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sometimesanalice · 7 months ago

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That’s My Girl

Summary: Bradley has been looking after you for longer than he can remember. You’ve always been his favorite person. So when some guy makes an unwelcomed move on you, that last thing he’s going to do is just sit back and watch it happen.

Pairing: Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Female Reader

Length: 6.7K

Warning: language, male chauvinism, allusions to smut, some angst with a happy ending

(author's note: this is a fic is set in the 'Like I Can' universe, however it can be read on it's own!

In hindsight, Bradley should have known how rowdy the crowd at the Hard Deck was going to be tonight.

Sailors fresh off a several months long deployment were always a boisterous bunch. But Sailors fresh from a deployment during San Diego Fleet Week were a different thing entirely.

The bar is packed and humid, even with the doors and windows opened for the Pacific breeze. Penny’s old air conditioning unit might be on its last legs because Bradley’s shirt is sticking to the skin of his back. He’d nearly lost his mind when he’d seen that bead of sweat work its way down your neck and between your breasts when you’d pressed a kiss to his cheek and told him you were getting a refill and asked if he wanted anything.

Bradley really hoped you’d be up for leaving soon. He wouldn’t mind taking a dip in the pool at your apartment. Or better yet, getting you to join him for a cool shower.

It wasn’t the just the deep v of your tank top- or those sweet little embroidered flowers along the edges of it- that hand his fingers twitching to touch you. Although he liked those too.

It was that damn bow.

When Bradley had picked you up from your apartment earlier this evening and seen you wearing that, he’d given you a wolf whistle so loud it had caused your neighbor’s dog to start barking.

He’d taken advantage of your surprised laugh to back you up against your front door to get his mouth along the column of your neck. He’s always been a big picture kind of guy. And he knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he was tugging open that bow between your breasts with his teeth.

You’d all but sighed his name as your fingers tangled in his hair.

Bradley.

And just as he’d reached your collarbone, you’d pulled him back up to your mouth like you were going to kiss him and murmured Later against his lips before slipping past him, like the menace that you are, leaving him to chase after the trail of your perfume.

You knew what you were doing, that was for damn sure. He’s always been a sucker for a bow. And for you.

Bradley had more than appreciated the extra sway you’d put in your hips just for him as you walked down your hallway towards the elevator. He’d grinned to himself as he set off after you, because at the end of the night, his girlfriend would be coming home with him.

Earlier in the evening, Coyote had been fast to claim the cluster of tables that some Butterbars had left to close out their tabs, most likely onto their way to the next stop of many for the night. It was lucky timing, because there’d been a nonstop steady stream of people making their way into the unofficial designated Naval watering hole for Fleet Week. There was a mix of civilians, Naval regulars who are stationed at North Island, and the visiting Sailors dressed in their uniforms on liberty. Bradley wasn’t sure how many more bodies could be packed in until some of the worn wooden shingles of the bar started popping off.

The lively and loud atmosphere of Fleet Week was something that Bradley had typically enjoyed in the past. He liked seeing people cut loose and laugh as they swapped stories with their friends and families. And he’d been happy to do his part to add to the good times, having been pulled to the piano twice already.

Over the years he’d built up a curated collection crowd-pleasers for occasions just like this. Part peacocking, part coping. While he’s never been the type to shy away from being the center of attention, he’d also found it was easier to breathe in the spotlight. Because with everyone’s eyes on him, it was impossible to feel alone.

So much has changed for him since getting permanently stationed in San Diego. And all for the better. That loneliness was a thing of the past, because now when he played, he was surrounded by all of his favorite people

But Bradley still ends his impromptu sets the same way he always has, with Jerry Lee Lewis. Only now he gets to sing it directly to the girl who’d given him the sheet music to the song in the first place.

The same one, he’s realized, who hasn’t returned back from getting her refill yet.

Bradley takes a quick glance around the corner of the bar they’d laid claim too. Bob, Fanboy, and Payback were lounging against the side of the pool table chatting up some of the visiting Sailors, since there wasn’t enough room to actually play a round without taking someone out with one of the cues. Coyote was leaning over the jukebox flipping through the albums with a pretty civilian who was out with her friends that he’d met and was clearly trying to impress. And Jake and Nat were seated with him at one of the tall round tables taking about the new Top Gun students, where your chair next to him was still empty.

Everyone was accounted for, except you.

There are so many people packed around the edges of the bar that it takes him a moment to find you. He thought maybe you’d been held up by Penny or Jimmy or some other familiar face, but he doesn’t recognize the man who standing way too close to you. But the firm press of your lips tells him everything he needs to know.

He sees the next moment playout as if it’s in slow motion. Watching as you attempt to take a step back, only for the guy to wrap his hand around your wrist to keep you from moving away. Bradley sees you glance down at that hand on you, and back up at the stranger. He knows that look in your eyes as you shake out of his grip. You aren’t just annoyed, you’re pissed.

Bradley slams his beer down and shoves his stool back.

He hears Jake curse behind him, “Oh, shit.”

Chair legs screech against the wooden floor as his friends hustle to follow after him, but he doesn’t wait for them to catch up.

There’s a trail of spilled cocktails and beers in his wake as he unapologetically weaves through the tightly crammed bodies that separate him from you. If anyone has an issue with him later, they can put a refill on his tab. But right now, his only goal is getting to you.

He doesn’t slow for a second. He just struts right up and steps in between you and the other man.

“Do we have an issue here?” he rasps, folding his arms over his chest.

Bradley takes the guy in with a hard glower. The name tape on his uniform reads Wilson. A LTJG, based on his shoulder boards, from one of the visiting ships. The man is big, but Bradley is bigger. And he outranks him. The guy might not know it yet, but it was just another thing he was planning on making crystal clear.

You put a hand on his tense shoulder. “Everything is fine.”

“It sure as shit doesn’t seem fine.” He doesn’t take his glare off of Wilson. “I think it’s time for you to go now.” He jerks his chin towards the front door.

“We’re just having a friendly conversation,” the other man drawls, sending him a wink. The implied innuendo makes Bradley’s jaw clench. There wasn’t anything “friendly” about the way he’d been using his size to keep you trapped at the bar.

The guy is trashed. There’s a blankness behind his eyes that Bradley doesn’t like the look of. He must have pre-gamed before going out because Penny and Jimmy weren’t ones to overserve.

“No, what you’re doing is paying your tab and leaving this bar.” It’s an order.

“Bradley.” You say his name like a warning. “I’m handling it.”

You pull on his shoulder, but he shrugs you off.

“No, kid, I’m handling it for you.” This asshole was Bradley’s problem to deal with now. He’d tapped in the moment he’d seen the man touch you.

“I see.” Wilson’s gaze bounces back and forth between the two of you, an oily grin appears on his face. “You’ve already got someone for tonight lined up. Damn, you didn’t waste any time did you, sweet thing?”

Anger flares hot and bright in his stomach.

“You better watch your mouth,” Bradley spits, pointing a threatening finger.

The bar around him blurs around the edges, but the man in front of him only gets sharper in focus.

You step around him and tug on his arm. From the corner of his eye, he can see you shaking your head at him. “Bradley, stop. I told you, I’ve got it.” Your voice is clipped, tight. “Let me take care of it.”

He knows you want for him to let it go. To back off. And he’s about to- for you- because you want him to. But then he sees the guy’s eyes drop down to the exposed skin of your chest- to that bow between your breasts- and smirks.

It’s a look so filthy that even Bradley feels dirty. He operates out of instinct. Stretching his arm in front of you, he purposefully pushes you back behind him to where he knows Seresin is standing close by, trusting that his friend will move you out of the way.

“A barrack bunny like you must know her way around. I don’t mind another man’s sloppy-”

For a moment, Bradley isn’t at the Hard Deck anymore. He’s standing in Jason Cameron’s kitchen, where the smell of weed and cheap alcohol and Axe hung heavy in the air.

Bradley’s fist flies on its own.

He barely registers the moment his knuckles connect with the other man’s jaw. He doesn’t see the man stumble backwards into the table behind him. He doesn’t hear the surprised gasps or the sound of glass breaking or the thud as the man hits the floor. There’s only the color red and the sound of his own ragged breathing.

When he shakes off the memory and returns back to his body, he’s almost surprised to see the broken bottles on the floor and not shards from a sliding glass door.

The next few minutes are a flurry of chaos as Wilson’s friends come and scoop him off the floor to make their exit. From the looks of irritation on their faces, it seems like this might be an all too frequent occurrence. He makes a mental note to try and look up the man’s supervising officer. And if he can’t find them on his own, he’ll ask Mav to help.

He can feel dozens of eyes on him, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Bradley takes a moment to apologize to Penny. He avoids looking directly in her eyes, not wanting to see the disappointment he’s sure is there. The adrenaline is still coursing and sparking through his body. He needs a moment to work off his anger and get his head back on straight before he comes to check on you. But he knows you’re in good hands with his friends.

Without being asked, he rights the table and stools on his way to the supply closet to grab a broom and dustpan. He takes his time meticulously picking up the bits of broken glass off the ground before he sweeps the rest of it up as he waits for his heartrate to settle back down.

When he’s done, he spots Nat and Jake sitting at the bar top and heads towards them. But for the second time tonight, you’re not where you should be.

“That was some left hook, Bradshaw,” Nat says, pinning him with a flat look over the top of her drink.

He ignores the comment. “Have either of you seen my girlfriend?”

Jake lifts his hand up at about your height. “About this tall? Great smile? Dating a man that’s clearly punching?” He chuckles to himself. “No pun intended.” Those dimples of his are more grating than usual.

Bradley’s hand flexes in irritation. His quick fuse is on its way to being lit again.

“Seresin,” he barks, low on patience, “Where’d she go?”

The other man lets out a low whistle and shares a look with Nat. “She left out the side patio door like ten minutes ago. Looked like she was about to spit nails too.”

“Goddammit,” he mumbles under his breath. He turns to Phoenix. “Did she really look that pissed?”

She shrugs. “I’m surprised she didn’t punch you, I probably would have.”

Bradley’s mouth drops open. “For what? For defending her?”

All he did tonight was stand up for you when someone crossed a line and tried to get physical with you. He wasn’t ashamed for doing it, he’d do it again in a heartbeat.

“But did she want you to do that?” she asks, deliberately.

He doesn’t understand why Nat is giving him a hard time about this.

“That’s my girl and that guy wasn’t listening.”

Nat lifts a pointed eyebrow at him, “Sounds familiar.”

Bradley forces out a breath. “That was different and you know it.”

“All I’m saying is I think she was making herself pretty clear, but you chose not to hear her and did what you wanted anyways.” His teeth clench together as a rock lands hard in his stomach. “And from the sound of it, she wanted to handle it her own way.”

“Yeah, but…” You’re his, he wants to say, but holds back at the risk of sounding like the jealous boyfriend Nat thinks he’s being. Except he wasn’t being jealous, he just wanted to protect you.

“No buts, Rooster. You fucked up.”

Nat has always been a straightshooter. It was one of the things he’s always appreciated most about her, that and her keen ability to read people. He trusted her judgement. And if she feels this way, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with it, then the chances are very high that you do too.

“Shit.”

“Yeah, ‘shit’. Now go fix it.” She pats his shoulder once, and then gives him a shove to the side door they’d seen you leave from.

It’s cooler outside.

The ocean breeze feels good on his hot, sticky skin. Bradley feels like he can breathe a little easier without all those people milling around him.

You’re not hard to spot. To anyone else you’d a solidary figure facing the ocean, but he’d know the shape of you anywhere.

From what Seresin said, Bradley had figured you’d be half way down the beach. He’d been planning just to follow the trail of steam to find you. But you’re still as a statue with your arms wrapped around yourself as you stare out at the inky waves.

The noise from the bar is muffled inside the walls of the Hard Deck, but still slips out from the windows that are cracked open and follows him as he walks towards you. The sand shifts beneath his shoes with every step he takes. The tunes from Penny’s jukebox get carried away on the wind and are replaced with the gentle roar of the waves as he approaches you.

The days are getting longer and dusk is rolling in. The sun is hanging low in the sky. Not quite set, but well on its way. He’d love nothing more than to pull you into his lap in one of the Adirondack chairs to watch the last glimmering moments of golden hour with you in his arms. But knows that’s probably not in the cards for tonight.

The two of you have had fights before. Usually over stupid, inconsequential things. Arguing with you feels different now than when it did when you were just friends. Now that you’re his girlfriend, it feels like there’s more at stake. He knew he’d never forgive himself if he fumbled the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Bradley wants to skip over this part to where the two of you are back on the same page. He wants to skip to the part where he gets to see your dimples and hear you laugh.

He stops just a few feet behind you. He knows you know he’s there, in that uncanny way you’ve always been able to sense him. The minutes tick by as he stands there and waits for you to acknowledge him. Or to turn around and shoot him that withering glare of yours. He’d take anything other than your silence.

But you don’t.

You give him nothing, which is almost worse.

It feels like a standoff.

He folds first.

“Sweet girl,” Bradley says, with a resigned sigh.

He doesn’t miss the way your whole body tenses at the sound of his voice.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now, Rooster.”

The way you say his callsign lands like a punch in the gut.

You’re only standing a few feet away from him, but it feels like the two of you are miles apart.

“C’mon, kid, that asshole is gone now. Come back inside.”

“Seriously?” you laugh bitterly, still refusing to look at him. “You’re seriously going to ignore me right now too? I said I don’t want to talk right now.”

He feels his jaw tick. “Look, I’m sorry,” he starts, still not feeling sorry in the least, “But-”

You put a hand up and whirl on him, shaking your head in disbelief. The thunderous look on your face would have a lesser man taking a step back, instead Bradley steels his spine and digs his feet into the sand.

“I really don’t want to hear it. I don’t think I’ve ever been this mad at you,” you fume. “Not even in high school when you got in that stupid fucking fight at that Homecoming party when I had to take you to the hospital.”

He presses his lips together firmly. There was a time and place for a conversation about that night, the one where he’d earned the scars on his face, but it wasn’t here and now. It was a secret he’d kept to himself for nearly two decades, the only other person who’d known the full story was his mom. But telling you about it now would only make things worse.

You continue, like a freight train without brakes, “And you’d been drunk then. Not that that excuses anything. But you’ve had, what? Two beers tonight?” When you lift your eyebrows at him expectantly, he nods curtly in confirmation. “So tell me what the hell just happened in there?”

He swears that sharp flash of your eyes could cut glass. A lick of heat bursts behind his sternum. Hot and fierce.

“He wasn’t backing off,” Bradley grits out, trying to summon the patience he doesn’t have. “What was I supposed to do? Give him a pat on the back and let him keep hitting on my girlfriend?” You scoff and he feels his pulse kick up in his throat. “I have always had your back, and I will always have your back.”

Bradley doesn’t understand why you don’t seem to understand that he’d do anything for you. He’s been looking out for you since your bike handlebars had iridescent tassels streaming from them, and if he has his way he’ll be looking out for you until his number is up.

“But that’s the thing, Rooster! You didn’t have my back in there,” you argue, stepping forward so you’re toe to toe with him. Your use of his callsign again chafes against his ears like sandpaper. “All you did was manhandle me out of the way to get at him and throw fists. I mean, Mav and Hondo would have let it slide if they’d been there to see that. But what about Cyclone? Would he? Why would you put your career at risk like that? What were you even thinking?”

You’re looking at him like you don’t know him, and he hates it. Because you’re the person who knows him best.

He runs a hand through his hair in agitation. He’s been trying to tame his temper, that caged animal that paced within the confines of the ribs in his chest. But his anger and frustration has been feeding off of yours, meeting it measure for measure.

“I wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking,” Bradley explodes, flinging his arms out to the side. “I’m not going to stop and make a damn pros and cons list while I watch some asshole being disrespectful and getting physical with you. It’s not going to happen, kid.”

“And I told you that I had it handled!” you exclaim.

The sound of the waves gets lost in the way both of your voices are raising with each and every parry in the verbal fencing match you’ve found yourselves in. This has escalated quicker than he ever could have expected, and all he wants is to find himself back on the same page with you.

“How am I the bad guy in all of this right now?”

“Don’t you get it? I’m not mad about you wanting you to be there for me, I’m mad about how you went about it. You literally pushed me out of the way and passed off to Jake, like my voice and feelings in that moment didn’t matter to you. Like you didn’t care about what I wanted. You have never treated me like that before.”

Guilt makes his stomach churn.

“You and I both know that’s not true,” he replies. It’s an uncomfortable truth.

That dark period after his mom died and how he’d treated you still haunted him sometimes. When he’d try to set fire to all the bridges around him, including his friendship with you. He hadn’t been worth knowing back then, but you’d never given up on him. He remembers it like it was yesterday, he’s never forgotten it. On the nights he couldn’t sleep, it was one of the many things that played out behind his eyelids like a highlight reel of all his worst moments.

Your eyebrows pinch together in confusion. He sees the moment it clicks for you because the fire that had been blazing behind those eyes he knows so well transforms into something softer. Something sadder.

“Bradley, I’m not going to hold onto something from when you were eighteen and hurting and heartbroken.” Your voice catches with emotion. “But tonight? Tonight, you made me feel small. And you’re the very last person I thought who’d ever make me feel that way.”

He can’t even enjoy hearing you say his name again, because you look so disappointed in him. The two of you stand there staring at each other, searching each other’s eyes as the waves rolling in along the shore fill the silence.

The way your lower lip wobbles steals the fight right out of him. All that righteous indignation that had been whirling in his chest is gone quicker than it came over him at the sight of the tears welling up along your lower lash line.

He’d let you down back then. And he’d let you down tonight too. He feels like he’s broken a promise to you, one he’d made with himself a longtime ago. Bradley wants to be the man whose shoulders you could lean on, the one you trusted to bet there to support you. He never thought he’d be the guy who makes you cry.

Bradley says your name tenderly. Every single letter of it is precious to him because you’re the most important person in the world to him.

The single tear that escapes the corner of your eye and rolls down your face cracks his chest wide open.

He holds out his hand for you, but you half-heartedly bat it away.

“No, I’m still mad at you,” you say, feebly. It’s unconvincing at best.

“You can be mad at me, kid,” Bradley murmurs, “But just let me hold you.”

He needs to know that you’ll still let him. That you still want him.

Bradley reaches out for you again and this time you let him pull you into his chest. And when you thread your arms around his torso and hold him just as tight that knot in his stomach loosens. He rests his chin on your head and releases a sigh. With you in his arms, he feels like his feet are finally back on solid ground.

He knows he owes you an apology, a real one this time. He knows that he’s fucked up, he understands where he went wrong. But he can’t shake the feeling that he feels like he’s missing something, that there’s another reason playing into why you’re so upset.

Every one of your quiet sniffles twists the knife that’s lodged itself between his ribs just a bit more each time.

He doesn’t know how long the two of you stand there wrapped up in each other, as he runs his hand up and down your back. There’s more to discuss, but he doesn’t rush you. He’ll hold you for as long as you need him to.

When you pull away, only far enough to look up at him, he takes the opportunity to gently cup your face in his hands. His thumb skims along the line of your jaw, your eyes are still watery.

“Sweet girl, why are you crying? I know you. Why does it feel like there’s more to this than just me being an idiot?” he asks, quietly. It still feels so fragile between the two of you.

“Because I l-like you so much. And I know you meant well, but I hated what happened tonight.” You wipe angrily at the fresh tears that streak down your face, like you’re irritated at them for them falling without your permission. “My ex used to pull that kind of bullshit all the time and I always hated the way it made me feel.”

His hands fall from your face.

Your confession surprises him. “Jack?” Bradley asks, his eyebrows pulling together. You nod. “I thought you said he was fine? That the break up was mutual because things got stale between the two of you.”

It’s times like this where he’s reminded of just how much distance there between the two of you over the last decade before you moved to San Diego. Of how much of you he’s missed out on. All the little moments that made up someone’s life. There was only so much an email, or a text, or a call could do.

You sigh, heavily. “I’m realizing now that there were a lot of things I put up with Jack because I didn’t want to rock the boat.”

Bradley’s fingers flex involuntarily where his hands are resting your hips. He doesn’t know what to make of that admission.

“You got to give me more than that to work with, kid. Help me to understand.”

You run you hand along his forearm soothingly, like you can sense his unease. He slides his thumbs through the loops of your jeans, fixing himself to you.

“Jack was really good about wanting to show everyone that he was a good boyfriend. And he was- for a while.” You pause, pressing your lips together. “But there were a few times where we’d go out and he’d make a scene, like what happened tonight. Except instead of someone being an actual asshole, it’d be someone who’d started up some polite small talk with me as we waited in line. And it always became a bigger thing than it needed to be. Then afterwards, he’d make it seem like he was defending my honor or something, even though he knew I didn’t like the kind of attention and all the looks that came with it afterwards. But Jack was always about Jack, and he liked the hero edit his friends would give him.”

You look away from him towards the ocean, the sunset paints you golden. Bradley knows you’re collecting your thoughts, so he waits. When you’re ready, you turn back towards him. There’s a different kind of hurt reflected in your eyes, one that tells him tonight has opened up old wounds for you.

“He’d say all the right things around other people, but when it was just the two of us alone, I never got that side of him. At the time I believed he was saying them because he meant them, but I can see now that he never really showed me that he meant them. I took his words at face value and settled for them.”

You give him a self-conscious shrug. Like you’re embarrassed. But your big heart was one of the things he loved most about you, and he hated the idea that someone had been careless with it before it made it into his safekeeping.

Bradley swallows hard. That tonight reminded you of the low points in your past relationship is hard for him to hear. And knowing why, makes it even worse.

“I think, more than anything,” you continue, your voice much quieter now, “I’m just mad that I let myself get lost in that for so long. Like I knew I needed more and that I wanted more, but I kept putting him ahead of myself when he wasn’t doing that for me.”

You thread your fingers between his and squeeze them lightly. He squeezes yours back.

“But you, Bradley, say the right things and mean them. You show me how important I am to you, with or without an audience. No one has ever made me feel as special as you do. Like, you don’t buy me red roses because you think you should-”

“Wait,” he doesn’t mean to cut you off, but his mind has snagged on a critical detail, “I thought your favorite flowers were tulips?”

A soft smile coasts over your pretty face. “They are.” He loves the warm way you’re looking at him right now, tender and fond. “And that’s what I’m talking about. You show me all the ways you know me because you care about me and want to make me happy. You don’t treat me like I’m an accessory in your life. I mean, I didn’t feel like I could even hang art on the walls of the apartment I paid half the rent for without Jack having an opinion on it. And here you are letting me bring over kitchen towels and plants for you, and we don’t even live together yet.”

Yet. Such a small word, but it means so much to know that you’re envisioning the same future with him that he sees with you.

“I like that you do that. I want you to do that. I appreciate the way you show me you’re thinking about me too.” Bradley runs his thumbs over the back of your hands. “Although, I’d rather be the one buying them,” he says, only partly teasing.

You made his house feel like a home. He hadn’t had that in so long. He wanted you to have things there in his condo that you also liked and made you happy because he wanted you to stay. He couldn’t wait for the day the two of you shared one address instead of two.

“Does that mean I should return the throw pillows I found for you?” He spots a wink of your dimples. “They’re soft, but firm enough that you won’t hurt your neck when you inevitably fall asleep on the couch even though you claim you’re just ‘resting your eyes’.” He never wants you to stop teasing him.

“No,” Bradley chuckles. “They sound perfect, but you’re going to let me Venmo you for them.”

“Ok, fine,” you agree. Almost reluctantly.

God, he loves you.

He leans in to kiss you. Once. Twice. Soft, sweet.

Bradley lets go of one of your hands to settle on your lower back and press you closer to him, until there’s no space between your two bodies. And brings the other one, with your fingers still tangled with his up against his chest. Before resting his forehead against yours.

“I’m so sorry I made you feel like that tonight.”

“Thank you, I forgive you.” You set the hand not entwined with his on the side of his face, your thumb sweeps across his cheek. “But I need you to hear me when I say that I can hold my own just fine, Bradley. I know you want to have my back and look out for me, but please, just not like that. Even if your heart is in the right place, ok?”

He nods. “I hear you, sweet girl. It’s not going to happen again. I promise.” He turns his head and presses a kiss to your palm. And then lifts the one still in his up to his lips, and drops a kiss to the back it.

“Plus, you taught me how to throw a punch, remember? I’m pretty sure I broke a guy’s nose one time,” you grin.

“Atta girl,” he says with pride. It’s so much lighter between the two of you now. He takes a couple step back, letting go of you and giving you a not-so-subtle onceover. “Ok, hot shot, show me what you got.” Beckoning you over with both hands.

“I’m not going to punch you, Bradley.”

“C’mon, kid, show me how it’s done.”

You shake your head at him in amused disbelief. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“No ma’am.” He taps his finger on his abs. “Let’s see it.”

You roll your eyes at him fondly. Then you hook your thumb over the top of your fist, just like he showed you all those years ago. And you ever so slowly, ever so gently press your perfectly aligned fist into his stomach. It could hardly even be considered a graze.

He doubles over with an overexaggerated oof and then tilts his head up at you and winks with a smile.

“You’re ridiculous.” The sound of your laugh fills his lungs.

It’s the same sound when he’d toss you into the pool when you were twelve. It’s the same sound when he’d spin you on the big tire swing when you were fourteen. It’s the same sound when he twirled you around the dance floor when you were nineteen at your mom’s second wedding.

There’s not just a glimmer of your dimples anymore, the full force of them hits him right in the chest.

“Speaking of punching,” Bradley says, straightening back up. “Hangman thinks I’m punching up.”

“Oh, does he? Interesting,” you hum. Your eyes shine in amusement.

He grins. “He’s not wrong. You’re way out of my league.”

You softly shake your head at him. “I’m just right for you. And you’re just right for me.”

He couldn’t agree more, but you don’t give him the chance too because you’re threading your arms around his neck and pulling his mouth to yours. With you in his arms and his lips on yours, he feels whole. You weren’t just right for him, you were perfect for him. And he’d never stop trying to be the perfectly right man for you.

No one’s ever had him, not like the way you do.

You’d always had a special place in his heart, but now the whole thing belonged to you. It was yours for the taking. He knew it would be in good hands with you, and he wasn’t going to stop proving to you that he was the one to be trusted with yours.

“Do you want me to take you home or do you want to go back inside?” He asks against your lips.

You kiss him again. “Let’s go back,” you say, wrapping your arm around his waist. “You owe me a dance, you know.”

He drops an arm over your shoulder. “I do?”

“You do.”

“Well then, lead the way, sweet girl.”

After he twirls you around on the crowded makeshift dancefloor of the Hard Deck, you let him take you home. Where he apologizes to you again, but this time on his knees with your thigh thrown over his shoulder. And twice more in your bed for good measure.

But not before he got his teeth on that little bow of yours.

He never stood a chance against it.

𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫

Bradley is about to line up his next shot at the pool table when Jake saddles up and nudges his shoulder.

“Looks like your girl has an admirer.” Hangman points with his beer bottle, directing Bradley’s gaze to the bar where someone is chatting you up.

He recognizes him from the most recent batch of Top Gun students. To call him overconfident would be an understatement. The guy is clearly as full of himself on the ground as he is in the sky, based on his body language as he monologues to you, all puffed up chest and cocky smiles.

If the guy had any common sense, he’d see that you look like you’d rather be anywhere else. It’s written all over your face.

“So it seems,” Bradley agrees, rests a hip against the table.

He’d noticed the guy checking you out. But it was pretty ballsy of the aviator to be leaning into you the way that he is, considering the two of you had arrived together and that Bradley had been the one tasked with doing some demonstration trainings with them earlier in the week.

The man makes some big gestures with his hands, he’s clearly reached the part of his story that’s meant to impress you. Bradley chuckles to himself when he sees the less than subtle roll of your eyes.

“Are you going to go all Rocky Balboa on his ass?” Jake asks with a knowing smirk.

You must feel their eyes on you, because you glance over in their direction.

He knows you can handle yourself, but he’ll be there if you want him to be.

Bradley lifts his eyebrow in a silent question. You give him a slight shake of your head and he nods.

“Nah, she’s got it.”

He sees the moment the guy fucks up and oversteps, because your eyebrows shoot up. You’re his sweet girl, but he knows the other guy is in for it when look that promises the best kind of trouble settles over your face.

His favorite menace.

Bradley watches on as you lean over the counter and ring the bell with enthusiasm.

A cheer goes up throughout the bar. He brings his fingers up to his lips and lets out a loud whistle.

You look rightfully smug as Penny points out the wooden sigh strung up between the beer taps to the confused Top Gun student whose bank account will be hurting in the morning.

“Damn. I forgot the kid is a straight hustler,” Jake says, clearly impressed.

“She sure is,” Bradley grins, still looking at you, “It’s a good thing she likes you or you’d be screwed.” He pats Jake’s shoulder reassuringly, before pressing the cue into his hands.

You return a few minutes later, with a tray of frothy, freshly poured beers for everyone wearing an all-to-pleased grin that lights up the whole bar.

He waits until the beers are safely on the table before threading a finger through your beltloop and tugging him to you.

“That’s my girl.”

Bradley tilts your face up for a kiss. It’s not his best work, you’re making it difficult for him since you’re too busy smiling.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Disclaimer: my writing playlist included Cassandra, The Prophecy, and Castles Crumbling. So legally I cannot be held accountable for any angst hangovers.

Thank you for reading!

If you want to see what happens next for these two, click here!

You can read more of my stories here!

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theredofoctober · 2 months ago

Text

MANNA- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: GATEAU

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon/rape, abuse, past child abuse, Daddy kink, cannibalism mentions, death mentions (including of a young people), Stockholm Syndrome

Read after the cut

---

As the night goes on, made odd by the truths held above your head, Hannibal sends you into the kitchen for the wine Will has forgotten there as though you are his little maid to be so imperiously commanded. Grumbling under your breath you slope into that other room, thinking to spit down the neck of the bottle to lend it the flavour of your displeasure.

Your gaze falls first upon a vast chocolate gateau resting on the sideboard, its rich aroma stirring awake your appetite, the pangs of which you now rarely know.

At this you feel an acute disgust at your body’s failing. No doubt some human matter has found its way into this creation, likely by blood to bring salt to its flavour, but even if by a rare chance it hasn’t you cannot stand that you desire it after all the years you’ve abstained from dessert.

Still, even as you scorn yourself you reach with one finger across to the cake and scoop from it a curl of icing, shuddering as it glazes the roof of your tongue with its silken sin.

Guilt rides over you at once: the totting up of numbers, the phantasmic sense of weight already building on your bones. In a panic you smooth over the gap in the cake left from your burrowing finger with a nearby clod of icing, hoping it won’t be noticed when Hannibal comes to cut a slice for supper.

The kitchen door opens behind you, making you jump and wipe your guilty hands together as Will appears in the frame.

“You were taking a while,” he says. “Thought I’d check on you.”

“What do you care?” you reply with a haughty toss of your head. “You’re barely here anymore. Don’t pretend to give a damn now you’re back.”

Will shuts the door behind him and leans against it, his arms folded.

“I thought you wanted me to put my full efforts into this case.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you should just abandon me.”

With an unpleasant laugh Will says, “I’m sure you and Hannibal get along just fine on your own.”

You think cynically of your elder captor assaulting you against his front door, biting at your flesh. A lean coyote in a gentleman’s clothes.

“You don’t like the idea of him fucking me when you’re not there, do you?” you ask, and Will shrugs, refusing you an honest reaction.

“I’m just aware of what I’m missing, that’s all.”

It occurs to you to question how often he thinks of rutting you in those elongated hours apart, or if it is only Hannibal that inhabits his mind in ire and yearning alike. Will may not have forgiven him the harm he’s done, but he certainly cares for him still.

Perhaps it is the homosexual angle of the romance that prevents him from viewing it as such; if only women have otherwise enchanted him what sense can he make of this new lust?

“Well,” you say, “if you want we can swap places. You stay home with Hannibal and I’ll play detective with the FBI.”

“Funny,” says Will. “I like our arrangement the way it is.”

You look at him doubtfully.

“So you’ve really never considered it? You and him together, the way I am with him?”

“I consider you and me together,” says Will, and he steps towards you, driving you against the kitchen island until its edge impresses a horizontal groove into your back. “How I’m starting to forget what you taste like.”

Your breath jars in your throat, and you’re ashamed by the airless, claustrophobic sensation of desire that his words elicit.

“What would Uncle Jack think hearing you talk like that?” you ask.

Will smirks.

“Not everything I do is for Jack’s approval.”

He loops an arm around your waist, his palm grazing your skin through the smoke of your dress.

“Maybe you should be thinking about him,” you say, wriggling against the hammerhead of Will’s forceful want. “I don’t think he’d put you and dear, dear Daddy onto the Lover case if he knew that you were raping me.”

“Are we?” asks Will, and there is laughter of such an easy cruelty in his eyes that you wonder how you ever thought him good.

“Yes,” you say. “You are raping me, even though you love me. Maybe even because you do.”

Your voice is frail with emotion, no longer teasing. Will touches your cheek, and even that light touch is something evil, knowing of your weakness for him.

“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” he says. “Not about me.”

You shake him with both hands, unhinged with a sudden desperation.

“It’s messed up, but I’m right, aren’t? You love me. Say it. Just say it. I need to hear it.”

With an abrupt motion Will hoists you up onto the kitchen counter, your unmoored limbs flailing around him.

“How about I show you?” he says, and reaching up under the gauzy skirt he pulls your underwear down to your ankles.

How often he disappoints you, refusing to free you, refusing you the words you beg of him.

Will kisses you from your hardened mouth down your clothed body to your unclothed cunt, and his lips are like a roaming spark beneath which you flinch in revulsion and response.

Your hands weave through the thick of his hair, and you kick at his shoulders briefly before the motion of his tongue makes you still.

The sight of Will glancing up at you between your thighs, the stirring of his mouth against the bead on which he strings you out—

You moan, yet through you, as always, is the disgust of having your flesh expressed of its need like juice from a persimmon, that he to whom you’ve grown close engages in this incest, and has you indulge in it, as well.

No longer can you envision an existence with him where that element were not part of it, nor one absent of his envy.

Even as Will devours you it is Hannibal whose taste he seeks, hunting the remnant he’d left in you that morning against the shower wall, hoping there is some trace not rinsed down the drain.

Against Will’s claims you know there is some sleeping shred of him that thinks of the hand, the mouth, the carefully trained form under the designer suits, and resents that you—his subordinate, and unwilling at that—have experienced all in place of him.

You muse upon how it will be if ever Will gives in to the cravings of man, envision him shunting you off into some corner to observe as they make violent love like the dispute of brother gods.

This, in conjunction with the roll of Will’s fingers and tongue-tip upon you, conducts a new music of pleasure, and afterwards an anger that he has transformed you so utterly as to be this easily aroused.

Scuttling your hand across the kitchen island you feel for the wine bottle, toying with the notion of striking Will over the head with it, and wonder if you’ve gone as bad as him to feel joy at the thought of his red brains and the red wine of his warm blood across you.

You’d never do it, yet the thought comes back and back unbidden. Hannibal has beckoned it in with his talk of killing, the resurrection of the poorly buried dead.

It’s as your fingers wrap around the glass that Will says darkly, “Don’t you dare.”

His face is turned against your thigh, its expression stern, though not entirely serious.

“I wasn’t doing anything” you protest.

“You were thinking it,” says Will. “That’s enough.”

Then his jaws are on you again, and pleasure crushes you flat as though between the earth and a stone.

He loves you, you think, in the midst of it. The only man outside your family that ever has, and he has treated you with greater cruelty even than Leland Frost. Yet you cannot resist affection of any kind, and so as Hannibal rightly guessed it is no longer entirely unrequited.

Self-loathing takes over in your orgasm’s decline, and you push Will away with the soles of your feet, not wanting to sully your hands with him.

“I’m bored now,” you snap. “Take your wine in yourself.”

You thump down onto the kitchen floor, swerving Will as he reaches for you with a testy jerk of your shoulder.

“Little One,” he says, and then he corrects himself with your real name, so rarely heard from him now that you are touched that he thinks of its use.

Still you leave the room, finding yourself on the bitter verge of tears.

In sleep you have one of those particular dreams that read more of latent prophecy, a canon yet to give itself birth. In a scrub of forest you crouch over the nude body of a woman, pulling from the open mouth of her gut glittering organs upon which you feast with a scavenger’s appetite.

Will and Hannibal oversee this feast in approving silence, their figures a second darkness in the night.

Why they do not share in that meal you do not know; perhaps they have eaten already of their own kills, observing with full bellies as you follow suit.

It does not strike you in this dream to loathe the thing you do, for to eat is to survive, and so to meet the approval of your masters. With eagerness you crawl up the cool length of the cadaver, ripping up carpets of meat as you go.

Only when you reach the face, upturned to the dish of the moon, that you recoil with a spasm of horror and recognition of it. You know this woman, yet cannot in sleep recall her name, nor conjure the place from which you remember her.

“Did I kill her?” you ask, for this, too, you do not know.

“No,” says Will. “Not with your own hands.”

“Your proximity to her was enough,” says Hannibal. “All those who have been even in passive orbit of you may fall foul of death. We have told you this, Little One.”

You stare into the dead woman’s sunken eyes which appear in their stillness like replicas of glass.

“But if I didn’t kill her, and you didn’t either, then why am I eating her?” you ask.

“I fear you will go mad in losing those you love,” says Hannibal. “So you must consume and accept the dead as part of you, as I have. That way both mind and memory will last, if not intact then transformed as you are by the sating of your hunger.”

“It won’t work,” you say. “I don’t believe that. That’s your religion, not mine.”

“You’ll learn to embrace your madness, then. After all, each of us three would be consigned to an asylum for our habits by those that don’t understand us. But I would always understand you, Little One, no matter what condition your broken mind was reduced to, in the end.”

Then your captor’s hand presses down on the base of your skull until you're forced to lap at the dead woman’s blood.

You awake half hanging off the side of your bed, your body having mimicked the acts of your dreaming self as it has not done since you were young. In those years you’d often jarred yourself awake by attempting to speak aloud or to gesticulate to some ephemeral figure.

That you’ve resumed this abandoned habit disturbs you far more than the content of your dream, and in a panicked rush you start out of your bedroom into the hallway, turning not into Will’s chamber—which tonight is occupied by his sleeping form—but into Hannibal’s.

The door swings open under your frantic touch, and a startled figure sits upright in the shadows, as disbelieving of you having come to him as you are yourself.

“What’s happened?” asks Hannibal. “Are you feeling alright?

“I had another dream,” you say. “I’m scared.”

You find yourself sitting on the end of Hannibal’s bed, the first time you have done so willingly. His face is an amazed blank, unable to translate the meaning of this new and impulsive action.

“Your nightmares are likely a side effect of reducing your medication,” he says, at last. “I should have warned you. I apologise; it’s my mistake.”

With a hoarse laugh you say, “What do you have to be sorry about? Everything that ever goes wrong... you know exactly what to do. You take care of me even if I don’t want you to. You’re always so sure of yourself.”

Hannibal switches on the bedside lamp, his face solemn in the belt of its light.

“That is untrue. I have many flaws and failures; you’ve seen for yourself that I’m not always as in control as I’d like to be.”

The attack with the knife, he means, or his tampering with Will’s mind, both grave mistakes, so few of which have occurred throughout your stay that only they, of all, occur to you. That Hannibal is a killer, a defiler of flesh living and dead does not present itself despite its obvious nature, for even in this he is unerring, cunning and clean.

“I’m going to let you down,” you say. “You think you can fix me, and I know how hard you’re trying, but I’m not okay. It’s going to get worse.”

Hannibal runs your cold fingers between his own until they warm.

“You say this because recent developments are frightening you. Because you assume the good that will come of submitting to mutual love will not last. You would rather propel yourself into a fit of anxiety than permit yourself the slightest happiness.”

You turn him a look of reproach.

“You know why I can’t.”

“Because we are killers.”

“Yes.”

“But you love us still.”

Tugging your hands from Hannibal’s own you say, “If I did I’d be a terrible person.”

“We can’t help who we care for in this life. That you are able to love against the bounds of your morality isn’t evidence of personal failure.”

Yet surely it must be, you think, is in fact a marker of how greatly you’ve given in to him.

You say nothing of this aloud, however, only inch across the bed into Hannibal’s arms, kissing him in the hope of ridding your mouth of the taste of blood from your dream.

“There’s time for this tomorrow,” he says, gently, drawing away; clearly he thinks you’re seeking sex, an invitation you’re amazed to see him decline. “It’s very late, and I have patients to see in the morning. Rest now. You’ll feel better for it.”

You sleep nestled against him, his palm on your belly, which for once you neither mind nor think much of, merely consoled by his presence there with you.

The following week you are suspended between shame and self-pity, aware that you have fallen by a missing rung on the ladder of pious restraint into collusion with the men that you’re unsure you can arise from.

Will becomes as present in the household as work and commitment to his dogs will allow, the continued, quiet feud with Hannibal still complicating the evident need to remain at his side.

With you Will is tactile, sensual, smothering you with the weight of his covetous desire.

"You need to talk to him about what happened between you," you say to Hannibal one night, your head in his lap as he draws another portrait of Will as some tragic hero. "He's driving me crazy. I wish you'd just hash it out together or something."

"He's lost trust in me," says Hannibal in a tone of martyred sadness. "That can't be rebuilt inorganically. In time I hope his anger will pass."

It's on the tip of your tongue to suggest that he unburden all of his wrongs in one grand gesture, but thinking the better of it you return to placid silence.

This new method of survival you have taken on, though considered wise even in your early days of imprisonment, is so indistinguishable from genuine attachment that you could not confidently distinguish the two from one another.

Amy would be disgusted with the woman you've become, pining for the approval of predators, one of which has struck up a friendship with her own attacker. It is a dark blessing that through hypnosis she has forgotten this, will read of you in Tattle Crime and frown at the strange pang she feels at the notion of you shared by the named men.

In this way you become your own accuser, sparing no empathy for the difficulty of your plight. As others would judge you so you judge yourself, are brutal in the manner your keepers have sought to discourage.

Rebellion comes in strange forms, as of late.

You while away your days in windows frosted with the turning of autumn into its pale sibling, writing the first coherent entries of the journal you've long been unable to manifest. Your prose is clumsy, your handwriting without any particular art, but in this alone you gain some tangible accomplishment and distraction from your conflict.

Knowing Hannibal surely reads your diary you consider caution, but upon realising there are few secrets left between you both you write honestly and without fear of being bent across his lap.

“WEDNESDAY—

I haven’t been allowed to talk to my parents in so long that I can’t even hear their voices in my head anymore. I guess I’m realising that I’ve been picturing strangers ever since I came here, and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Do I even miss them anymore, or is it other, made up people I just tell myself I miss? Were they ever real to begin with?

They call it solipsism, the theory that nothing actually exists outside your perception. I read that it one of Hannibal’s books— George Berkeley was the name of the philosopher. I hope I spelled his name right.

Since I was little I had this fear that I was the only real person in the universe, that everyone else I ever met just vanished the second they weren’t in front of me. I still feel that way, I guess.

My bad memories are the only proof that I’m not alone, as much as I’m afraid—or sometimes find myself wishing—that I am.

I just remembered a day my parents took me shopping around Christmas one year. We went to this huge shopping center, and it was so busy and noisy that my Mom got really worked up and started snapping at everybody as if it was our fault the whole city picked that day to buy presents too.

I guess I did something wrong— maybe I wandered off, or I said something she didn’t like. But suddenly she yelled so loud everybody around us turned to stare at us except my Dad, who looked away just like he always did. Messed with his glasses. Pretended he saw something interesting in a store window when we all knew he hated shopping and was just dying to get out of there and go home to the TV.

Five minutes later Mom tried to hold my hand like nothing ever happened. Like she forgot what she just did, or didn’t realise that it upset me. Then when I wouldn’t let her take my hand she got mad all over again, and I could tell it hurt her feelings.

I’ve always wondered how she justifies those moments to herself, or if she shoves them down so far that she can just pretend she’s never in the wrong.

If I did imagine my mother, why would I make her that way?

Anyway, I think this whole solipsism thing is why I don’t buy Hannibal’s idea of absorbing life, even if it’s just a symbolic gesture. If I can’t see you then you might as well be dead, so really the thought that something would be left of that person after their heart stops beating makes no sense to me.

Only my dreams are real. Realer than I am. But if they’re repeating what Hannibal keeps telling me then what does that mean?”

"FRIDAY —

“I spat out some of breakfast into a napkin today. Daddy Hannibal took me upstairs and hit me with some kind of leather flogger till I said I was sorry. I wasn’t, though, and he knew it. He told me I’d never get to go to nice places with him if I kept behaving in that way, and that would be the real punishment.

I keep forgetting that’s what he and Daddy Will want at the end of all this. To take me out of the shadows of this house into their light.

Haven’t they thought about how weird it’s going to look to everybody? What will they tell people? That I’m their daughter? Their inappropriately young girlfriend?

They’ll have to take me somewhere nobody knows us and no one really cares. Places we can be different people except to ourselves. But maybe we’ll become the people we pretend to be. I’d like that to be true.”

It’s as you’re finishing this particular entry that you overhear voices in one of the many hallways— Hannibal’s, and that of Jack Crawford, who’s been invited to dinner again. Perceiving a hushed secrecy to their dialogue you return to your talent of eavesdropping and sidle up to the nearest door.

It’s Jack you hear first, partway through some muttered sentence.

“—Heard about the fibre sample Beverly picked up on in Lillian Greyflower’s file.”

“A thread from a hospital gown,” says Hannibal. “Yes. She had Turner Syndrome and was undergoing frequent medical checks to monitor her health.”

“She wasn’t the only one,” says Jack. “Bryce Mulligan was struggling with Kidney Disease, Anaïs Foreau was a premature birth— all the Mask Murder victims had conditions that affected their weight and height in some way. None of them were much over five foot tall.”

So these are the details Will did not wish you to know, cautious of spooking you with the implications of the discovery. Your illness is the reason for the Lover’s interest in you: as many differences as there are between you and his first set of victims this is the one great likeness to have drawn him in.

“The killer’s first muse herself was in poor health,” says Hannibal, “and with stunted development for her age. I suggest you search missing persons records for a white, blonde female under the age of eighteen, last seen accompanying an older male family member; I believe she disappeared around the time the Mask Murders began. Look specifically for girls with growth disorders, genetic, and chronic conditions.”

“We need to narrow down a state,” says Jack. “The murderer is clearly a travelling man.”

Then, clearing his throat, he adds, “Speaking of the Lover, have you—”

Hannibal intercepts the question briskly.

“Not yet. As things are now I couldn’t possibly disturb the peace by announcing such unpleasant news. I will attempt it as soon as I can.”

Lost as to the meaning of this abrupt turn in the conversation you strain your ears, frustrated when the men’s voices lower so far as to become incoherent. Only Will’s footsteps approaching behind you compel you away from the door.

“Stop it,” he says. “You want them to catch you like that?”

Turning around, you stick out an irreverent tongue at him.

“Who says they were going to catch me?”

Will scoffs, scarcely masking his amusement.

“Quit screwing around. Go sit at the table. We’ll be eating soon.”

The dinner you find awkward in the deliberate avoidance of the Lover case, small talk expanded into impossible complexity across the courses. Having seen death in its multiples you are both angered and entertained by the senselessness of your fathers thinking you too delicate to endure what you have learned.

Jack’s hesitation you understand, being that of the three men only he thinks you wholly innocent. Your keepers, however, are purely concerned with avoiding the resulting unseemly outburst, and in this you are reminded that no matter what affections you’ve developed to protect yourself from a prisoner’s despair a prisoner you still are.

Glowering at them both under your lashes you crush a slice of ‘fish’ under your fork, watching it take the shape of the tines. It’s as you’re observing this process that an idea occurs to you, brought on by the visitor in the room. A chance to communicate to Jack that he dines with a cannibal, that he has eaten of the same people for whom his officers seek justice—

Stuffing the morsel of fish into your cheek you say, “I’m full. Can I be excused?”

Jack glances at Hannibal, his brows angled, and you realise that he discerns something overfamiliar in your tone or body language he isn’t sure enough of to interrogate.

“You’re free to leave whenever you like,” says Hannibal. “Enjoy your evening.”

“Thanks for joining us,” says Jack, and you offer him a weak smile before rushing out into the living room where your journal and ball point pen remain.

Tearing a leaf out of the back you write

‘TEST THE MEAT!!! IT’S HUMAN!” in a hasty scrawl and spit the fish you’d kept from dinner into your hand.

Your heart clatters in your chest like a train across some treacherous road as you dart through to the hallway. On a rack hangs Jack Crawford’s overcoat, the pocket of which you intend to deliver your grim parcel to.

This is the answer to the question of your freedom, the sole proof required to unlock the criminal mystery of the Copycat.

Upon reading your note Jack will take this meat to the lab where all forensic discoveries are founded, and in the makings of its DNA will realise what creature he has dined with, and what he has been tricked to eat at his table.

He will get you out of this house, give you back to your parents and end this horror you’ve been bent to fit by moulding hands. Hannibal will be imprisoned or institutionalised, perhaps Will too, if he’s discovered to know more than he suggests of his companion, or if your relations are found out.

There will be no more men and women eaten in the grand house of death, and no more will you be abused and infantilised, or forced to take your fill.

Things will be as they were before your abduction, a known unhappiness which from having lived before you know that you can bear.

Yet even as you reach into Jack’s pocket the negative aspects of this plan suggest themselves to discourage you from this rash and unplanned act.

You think of the Lover’s crimes going unsolved and continuing around you, closing in until you too are taken and locked into a doll. Even if the killer does not dare to capture you in your infamy there are the choking attentions of the press to think of, the humiliating questions as to what you have been made to do as concubine to your insatiable men.

Leland Frost would likely make some comment on it, as thoroughly as you’d attempt to avoid him, his eyes bright with a jilted humour.

“Guess you’re not my girl anymore, cher.”

“Shut up,” you whisper aloud. “I never was.”

The cold grease from the meat soaks the skin of your fingers, and your stomach turns over at the smell of it.

All your doubts have surely been injected by Hannibal’s hypnosis to dissuade you from escape, for even as you dismiss those that have already come to mind more follow, each more unpleasant than the last.

After all, these previous concerns assume the success of your attempt to rally Jack to your side. He has been groomed by Hannibal to think you mad, and a conniving lunatic at that, one poised to invent scandal and atrocities abound if it means you’ll be released from treatment.

Upon discovering the note and meat making filthy his beautiful coat Jack is unlikely to follow the command you’d penned there; rather, with a pitying look, he’ll deliver it to Dr Lecter, bringing down, unwitting, another brutal lesson from your keepers upon you.

But even should Jack believe or humour you and process the sample as is your design there is no likelihood of Hannibal submitting quietly to arrest. He is a killer, and as such will fight every man against him until none stand.

Then he will turn upon you in whatever fashion he decides, and the attempt will be for nothing, one you may not even live to regret.

The risk of failure is not worth the pursuit, you decide, and resign yourself to retreat from the hallway and from the temptation of hopeless escape.

As you turn into another room you collide with Will, who has followed you from the table.

“Sorry,” you mumble, and attempt to sidestep him, your full hand held partially behind your back.

Will takes you by the shoulders, pushing you lightly up against the nearest wall.

“Wait,” he says. “I know you’re up to something. You’d better admit it now before you’re in even more trouble. Don’t bother to lie; there’s no reason for you to be loitering out here unless you were doing something you’re not supposed to.”

When you don’t answer his gaze falls to the fist tightened upon your shame, and the set of his mouth steels.

“You’d better show me what you’re holding,” he says. “Let’s hope Hannibal’s feeling more forgiving than I am.”

#manna fic #hannibal fic #hannibal lecter #tw noncon #tw abuse #tw rape #tw eating disorders #tw child abuse #tw anorexia #hannibal lecter x reader x will graham #hannibal lecter x reader #will graham x reader #yandere hannibal lecter #yandere will graham #darkfic #dead dove do not eat

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