once done, she clasped her hands on her knees as she sat on his bed and looked up at the sky. It was blocked, of course, by a ceiling. An ornate one, but a ceiling nonetheless. Kiara slapped her hands on the bed once and stood up.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter had a crime scene to visit.

Chapter Text

When Kiara arrived back at the hospital, it was awash with red tape and FBI jackets. Amidst the unmarked squad cars, Hannibal’s Bentley stood out like a horrible, big, shiny dollar sign. Or a serial killer sign. Whatever that meant.

(This is stupid. This is stupid. They’ll have questions, you know they will.)

Kiara pushed aside her doubts. If she wasn’t gonna turn Hannibal in, she could do the next best thing—linger around at his crime scenes in a completely unnecessary fashion. Damn the script. Exiting the car, she strode up to the yellow tape and ducked under it. One officer, no doubt a county cop based on his sad-looking uniform, placed a hand on her chest. A whole hand. He better be grateful Kiara was in charge and not Hannibal the Cannibal.

“Sir, you can’t go in there.”

Kiara flashed what was intended to be a reassuring, but inevitably bone-chilling, smile at the cop.

“You misunderstand me. My name is Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I’m with Jack Crawford and Will Graham.” She waved Hannibal’s wallet at him, and without waiting for the cop’s say-so, entered the building. He didn’t try to follow.

This was it. Kiara was about to meet Jack Crawford and Will Graham. The elevator ride up to Sutcliffe’s office was entirely too short to allow her to process all her emotions, but she’d have to make do. Kiara took a deep breath and tried to sort through her options. If she acted like a fangirl, they’d immediately know something was wrong. Hannibal barely made expressions, much less let loose a whole emotion. She’d have to be cool. Super cool. At this juncture, it would be suspicious for Hannibal to get all excited over a crime scene. And why was she excited? Someone died, for Christ’s sake.

Kiara felt her neck getting hot. She could do this. The ding of the elevator rang like hell’s bells.

“Hello, Jack,” Kiara heard Hannibal say.

The man seemed to be a crumbling mountain in a trench coat. “Dr. Lecter,” he responded, without a hint of the resentment that would come to color his tone in later seasons. Instead, he spoke with a sort of gentle exasperation, undercut by gratitude. Like a softly worn out slip of silk. “Why are you here?”

“My apologies for causing any confusion, Jack.” Kiara gestured at the chaos. “I didn’t realize it would be a crime scene; I simply came to visit Dr. Sutcliffe. It’s important. Is Will here?”

At the mention of Will, Jack perked up, then immediately deflated as the rest of the thoughts associated with Will besides ‘closure rate’ rushed through his head. Instability, rudeness, a horse hitched closer to autism than serial killers, etc. Kiara nearly rolled her eyes as she watched Jack’s gears turn. She respected the character and sympathized with him, but the way he treated Will sometimes was honestly abominable.

“He is,” Jack answered, a hint of weariness in his stoic voice. “He just got done analyzing the crime scene. Should be somewhere around here. But Dr. Lecter, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Jack swallowed and clasped his hands in front of him. Kiara almost told him to spit it out, but Hannibal would never be so common as to say ‘spit it out’.

“Dr. Sutcliffe was murdered, Hannibal.”

Shocking! Kiara let her eyes slightly widen, and she turned away from Jack in an appropriate show of surprise. He was murdered? My God, what an unexpected turn of events! She was tempted to clutch pearls that Hannibal wasn’t even wearing, just for the sake of drama. Instead, still facing away from Jack, she reached a hand up to her eyes and wiped at the dry skin. Always good to pretend to cry. Kiara turned back to Jack, the moment of false emotion lost. Dignity regained.

“That is…unexpected news, Jack,” she responded, making sure to shake her voice a little. “I’m sorry to hear it. Donald was a skilled neurologist; the profession will be lesser without him.”

It seemed like the sort of cold-but-slightly-emotional thing Dr. Lecter would say. Kiara hoped she got it right.

“I understand you two were friends. I’m truly sorry for your loss.” God save her, Jack patted her shoulder.

Also—friends? Hannibal didn’t have friends; he saw people as pigs and objects of obsession. At a loss as to what to say, Kiara swallowed tightly and nodded. It seemed like a natural enough response for Jack.

“Well, Jack,” Kiara began, “given that my meeting with Dr. Sutcliffe is impossible, I’d like to speak with Will. Is he available?” Kiara asked it with a slight tilt to her head, trying to convey a sense of camaraderie to Jack. (Oh, Jack! You know that crazy Will, always needing to be alone at a crime scene. Would he care for a word from his killer psychiatrist?)

Jack nodded. “He just finished; the forensic team is going back in to investigate the scene now. He should still be in the room.” Jack paused. “I’m warning you, Hannibal, it’s…grisly in there.”

Kiara gave Jack a tight, cold slither of a smile. “I expected nothing less.”

Jack huffed a colorless laugh. “Right. I didn’t need to tell you that. Head on through, Dr. Lecter.”

Kiara sipped her head at Jack .

“Thank you, Jack.” Never hurt to be polite.

Kiara maneuvered around Jack and headed towards where she knew Hannibal’s tableau was. Dr. Sutcliffe’s office. She’d rather not see that grisly scene again, thank you very much, but there was no doubt in her mind that she needed to rip off the living band-aid that was Will Graham. Most likely, he was hovering broodily and ominously in the corner while Price, Zeller, and Beverly squatted over obscure splashes of blood and greasy fingerprints.

The door to the office was propped open, a cop on guard. Kiara nodded curtly at the cop, careful to keep her expression blank; only colored by a small hint of disgust. Hannibal wouldn’t want anyone to think he was enjoying this—even though he absolutely would be enjoying this. Creating the microexpression of disgust was easy. She wasn’t feeling much beyond disgust at the moment.

Last night’s events were starkly illuminated in the cold light of the sun, dust motes glittering like diamonds around the rubies of Sutcliffe’s congealed blood. For a split second, Kiara stood there with her hands clasped behind her back and admired the artwork before her.

(STOP! Stop.)

Turning around, huddled in a shadowy corner, she noticed Will Graham.

He looked just as sweaty and pale as he had on the show. His hands were steady but his gaze was not. His eyes snapped up to meet Kiara’s as he pulled himself out of whatever brain-fire nightmare he’d been mired in, but before he could even open his mouth Kiara strode forward, grabbed him by the arm, and forcefully marched him out of the room. She could feel Beverly, Price, and Zeller’s eyes slithering along her back.

“Hey, what—!” Thank God Will still had some fight in him.

“Not now, Will. I have something very important to tell you.” Even as she frogmarched Will down the hall, Kiara couldn’t tell herself what she was going to tell Will. Would she tell him about her alternate world? The possibility that his psychiatrist might be crazy? That Hannibal murdered Dr. Sutcliffe? The paths she could take stretched on, and on, ad infinitum.

Desperately looking about the stale hospital hallways, Kiara’s gaze landed on an unmarked door. Quickly, she ushered Will inside and closed the door behind them. It stank of odious chemicals, nearly causing her nose to crinkle. How did Hannibal stand it?

“Hannibal,” Will began slowly, “why did you drag me into a broom closet?”

As if she stood outside of herself, Kiara realized that she was about five inches from Will Graham, looming ominously over him. Will Graham. Will Graham. The star FBI profiler portrayed by the famed and talented British actor Hugh Dancy. One-half of her favorite pair of Murder Husbands.

Taking control of her breath, Kiara shut her eyes and tried to look ashamed. Stick to the plan, Kiara. In her breast pocket, the note she’d scribbled her options on weighed heavy. Stick to the plan.

“I’m afraid I made a terrible mistake, Will.” She tried to inject as much self-loathing and proper guilt into her voice as possible. It wasn’t hard, considering she’d just stuffed a box of crime scene evidence into the Murder Basement a scant twelve hours ago.

Will’s brows furrowed. Kiara continued.

“I was reviewing the results of your MRI. Actually, I was here to discuss them with Dr. Sutcliffe. I know how—” What was her play? Why would Hannibal re-review Will’s test results? Oh god, she should have thought this through. “—I know how desperately you wish your malady to be anything other than psychological.”

Kiara cringed at the stutter, which was deeply uncharacteristic of Hannibal, but continued. “You were right, Will. I’m deeply sorry for missing it the first time, but—”

“But what?” Will looked eager, almost salivating at the thought of his illness being physical instead of psychological. The hunger in his eyes was…disturbing. They’d never gleamed that brightly on the TV before. For a second, Kiara couldn’t reconcile the endless thirst trap edits she’d scrolled through of Will with the sick, desperate man before her.

“You have encephalitis, Will. Advanced encephalitis. That’s why I’m here. You need to be hospitalized immediately.”

The words fell to the floor with a thud between them.

Rather than freak out, or whoop in celebration, or do literally anything else, Will asked again, “Why are we in a broom closet, Hannibal?”

Because it’s an ironic, thematic coincidence portraying how we are both deeply in love with each other yet stuck in the closet, Kiara didn’t say. She shifted and rubbed her thumb against the back of her hand—another uncharacteristic tic, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. Perhaps Will would read it as guilt stemming from Hannibal missing the encephalitis.

“I wished to deliver this news in private, without the hemming and hawing of Uncle Jack. It was a short-term improvisation.”

“Nice ‘short-term improvisation,’ Hannibal,” Will huffed, a slight smile on his lips. “I’m getting out of here.”

Not waiting for Kiara to move, he inelegantly squeezed his arm between Kiara’s torso and the wall and popped open the door. Awkwardly, Kiara stepped back to let him out. To her utter mortification, Price and Zeller were both standing a few feet away, looking completely shell-shocked.

“Enjoying yourselves?” Price yelled as if he was attempting to communicate across the span of a nebula. Kiara figured Hannibal wouldn’t dignify that with a response, so she simply lifted her chin slightly and said nothing. Will, for his part, kept moving like nothing happened. As she watched, he shambled (for all his excitement about having encephalitis and not schizophrenia, he was still seriously ill) towards Jack and spoke quickly and quietly with him. She could see the moment the ball dropped—Jack’s eyebrows nearly shot off his head.

But of course, he didn’t trust Will. Nobody did. The look on Will’s face was nothing less than crushing as Kiara watched Jack palpably retract his initial belief and reconsider Will’s words. Time to intervene.

“Will has a severe case of encephalitis, Jack,” Kiara spoke in hushed, rushed tones, hoping to portray the solemn stress of a doctor who’d made a life-threatening mistake. Playing endless sessions of ‘Park Bench’ in her theater classes was suddenly and terrifyingly important.

“I reviewed the scans myself just last night—I’d retrieved a copy to take home from Dr. Sutcliffe before I left,” she bullshitted out of her ass. Luckily Hannibal Lecter was the King of Bullshit, and for some reason no-one ever bothered to follow up on his fabulously stanky bullshit claims. Hopefully the same principle would hold true for her. “Will needs to be admitted, now.”

At her urgent and very sane tone, Jack seemed to believe her. Kiara looked aside to WIll to assess how he was handling this. He’d shut down and looked blank, as he so often did on the show. No doubt the unspoken implication that Hannibal was to be believed and not him was rubbing a well-salted finger in an old, familiar wound.

“Dr. Lecter. Escort Will down to the reception; get him a room. Report back to me when you’re done.” There was a faint ember burning in his eyes that made Kiara’s gut sink. Jack might treat Will horribly, but for all his faults he was overly protective of the man—like a housewife who valued the fine china above all else.

“We’ll finish up here, Will. Don’t worry about the profile. We can handle it.” Jack was subsequently buffeted by winds of duty and guilt towards Dr. Sutcliffe’s office, leaving Will and Kiara swirling and tumbling in his wake.
_____________________________________

In the end, it hadn’t been that hard to get Will sorted. Which, honestly, was disturbing in and of itself.

All she’d had to do was sit back and let Hannibal take the reins. As far as she could tell, she was still the sole occupant in his twisted little mind—but she was inhabiting a brain that had decades of experience in the medical field. Kiara simply faded into the tapestry of Lecter’s mindscape and allowed other forces to handle Will’s hospital admission. She was present for the entire event, but only just so. Like a sleepy cat idly observing an oblivious mouse. Who was the cat and who was the mouse, Kiara couldn’t rightly say. It didn’t warrant dwelling upon.

Kiara rested her forearms on the kitchen counter, cool metal soothing her. Given that she’d canceled all her psychiatric appointments, there wasn’t anything to do but languish while Will was treated. No doubt when he came to his senses, he’d accuse Kiara of—something.

She could see it now, clear as day. The white face mask slapped over her mouth. The squeak of the gurney as she was led, strapped and helpless, into the bowels of the sort of asylum that only existed in horror novels. Doomed to watch televangelists and listen to Miggs masturbate for eternity. Or, given that this was NBC’s Hannibal, doomed to sit in a giant, boring room all by herself with Alana occasionally visiting her to taunt her. That actually sounded slightly preferable—Kiara didn’t envy Hopkins’ Hannibal.

The buzz of Hannibal’s phone tore Kiara from her thoughts. Blinking rapidly, Kiara read the screen. It was from Chilton.

Confirming our dinner at 8:00 PM.

Fucking Chilton. Attempting to be professional to the point of rudeness. Kiara’s jaw clenched, and she hovered over the keyboard, willing a reply to manifest itself. She couldn’t put this off—not with a character as important as Chilton. It would raise too many questions.

Yes, Frederick. Dinner shall be served at 8:00. Have a good day.

There. Stilted and polite. Topped off with a nicety she didn’t mean—peak Hannibal.

Ok. It was three. She had five hours to figure out what to cook.

Christ, she had to cook. And she had to cook with people.

Kiara nearly hurled, but managed to refrain. It would be even more troublesome to clean up vomit on top of having to cook, serve, and eat human remains.

That final thought carried her to the sink, where she promptly dispensed the contents of her belly.

It was sickening. Not only because she literally threw up, but because—even as the sting of bile coated her mouth, she could feel saliva welling up and flooding her mouth. A dull ache gnawing in her stomach. Hands trembling in anticipation at the thought of food. At the thought of long pig.

Hands grasping the edge of the sink, knuckles white, Kiara turned her head to look at the kitchen island. There it was. Hannibal’s little recipe box. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what he’d served to Chilton that episode. Maybe looking through the box would refresh her memory.

Because that’s what she had to do. She had to cook for Chilton, eat with him, and hold a conversation. Not arouse suspicion. Did she want to go to prison? No.

When put that way, Kiara reasoned, this was much more preferable. Yes, she might have to eat people. No doubt human was the only kind of meat Hannibal had in his fridge, and he didn’t cook vegetarian. Sure, she could go out and buy groceries, but somehow…that felt wrong. Kiara didn’t examine the wrongness too closely. No, she’d cook with what was on hand. No fresh meat.

Opening Hannibal’s recipe box almost felt like a violation. The parchment cards were stiff and cold, the edges sinking into the calluses of Hannibal’s fingers. She flicked through them carefully, not wanting to fray the edges of the paper. Her hand stilled over one—Kudal with Sheep; South Indian curry.

This was what he’d served Chilton. Kiara was certain of it. Swallowing hard, she snapped the box shut and placed the card in a wrought-iron holder next to the box. As much as it felt inappropriate, she suddenly had to stifle a laugh. Cooking montages were always her favorite part of the show, and here she was; about to initiate one. Hopefully it would be as painless and mildly enjoyable to cook the meal as it was to watch it being made on TV.

Who was she kidding? This was going to suck. She had no idea what kudal was, she had no idea how to cook anything beyond a slightly-upscale version of instant ramen (made so by the inclusion of spinach and eggs), and she had no idea what the arcane instruments in Hannibal’s kitchen were. For all she knew, they could be gleaming chrome replicas of medieval torture devices. Some of them certainly looked that way—that potato peeler, for one. Walking over to it, the warped blade shimmering lightly in the sun, Kiara tested its weight in her hands. Left, right. Both felt equally capable of handling instruments. Of course they were; Hannibal used to be a surgeon.

Rather than endure a now-familiar wave of disgust at the thought, she decided to use it to her advantage. Hannibal used to be a surgeon. Kiara was operating (she snickered at the pun) Hannibal’s body; he was her instrument. If he could sew up people, she could certainly cook a curry with meat that looked identical to lamb. It was no problem.

Mind thus settled, Kiara set to work.
_____________________________________

Cooking had been awful. It had been awful because it wasn’t awful. It had actually been fun, when she’d stopped thinking and let Hannibal’s capable body do the work.

Kiars wiped her hands on Hannibal’s still-pristine white apron, staring at her meal. Privately, she’d always thought the food on the show looked a little weird—too artsy and exotic to be tasty. She was a 70 cent chicken stock and Hamburger Helper kind of gal. But this, this experience. It was a revelation. Nearly religious in nature, if her euphoria was anything to go by. Was this how Hannibal always felt when cooking? A golden haze of surety, of belief in your skills, of satisfaction at seeing all the pieces come together? Of making something whole out of something broken?

Kiara leaned down, closed her eyes, and purposely breathed in the spiced steam emanating from the yellow ochre of the sauce. It was delicately wrapped in large leaves she’d discovered in Hannibal’s pantry, a slightly ostentatious yet aesthetically pleasing choice. Sure, she might not have much of a mind for cooking, but Kiara had an appreciation for visual presentation. It was sort of a necessity if you were a fan of Hannibal.

Kiara checked Hannibal’s watch; the gaudy luxury of it screaming out to her and making her eyes narrow. 7:58. The show never gave any indication either way, but if Kiara had to guess, Frederick Chilton was the kind of person who showed up ‘fashionably late’ to every engagement except for one of Hannibal’s. He seemed to fear and respect the man too much, even before he knew Hannibal was a serial killer.

Sure enough, at exactly 8:00 PM, Hannibal’s doorbell rang. The clang crashed into Kiara’s newly-sensitive ears, ricocheting down the sterile stone and wood halls of Hannibal’s home. Lost in her own thoughts, she nearly jumped and upended the curry. Her vision whited out as she caught both plates, the dishes as pristine as ever. Taking a moment to recover, she let out a breath. What a great start to the evening!

Oh, crap. She was still in Hannibal’s ‘casual’ clothes—aka, an apron and rolled-up dress shirt. Glancing wildly around the kitchen, she saw the chair where she’d discarded her waistcoat and suit jacket a few hours ago. Fumbling with the apron’s knot, she flung it over the counter and quickly buttoned up both articles of clothing, sweaty fingers fiddling with the tortoiseshell latches. Breathing heavily, she checked her watch once more. 8:04. Chilton was going to think she’d had a stroke and expired. Walking as quickly as she could without further depriving herself of air, Kiara made it to the front door (after getting briefly lost, which tacked on another three minutes to her lateness tally).

“Dr. Chilton!” Kiara greeted with a fake smile, cold night air whipping at Hannibal’s gelled hair. Chilton was just as he’d appeared in the show, the shorter man dressed in a nice-but-not-as-nice-as-Hannibal’s suit and hair gelled; but not as gelled. He read like a bad photocopy of Hannibal—one that had gotten stuck in the printer and subsequently yanked out, the ink smearing and image distorting.

“Please come in,” she continued before Chilton could say anything. “I’m terribly sorry for my lack of punctuality; I’m afraid I’ve been distracted lately.”

At that admission of humanity from Hannibal, Chilton adopted his own tremulous smile. It was a slimy thing, leaving a thin, greasy trail in its wake. “Haven’t we all, Dr. Lecter?”

Chilton was looking at Kiara like he expected her to know what was going on. Shit, shit, shit; she couldn’t remember. Lightly shaking her head, Kiara instead opted to lead Chilton down the halls to the dining room.

“I’ve got dinner waiting in the kitchen; if you’d care to eat now rather than later?” There. Dinner seemed as safe a topic as any; a strange thought to have when standing in Hannibal Lecter’s dining room. But Kiara had been having nothing but strange thoughts lately. She could handle one more.

In response, Chilton smiled that uncomfortable smile once more. “I always come to your home ready to eat, Doctor.”

Oh, if only he knew. Kiara simply nodded at him and scrambled to the kitchen—her safe place, however tenuous that position was. Alone in the cavern of metal, she breathed the spiced air and reviewed her options.

Will was in the hospital for encephalitis a few episodes before he should be; crucially, before his framing for Abigail’s (and all of Hannibal’s) murders. That plot thread was out the window. Which, of course, was what Kiara had wanted. However, it put the future in jeopardy and that was not good. But that wasn’t the problem right now; the problem was that she needed to know what to talk to Chilton about. Okay, so the timeline was already fucked, but certain events should still be in motion. What were they?

Abel Gideon.

Kiara almost sobbed with relief at the realization. As it was, she simply slapped a hand over Hannibal’s plush lips. Frederick Chilton wanted to talk about Abel Gideon. Sure, he might mention Will, but if there was one thing Chilton could be counted on for, it was to be selfish. He’d care more about his patient, not Hannibal’s.

Straightening her posture, Kiara picked up the identical plates of curry. It was showtime.

“Frederick, my apologies once more for my lateness. Shall we begin?”

Kiara had awkwardly discovered Chilton waiting for her in the parlor instead of the dining room. Wandering around Hannibal’s mansion with two heavy (although Hannibal was more than capable of carrying them) plates of curry had nearly caused her to break out in a cold, nervous sweat. But there Chilton was, sitting on an uncomfortable-looking leather chair. He gave a little pointless chuckle. It was disgusting.

“Of course, Dr. Lecter. I’ve been meaning to discuss, you know,” Chilton swallowed and waved his hand, “my patient, Abel Gideon, with you. As he’s been on all of our minds.”

Chilton’s smile turned cold and fragile, and Kiara knew it dropped off his face as soon as she turned her back to lead Chilton into the dining room.

“Well,” Kiara began. How could she phrase this in a Lecter-y way? Maybe she could throw in some pointless metaphor? No; that was too gauche and pretentious for his discussions with Chilton—Hannibal viewed him as a lesser mind in comparison to Will.

Walking around the dining room’s massive wooden table, Kiara continued, “Someone who already doubts their own identity can be more susceptible to manipulation. Dr. Gideon is a psychopath. Psychopaths are narcissists; they rarely doubt who they are.”

She knelt down to fiddle with the food. It was pointless, but something Hannibal would do. Perfectionist prick.

“I tried to appeal to his narcissism.” Chilton was standing with his hands folded onto each other, clearly trying to appear clever but instead projecting an air of uncertainty. Kiara dished out the curry.

“By convincing him he was the Chesapeake Ripper,” she shot back. A statement, not a fact. Chilton looked away. Good; he should. Kiara wasn’t a trained therapist, but it didn’t take a great mind to understand that Chilton hadn’t been treating his patient ethically—or treating him at all.

“If only I had been more curious about the common mind,” Chilton dramatically lamented, gazing out into the snow. Kiara paused in her scooping to curl her lip in his direction.

“I have no interest in understanding sheep; only eating them.” Although by now she was borrowing dialogue directly from the show, Kiara delivered this line with real verve. It was one of her favorites, and for the first time, she sensed the very real contempt behind it. If Chilton was affecting her this badly, the negative effect he had on Hannibal’s mood must have been astronomical.

“Kudal. A South Indian curry,” she continued, saying the dish’s name like she had any idea what it was. She pulled back a chair for Chilton and smiled. The grin felt heavy on her face.

“Made from sheep, of course.”

The urge to confess everything to Chilton overcame her suddenly, in a mad, irrational rush. “Hey, Fred,” she’d say, “you’re actually eating people! Humans that I killed and cooked. Well, I didn’t kill them—Hannibal did, and I’m not Hannibal! Oh wait, you’re saying I look and sound just like him? See, that’s correct, but also wrong! I’m actually just possessing him. I’m from another dimension. Get me out of here!”

Yeah, that’d go down well. Instead, she said: “Bathed in a coconut-coriander chili sauce.”

(She was one of those people with the coriander soap gene, so the chance to try coriander for real had been exciting. She’d snuck a pinch in the kitchen, and hated to admit it, but everyone was right. It had a great, non-soapy flavor. One of the few unexpected pluses of being trapped in Doctor Hannibal Lecter’s body.)

“It feels like a last supper.” Chilton’s dramatics were starting to feel like he was auditioning for a role in a mid-2000s film about teenage girls in high school.

“You’re not the only psychiatrist accused by a patient of making them kill. Poke around a psychopath’s mind, you’re bound to get poked back.” Yet another one of Hannibal’s pithy, ironic lines was delivered from Kiara’s mouth. Good; everything was going on script. Perhaps this dinner would end early and she could curl up in a ball and cry at finally finishing her first complete day as Hannibal Lecter.

“Speaking of,” Chilton said, speaking through a mouthful of curry, “how is Will Graham?”

Kiara was frozen, her slight smile a mask on her face. No, Will can’t have accused Hannibal of framing him for the murders yet. Not all of the evidence had even been put into place! Some had, sure, but no-one was looking for it. In all likelihood, it would never be discovered. No, no; this was much too early. It had to be.

“This is delicious, by the way,” Chilton blathered on, completely unaware of Kiara’s unnatural stillness. Snapping to attention, Kiara began to mindlessly dig at the human meat on her plate. She didn’t bring it to her lips.

“I’m quite sure Will hasn’t accused me of making him kill, Frederick,” Kiara laughed off, attempting to sound relaxed. To her ears, she sounded like she was getting ready for a vacation in the psych ward.

Chilton laughed in response, a real one this time. “Oh, no, Dr. Lecter. I simply meant to say I heard about your oversight—he’s got a rather serious case of encephalitis, has he not?”

Kiara breathed out. Jesus, if he’d wanted to say that he could have just said it. She schooled her features into an appropriately sorrowful expression.

“Yes. We’re only lucky I was looking over the files for a second time. Left unchecked, it could have done serious long-term damage. I can’t even begin to express my regret at not noticing sooner.” She flicked her eyes down to the meal. Impulsively, she took a bite of curry.

“What providence, then, that you caught it, Dr. Lecter,” Chilton said, smiling down into his food and flicking his eyes up at Kiara. “I imagine Will and his colleagues at the FBI are very grateful.”

How the hell was she supposed to respond to that? The last time she’d seen Will, he was still out of his mind with fever. And the last time she saw Jack was when he was barking at her to admit Will to the ER. Neither scenario screamed ‘grateful’, especially considering she had spent the half-hour before that painstakingly explaining how Hannibal had missed the extremely obvious signs of disease.

“I imagine they would be more grateful if I had been correct the first time,” Kiara demurred. Humble wasn’t Hannibal’s style, but it seemed appropriate in such a dire medical situation.

“Well, there’s nothing to be done about that.” Chilton sipped his wine. “Mistakes are made in the field of medicine, although yours are few and far between.” He smiled at her again.

Kiara had a sudden, horribly vivid vision of Chilton literally kissing Hannibal’s ass. Blinking her eyes clear of that nightmarish scene, she took another bite of curry. It was delicious; the spiced, gamey flavor of the meat matched perfectly with the mild creaminess of the curry. She took a moment to inhale the steam before spearing her fork into the bed of leaves for another mouthful. Chilton did the same. Kiara couldn’t help but smirk at that—there he was, trying to brown-nose Hannibal while Hannibal was feeding him people.

Kiara’s blood froze in her veins.

The curry, once so invitingly warm and yellow, suddenly seemed to congeal and turn sour.

There were people in that curry.

That curry that she’d just eaten.

Kiara took a deep breath, trying to control the sudden maelstrom of panic which unleashed itself inside her. Her stomach clawed its way through her torso, undulating and squirming with the knowledge of what inhabited it. There was no way she could dash out of here without making a scene, and Chilton would almost certainly gossip to anyone who would listen if Hannibal turned him out of his house before the main course was even over. She could freak out later, and no doubt she would. Perhaps she’d have another lovely sobbing session in the wine cellar, or get tear stains on Hannibal’s five trillion thread count sheets.

She was a cannibal now. Like, a for-real cannibal, not just inhabiting Hannibal’s body through a cruel twist of fate. Or, was she a cannibal? Hannibal was already a cannibal, so had anything really changed? It wasn’t her body that ate the meat, it was Hannibal’s. Yes. That was what had happened.

Kiara touched a hand to her breast pocket, comforted by the feeling of stiff paper. She’d have to write down that train of thought, in case things got to be too much and she needed something to calm her down. She wasn’t a cannibal. Hannibal was. Nothing had changed, and everything was fine.

Taking a deep breath, the fine silver fork weighed heavy in her hand. Kiara stabbed at her plate and raised another chunk of meat to her lips. It was accompanied by a cold, hollow smile at Chilton. He didn't do it, but Kiara imagined the man shuddering as he met Hannibal’s maroon eyes.

Kiara took another bite.