#Manna in the Word

[davedocrogers]

With Thanksgiving...

‭‭With Thanksgiving… Philippians 4.6 Life gives us many things about which to be concerned. The #lifehack is to not have fear nor be anxious, but to give thanks to our God, Savior, and Father who loves us deeply. Life has challenges.Jesus said there would be diverse troubles, but Jesus has overcome the world. So, be thankful. Give thanks.In all things. Be anxious for nothing, but in…

[babsbabbles]

ough yall ever read the bible and feel so refreshed

[mannakete]

got 'em

the bell has changed hands from one fisticuffs to the other.

[verberation]

I’ve Been Trying To Feel Bad For Everyone |Paige Lewis, Space Struck

[lovelifecare]

இன்றைய வசனம் [26/02/2024] | Today Bible Verse | Tamil Bible Verse

இயேசு கிறிஸ்து உங்களை அன்போடு அழைக்கிறார். அவரை பின்பற்றி செல்ல நீங்கள் ஆயத்தமா?

Jesus Christ calls you with love. Are you ready to follow Him?

லூக்கா 9:23 Luke 9:23

ஒருவன் என் பின்னே வர விரும்பினால், அவன் தன்னைத் தான் வெறுத்து, தன் சிலுவையை அனுதினமும் எடுத்துக்கொண்டு, என்னைப் பின்பற்றக்கடவன்.

என் அன்பு சகோதர சகோதரி��ளே, மீன் பிடித்துக்கொண்டிருந்த சீஷர்களை இயேசு கண்டு என் பின்னே வாருங்கள் உங்களை மனிதர்களை பிடிக்கிறவர்களாக மாற்றுவேன் என்று சொன்னார். உடனே, சீஷர்கள் இயேசுவின் பின்னே சென்றார்கள். இயேசு சொன்னார் என்னை பின்பற்றவேண்டும் என்று சொல்லுபவர்கள் தங்கள் சிலுவையை அனுதினமும் எடுத்துக்கொள்ளவேண்டும். அப்படியென்றால், உடல்களில் சிலுவை போன்ற பச்சை குத்திக்கொள்ளுவதோ, சிலுவை போன்ற தங்க செயின் போட்டுகொள்ளுவதோ அல்ல. இயேசு கடந்து சென்ற எல்லா பாதைகளையும் கடைபிடிப்பதே ஆகும். நம்முடைய வாழ்க்கையில் சில நேரங்களில் வேலை செய்யும் இடத்தில சிலர் சிலுவையாக மாறுவதுண்டு; குடும்பத்தில் சிலர் நமக்கு துன்பத்தை கொடுத்து சிலுவையாக மாறுவதுண்டு; ஆனால் நாம் சிலுவையை சுமக்கும் எல்லா சந்தர்ப்பங்களிலும் ஆண்டவர் நம்மை தனியே விட்டுவிட மாட்டார். உலகத்தின் முடிவு பரியந்தம் உன்னோடுகூட இருப்பேன் என்று சொன்னவர், சிலுவை சுமக்கும் நேரங்களிலெல்லாம் உங்களோடு கூட இருப்பார். அவர் கொடுக்கும் சுமை மெதுவானதாக இருக்கும். உங்களை அளவுக்கு மிஞ்சி சோதிக்கிறவர் அல்ல. ஆகையால் உங்களுடைய சிலுவையை சந்தோசத்தோடு சுமந்து செல்லுங்கள்.

If Anyone Would Come After Me, He Must Deny Himself And Take Up His Cross Daily And Follow Me.

My dear brothers and sisters, Jesus saw the disciples catching fish and told them to follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately, the disciples followed Jesus. Jesus said that those who claim to follow me must take up their cross daily. So, it's not about tattooing a cross on the body or wearing a gold chain like a cross. It is to follow all the paths that Jesus walked. At times in our lives some people become crucifixes at work; Some in the family give us suffering and become a cross; But the Lord will not leave us alone in all the cases where we carry the cross. He who said he will be with you to the end of the world, will be with you whenever you carry the cross. The burden he gives will be slow. Not someone who tests you too much. So carry your cross with joy.

[kmac4him1st]

Celebrate

Good Morning! Celebrate with us with some soul nourishing breakfast. God bless your day.

Celebrate GOD As Simply-Significantly Enough We celebrate our God, Who is our more than enough. We are weak and He is strong in us, and we take joy in this, in our connection heart to heart with our God. Yes, Jesus is more than enough for us. No matter what shape we find our body, soul, or spirit in on this day, we make the right choice, the first step out is down, bowed in reverence, honor and…

[virtualcoach-blog]

Everlasting Bread of Heaven

Praying day by day for our daily bread.

Give us day by day our daily bread. Luke 11:3 (NKJV) This visual was designed to demonstrate the different aspects of the manna from the Old Testament and the Bread of Life proclamation of Jesus in John chapter 6. Check out our online video Bible study session Prayers for Our Daily Bread as we dive into Luke 11:3 and this comparison of the manna and “the true bread from heaven.”

[irawhiti]

i... no, this would not be okay. replacing one appropriative butchering of a word with another appropriative butchering of a word is not a good idea. it would still be read by other people as the same word until it's actually specified to them directly. you can't deliberately "degenerate" a word from a different language to match the spelling of an unrelated word and have people understand your intent. neither word here has anything to do with the concept of magicka/magical energy points described in the post anyway and both manna and mana are equally inaccurate words to use here. it would be best to just use a different term for this altogether.

people will just use polynesian words completely incorrectly with completely made up meanings while being really offensive and won't even care huh lol

[justana0kguy]

2023 JUNE 11 Corpus Christi Sunday

"He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD."

~ Deuteronomy 8:3

[davedocrogers]

What God started He finishes

Manna in the Word:What He started He finishes…Coming to salvation through Jesus Christ and the Cross is just the beginning. So many find such a release, lightness, forgiveness, and peace that they stop right there. But there is more.“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”Philippians 1:6 NKJV The God of the…

[babsbabbles]

"I will not throw out something that is very good because it is not perfect"

— Ralph Brandt // The Seven Churches

[hallowedlore]

Additionally!

Don't wash your mushrooms; they'll absorb all the water. If there's dirt on them, gently brush it off with a paper towel or soft sponge.

Don't salt them before cooking. The salt will cause them to disgorge all their liquid, and they'll just steam. Season at the end.

Cook them in butter if you can. Lots. Flavored/herb butter is even better.

Spread them thin! If you heap a big pile of mushrooms on a pan, only the bottom will brown. If you lay them out flat, they'll get crispy faster, and you can flip them over more easily.

Also: different mushrooms have different textures and uses. Sauteed chanterelles, for instance, are soft and delicate and deserve a light touch and only mimimum fussing; grilled portobellos are thicker and meatier and pair well with sauces. I saw a fried enoki mushroom recipe earlier that looked incredible. It's worth experimenting with different techniques: you might find a version that's more to your taste!

(mushroom haters look elsewhere)

what is lovelier than some lovely little buttons, all sauteed up in butter, dressed with salt and a dash of pepper?

i am having a mushroom moment

[muzansfangs]

Imagine Douma’s first real emotion is jealousy and/or anger (alongside some horniness), and you being the cause of it, meaning he will be letting it all out on you.

Jealousy.

Starring: Douma x f!reader; Akaza;

Format: drabble;

Warnings: nsfw, jealousy, lust, first time Douma actually experiences a human emotion, possessive behaviour, dom!Douma, sub!reader, rough sex, biting, fear play, unprotected sex, mention to bruises, vaginal sex, dirty talk;

Plot: He had always desired to feel something. From the dreadful emotions to the blissful ones. When his multicolored eyes landed on you back then, Douma knew you might have helped him to feel less of an empty shell. Surely, he did not expect to feel sick at the sight of his ‘best friend’ conversing with you.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

“What did you do to me, huh?” Douma rasped out, hands pinning your twitching ones above your head, whilst his hips smacked against yours in a steady and brutal tempo. He demanded an answer, he wanted to hear an explanation from you, he yearned for coherent words to roll out of your tongue and not those high-pitched cries and moans filling the air as he occasionally hit your cervix.

You witch, you had clearly casted a spell on him. If it was not for your human nature, he would have probably blamed it on a demonic technique. He felt so sick.

If only he knew what your proximity, what his lust over your pretty face and body would have caused to him, he would have probably ignored you at the local festival the infamous night you met. He should have devoured you. After all, it was what demons did: they ate humans. Then again, he had not felt that urge, primal desire to consume you to the bone back then. Something had stopped him and, naturally, he took it as a manna from the Heaven.

Years of clinical apathy, centuries spent in observing people interacting and chattering in ways he could not comprehend, eager to mimic their emotions, to experience them too for real. He thought he had grasped the essence of them all, the feeling they caused. Why? Faking them should have been the equivalent of manifesting them.

It all turned out to be useless, in the end. He had always wanted to feel something, whatever it was that life had gifted him with. The salty tears streaming down his face, when he pretended to be heartbroken in front of his followers, had never actually tasted bitter and found himself hoping they did now. He had never felt the typical pang of sorrow in his chest, prelude to a meltdown, or the lump in his throat hard to swallow for the very first time before bursting into a desperate cry. He had always feigned his emotions, especially the dreadful ones people tried to escape. Still, he had tried to imagine what those sensetions would have felt like for real.

But, oh dear, did it feel horrendous now that he was affected by one of them.

You writhed underneath him, squirming, sweat beading your forehead as he thrusted into you with a cold brutality he had never showed before. You knew he could not be in love with you, his heart had never been blessed with the capacity of feeling that surge of positive energy and dizzying emotions all people did. Yet, you did love him and you had chosen to stay by his side. For that, Douma lavished you, he showered you in exepensive gifts, he gave you honors, he treated you with care.

The beast hovering over you now, though, was not your loving boyfriend. It was a pissed off Upper Moon, whose fangs were bared and claws were scraping your tender flesh. His cock, engorged and twitching, was bullying your gummy, delicate walls with ferocity to get answers from you. He was going insane.

“I did n-nothing!” you choked out, screwing your eyes shut as he scoffed and shook his head.

“Don’t lie to my face! You talked to him! You sang! You treated him the way you treat me! How dare you?” Douma seethed, a vein popping on the side of his head as he brought his mouth down to yours in a searing kiss. Your blood had run cold for a split second. Those pearly fangs, sharp enough to rip out your throat, had dangerously grazed your jaw and finally bit down onto your bottom lip. The metallic taste of blood on your tongue a warning to take matters in your hands.

You knew what had happened, what was going on with him right now. It took you by surprise, but he was going through the different stages of jealousy. Currently, taking it all out on you was the last one.

The root of his envy and anger was the way you, his companion, were beaming at his so-called best friend. You had heard so many stories about Akaza that you had been dying to know him. He was a kind demon, at least to women. Striking up a conversation with him came natural to you, therefore you had offered the Upper Rank Three to sing for him like you did to Douma.

A smile, a sweet and innocent smile of yours had been the final straw.

The sound of pottery smashing, your look of concern when Douma coldly demanded Akaza to leave, and the way he had easily sliced his arm off of his body at his refusal to leave you with him in his moment of instability, were all you could recall before he had you moaning out his name onto his bed. You were struggling to endure this pleasurable torture. You had lost the count of how many orgasms he had denied you. With a blurry vision, you arched your back to lock your legs behind the small of his back.

“J-Jealousy! You’re feeling something! This— Ah! This is jealousy, D-Douma!” you blurted out, only for him to still his thrusts and push further down onto the mattress.

Jealousy. Disgusting feeling, a lame one. Out of everything he could learn to experience, Douma had been sentenced to endure such a deplorable emotion.

He snorted, hand grasping your jaw as his tongue lapped at the small cut on your lower lip, still bleeding “Jealousy, huh? If that’s the case, you can fix it, right? Be a dear and stay away from any man in the Temple, at the village, down to the cities and at the Infinity Castle” he snarled, the glint of malice making his kaleidoscopic eyes even more mystical in the dim light provided by the candles on the nightstand.

His, permanently, caged and strangled by his consuming love. This was your fate, for you were his and no one else’s.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hello there! Oh, how dearly I had missed writing for my favorite upper moon. Thanks for this thirst, anon! I hope you enjoyed the meal!

Likes, comments and re-posts are greatly appreciated!

X O X O

TAGS: @doumadono @mrskokushibo because we started a cult with the upper moons✨

[astromechs]

the remnants of hurricane helene have wrought unprecedented devastation on appalachia. while there are many areas of the southeastern US that are currently hurting because of what this storm has brought, the infrastructure in this particular region, hundreds of miles inland, is not built to withstand this kind of damage. western north carolina has been largely cut off from the outside world since the storm hit, with large scale disruptions to power and cellular service, many facing up to weeks without power and water, and washed out roads mean that many, still, especially in the more rural areas of the region, are trapped.

people need help, and they need it urgently.

as a native of western north carolina, my heart hurts for the beautiful place that i still call home even if life took me east, and for the wonderful people i still consider my community.

some of the most immediate, dire needs are securing access to basic necessities such as food, which is why i am highlighting two specific nonprofits: manna food bank, located in asheville and serving the surrounding communities, and second harvest food bank, serving northwestern nc, including several hard-hit counties in the northern mountains of western north carolina. manna food bank lost their entire headquarters in the asheville flooding, and are desperately seeking donations to restock their supplies for distribution to those in need, while second harvest is organizing a large scale hurricane relief effort.

in exchange for a donation to either of these food banks, i am offering a custom short work of writing, for whatever characters and prompts that are requested. for a $10 donation, i will write a drabble of at least 500 words, and for a $15 donation, i will write a short story of at least 1,000 words.

donate to manna food bank; donate to second harvest.

i encourage you to spread this, and i encourage you to participate in this fundraising effort as well! let's do our part to come together and show the people of western north carolina that we have not forgotten about them, and we will help them get through this.

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER FOURTEEN: TRIPE

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

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, child abuse and more (check the tags)

Read after the cut

-

By some sense of duty, or else an undug tendril of guilt, Will volunteers himself to oversee your evening routine alone. You allow him this, being in scant possession of what slim tolerance has borne you through Hannibal’s accompaniment thus far.

Will proves himself to be far less involved than the other man would have been in his stead. He leans against a wall with the nonchalance of a prison warden as you shower blood and spend alike down the receiving drain, allows you to pad into your bedroom, towel-wrapped, to select a clean nightdress and sanitary products with his head turned nobly aside.

You cannot determine if his distance from you is through respect for your condition or some lasting dislike of you, neither of which holds entirely true.

More likely it is that he does not see you as his child, yet, nor quite with the equality of a lover.

Still, as you get into bed he cannot help but come to you, uncertain as he his of his purpose.

“Will you give me a goodnight kiss?” you ask, part in bitter jest, and part in annoyance with his indecision.

That a man can fuck and beat you in throes of black delight and still skulk about like a repentant sinner would have confounded you in the days before you became accustomed to such duality. To what end, and upon what strength the latter side subsists is now the greater puzzle, for it is this that drags its heels and restrains Will from his full devilry.

“Well?” you say, brusquely. “What are you waiting for? Dad’s permission?”

Will gives a hard laugh, one hand kneading the back of his neck.

“I admire your commitment to the part, but you don’t have to keep it up so seriously when it’s just you and me.”

“I promised I would,” you remind him. “Why can’t you? You had no issue kissing me in front of Hannibal. I don’t see why it’s a problem now.”

You see Will’s fingers go to the bridge of his nose, wanting the guard of the eyeglasses he’s neglected to wear.

“It’s not genuine,” he says, flatly. “The only reason you’re asking is to manipulate me.”

“So what?” you say. “Scared that it’ll work?”

“Not scared, no.”

“Sure you’re not.”

There is something hysterical in your tone, the cut string of a trapped and weary madness.

Will examines you, aware of the power play you’re attempting over him, intrigued by it, despite himself. Attracted, even.

His gaze is like a stone in the sun, all heat, all black, all blue.

He knows what revulsion you must push past to test him like this, still slightly high from the forced euphoria of fucking, and the drugs. You’re beyond consideration of the consequences, irrational, barely attached to the tongue and teeth that bite at the air in their ire.

Still Will hangs from your words like a pilgrim knelt before an oracle, dependent on your answer.

“Haven’t you had enough of me kissing you tonight?” he asks.

Sniffing, you turn to face his gargoyle shadow on the wall.

“So it’s a no. You’d make a really terrible father.”

“One...”

“Not my name.”

So Will says it, gently, and you roll back towards him, your heart quick and high behind a rail of bone with the thrill of his appeasement.

Your truce, the union of flesh: they’ve altered Will, for as he looks at you a second time his pupils are the chasms between worlds, wild and deep.

Kneeling up on the bed, you make a trellis of both hands through his curls and clutch him to you in an ungainly kiss. Will stumbles in the force of it, his arms spilling about your back so as not to fall upon you with all his weight.

You gasp against his lips with eagerness to take what he has taken, to fallow the rose flesh of his inner mouth, the lathe of your tongue churning. Will is too surprised to kiss you in return, but as you hitch one leg after the other upon his hips you feel the vine of him against your groin, wanting you again, as always.

You think of him fucking you now, pinning your wicked hands with the nail of his fist as he thrusts through a sheen of blood. Though you despise him still, your loins smart with interest in engineering the act rather than merely suffering it as ever before.

At last Will returns your kiss, but briefly, and with a knowing restraint before he lays you back upon the bed again.

You grasp at his face in an attempt to reclaim his lips. He pushes you lightly away.

“Hey,” he grins. “You made your point.”

“Oh?” you say, coolly. “And what is my point?”

“That I like kissing you. That I want to kiss you, whether Hannibal’s here or not.”

“Right,” you say, twisting a corner of your quilt around one finger for something to do with your hands. “But you never would have picked me. Like, if I was in one of your FBI classes. If I was your student. Would you even have noticed me?”

Will laughs again, with a startled unease, as though the notion is foreign to him.

“Starting affairs with students isn’t exactly my style. I turn up, I teach. That’s it. I don’t get personally involved. Or didn’t, till now. Letting people get close is... uncomfortable for me.”

He glances down at the bunch of quilt in your closed knuckles. Unlike the ever-tactile Dr Lecter, he makes no attempt to take it away.

“So how come you got so close to Hannibal?” you ask. “Didn’t you say you had reservations about him?”

“He saw me even when I was making an effort to turn away. He and I have commonalities I can’t ignore, and enough differences to keep me wondering who he really is. There’s a lot even I don’t know about him, and there are times I wonder what I’m doing letting him in.”

You’re on the verge of another question as Will steps sharply back from the bed.

“We can talk more tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll still be here in the morning. But if you want my thoughts about Hannibal then it’s only fair that you tell me a little about you in return. If this is going to work long-term I need to know who you are.”

Then he goes over to the light switch and closes you in behind a shutter of night.

*

 

You’re roused from the saccharine heat of your bedcovers the following morning by Will rapping on your bedroom door. His face appears in the crevice between it and the frame as though wary to trespass, the broken spell of your desperation in his eyes.

“It’s so early,” you whine, noting the bare line of sunlight beneath the curtains. “And I feel like death, thanks to you and Dad. Can’t I stay in bed?”

“Hannibal just rushed out to an emergency appointment,” says Will. “One of his patients is having some kind of crisis, so it’ll be just you and me for a while. You want coffee? I was about to make some.”

An apology, you think, something to alleviate the swaddled and perspiring misery of your comedown.

“Sure,” you say, weakly. “Black, please. Sweetener, if there is any. The low calorie version.”

Will’s brows rise.

“You think Hannibal keeps that around?”

Reflecting on the little paper sachets that had been favoured throughout high school you say, “Ha. I guess not.”

Within twenty minutes you’re sitting up against your pillows, one hand gripping a delicate, steaming cup, the other soothing your stomach through which bites the first monthly cramp.

Will takes a nearby chair, eyeing the bars on your window as though assuming your daily view through the glass.

Though you loathe him still in his unpredictable oddities, you’re keen to make closer yet the allyship you’ve struck up with him, watchful though he is of that very attempt. If he will not help you escape, then a friendship at least may fortify the sanity you fear will leave you in this quasi childhood.

Will doesn’t seek your regression quite as Hannibal does— a cantankerous teenager is as young as he perceives you, the sick girl that never grew up. This house, then, is a Neverland in reverse, a sumptuous den of brutal sex.

Closing your eyes against such thoughts, you take in your coffee, each dark mouthful a long-acquired taste. You remember forcing back cup after cup of it, trusting it over plain water in the belief that it would burn calories as you drank.

Suddenly you’re acutely nostalgic for the days spent in your childhood room, scrolling through online threads of ailing young women in a community of mutual suffering.

It occurs to you that you may never feel so entirely comprehended without judgement as you were there again. You understand Will rather more through the thought, his convergence with Hannibal a relief to so lonely a monster.

“Tell me about ‘Dad’,” you say, into the silence. “You said you would, last night. Like, who even is he? Where did he come from?”

Will blinks, stirred up from his own brooding thoughts. In the dreary daylight he has the face of a beautiful invalid, all its angles skirted in shade.

“Hannibal’s from Lithuania, originally,” he says. “He had a younger sister, Mischa. She died a long time ago. I don’t know the finer details of what happened to her. She’s the only family he’s ever talked about, and even then it’s been bare bones.”

You sit up straighter, envisioning a young girl with Hannibal’s eyes, and none of his appetite.

“Huh,” you say. “That makes a lot of sense.”

"Hannibal would disagree. He doesn’t put much stock in the past making him who he is.”

“Seems kind of a weird thing for a therapist to say. He’s always digging into mine.”

Will looks at the floor, as though distinguishing some new pattern from the grains in the carpet.

“Hannibal views himself as... separate from other people. Being that he acts outside of ethics and the law in his own profession, I’d guess that what’s between us isn’t his only secret.”

“I’ve tried to tell you,” you say, tapping your coffee cup with bitten fingertips for emphasis. “I’ve known this for so long. But since you’re going along with his games how can you even judge him for whatever horrible things he’s doing?”

“Without knowing what he has or hasn’t done,” says Will, slowly, “I can’t say that I do.”

He gets up from his seat and paces before the window, his hands gesticulating like pigeons frenzied into startled flight.

“You assume that what I’m trying to learn about Hannibal—the core of who he is—is something ugly. But that isn’t what I’m afraid of. It’s the possibility of him lying to me. I don’t know if I could forgive him for that after the bond we’ve made. After what he encouraged me start with you.”

“You shouldn’t trust him,” you say, urgently. “Don’t. You don’t need him.”

Scoffing, Will says, “Jack seems to think I do. Alana— she’s convinced I’m one nudge away from disappearing so far into a case that I kill someone without even knowing it. Hannibal's the only one that doesn’t think of me as broken.”

You consider informing him of his suspected encephalitis, that Hannibal surely withholds this truth and more so as to keep his favour.

In the end you retain your silence; better that Will discovers the manipulation alone and behold how he has been misled upon this trail of darkness.

“Enough about me,” says Will, abruptly. “I know that someone hurt you, long before Hannibal. Before me. Someone you've never forgotten.”

Alarmed by the twist in conversation, you stammer, “I— I already told him some of it. I said I didn’t remember. But I was lying about that. I just don’t know if it was only one, long night, or it happened other times. I don’t know which is worse.”

You pause, slightly breathless. Like a portent from the white lips of some phantom you know that you must tell Will the truth, adhere him to your weeping heart with empathy for you.

“I was just a little kid,” you say. “And he was an adult. Nearly family— I used to call him Uncle Lee. Hannibal probably told you that. Anyway, I got my ‘wrong’ feeling about him way before he did what he did. Like I knew it was coming. Then he came into my room alone one night and... it happened.”

You put down your coffee cup, almost knocking it from the bedside table with the shaking of your hand. Will comes away from the window at once, dragging his chair to your bedside to listen. He neither speaks nor looks into your eyes, aware that you can bear neither without faltering.

“He touched me,” you say, “and the whole time I couldn’t even face him. I don’t even remember what I felt. Maybe I didn’t feel anything at all. Just stared at the ceiling or whatever. He did stuff to me that changed me forever. I felt like a tiny old person in a kid’s body, after that, knowing about things I wasn’t supposed to know.

“And the worst of it was still having to see him after. My parents— I tried to tell them, but I couldn’t get the words out. They just thought I didn’t like him. So he came back to the house, now and then. Never saw any consequences.

“I’ve always wondered if I was the only one, or if there were others. He was a plumber, or something; he could have access to people’s daughters anytime he wanted. Just walk into their room and... you know. I think maybe he did do that, a couple of times. Who knows.”

Your restless fingers pick at the gold embroidery on your bedspread, working it loose from the velvet. One of Will’s hands folds over yours, gently holding them still.

“What I always think about is how he treated me, afterwards,” you say. “I tried avoiding him, but it didn’t always work. One day he cornered me at the top of the stairs— my parents were in the kitchen, so it was just me and him.

“I must have been maybe twelve or so. Not far off thirteen. My body was changing. I was growing up. He said, ‘you’re getting a little chubby, you know. You ought to do something about that before you look like your mother.’

“Then he smiled at me, and just walked into the bathroom like there was nothing wrong with what had just come out of his mouth, or what he’d done to me all those years ago.”

Inhaling an unsteady breath, you try, with dubious success, to smile.

“So now you get why I’m like this. And knowing it wasn’t my fault, that Leland Frost is just a predator... it doesn’t fix anything. Like, where do I go from there?”

“He injured you,” says Will, softly. “And it may never stop hurting. But you can recover. No matter what you believe, it is possible. His shallow cruelty is not your compass. You don’t have to live on the basis of an insult.”

Scowling, you pull away from Will, trapping your hands under your armpits.

“How can I change when I’m reliving what I went through every day? Why does Hannibal think this’ll heal me? Why do you? Oh, yeah. You don’t.”

“I want it to,” says Will.

You snort dismissively.

“Yeah, yeah. Not so long ago you would have punched the air to see the back of me. You don’t want to share Hannibal with anybody.”

Will leans back in his seat, arms folded; it takes a moment for you to register that he is, by some subconscious impulse, copying your posture.

“I’m not sharing Hannibal with you,” says Will. “I’m sharing you with him. And I want to do that. You knew it before I did.”

His gaze snaps to yours, more arresting than his hands on you had been.

“You’re more like me than I cared to admit. Hannibal was right about that. And though everything about you should repulse his sensibilities he finds you adorable. You clearly don’t appreciate it, but there it is.”

You yearn to deny him, to condemn this speech as sophistry, but you are silent, as much a congregant to him as he has been to you.

“Leland Frost tore you down because he saw that you were growing up and away from him,” says Will. “He knew that one day you’d have a life, and achievements, and people that really cared about you. He was going to fade out of your world, and he couldn’t stand not leaving a mark.”

“I just don’t get it,” you whisper. “He loved me. Why did he do it?”

Will shifts his chair even closer to the bed so as to lean into you, his expression tender, tragic, sombre with a father’s sympathy.

“Leland never loved you, and that’s no reflection on you or your worth. It makes him weak, that he could throw away the relationship he had with you over an urge.”

You don’t have the strength to rage against the whited sepulchre in Will, not when he speaks the truth you’ve always yearned to hear from another. Pain winds through your body, throat to gut, great, twisting pulses, as though eviscerated on a blade of past.

What advice would Will give for you to survive what he and Hannibal have done, and will do?

Nothing. Not a word. He knows that the structure of the home, even comfort from those that afflict you has changed you in so short a time. Your desperation to be gone from him he senses, too, and with it your lust to be loved.

Will holds your hand for a long time before he speaks again, on another subject quite as dreary as the last.

“When you said it’d been years since you...”

“Since I last had my period?” you ask, touching your stomach through the sheets. “Yeah. It has been.”

Your body, the betrayer, making a scarlet banner of your betterment through cruelty.

“I never wanted it to come back. Having it again means I’m not as sick anymore, and that’s like... messing up for me.”

Will's head tilts, his face carved up by the shadows thrown from your barred window into a lattice of snow.

“Failing to die is barely a failure at all,” he comments.

You shrug yourself further under your bedcovers.

“It is if what’s happening to you is something worse,”

“Is it always so bad, being here with us?”

Will’s hand rises. Doesn’t quite touch your face. You turn your head away, but not cruelly; he’s not a bad man, you decide, only contorted so utterly from the ways of his fellows that he is some creature other, or from before, the flint-armed hunter of the caves.

And like such a creature, he seeks your answering affection for want of some warmth in the dark beginning of the earth.

You allow him to kiss your forehead, clumsily, inclined towards him as though you were not both aware of the fiction that allows this contact.

He can only guess how far you’d run from this, had you your chance. How readily you’d betray him.

*

 

You’re much recovered by the time Dr Lecter returns, having been hydrated and energised by a selection of unnamed supplements Will had you take with lunch; there is a cure for every ailment in the makeshift laboratory of the kitchen, it seems.

Hannibal discovers you at your usual perch of the parlour couch, writing in your journal with a blanket tucked loosely around you against the October cool.

Will stands to greet his companion, setting aside a book you’d offered him from your shelf to peruse, its cover depicting the bloody half-brain of the sun on a desert horizon.

“I didn’t expect our charge to be in such high spirits,” says Hannibal, with unmasked surprise. “Thank you for caring for her this morning, Will. I’m aware that whatever time you can spare for us in the midst of an investigation is very precious.”

Likely aware of your eyes on him, Will says, “I’m glad I stayed. I appreciated the company. How’s the other patient?”

“Suitably quieted. I doubt that I’ll be called away again on her behalf. Still, I made the most of the journey home.”

Hannibal reaches into a shopping bag looped over one arm and produces from it a wrapped package of fresh meat, marbling the paper with blood.

Grimacing, you say, “Ew. What is that? Looks like an organ.”

“It is. I’ll be making trippa alla romana tonight. It’s an Italian dish made from cow stomach. Don’t turn your nose up till you’ve tried it. Have I served anything to you yet that you haven’t enjoyed?”

*

After dinner, all three of the household recline, full and talking lazily before the fire. Had your company been any other than your abusers you would almost be content, for having been allowed to leave the table after a valiant half plate you are not so guilt-soaked as you’d have been had you finished it all.

You had, in fact, disliked the meal, a first in Hannibal’s house. The thought of the organ, plucked from the rib of a butcher’s shelf, had struck bile to the back of your mouth from the first bite.

A cup of chocolate, warmed to a froth and unadorned with cream is set in your hands instead, which you drink in feline licks to make it last.

Will’s phone shrills abruptly in his pocket. Frowning, he glances at the lighted oblong of its screen and starts at a familiar name.

“It’s Jack,” he says. “I’d better take this.”

He promptly exits the room, speaking with clipped tones into the device.

Alone with Hannibal, you become acutely aware of him looking at you, not quite with suspicion, but not so far from that.

"I see that you and Will are becoming close,” he says, at last. “I’m glad to see it.”

Humming vaguely, you snatch up the journal again and weave your pen about in a pretence of writing.

Hannibal says, "Still, it saddens me that—for all your pretty words of promise—you display a lesser willingness to befriend me.”

You do not answer, pressing your pen so hard against a page that it blots through to the other side.

"Put your journal down a moment, Little One,” says Hannibal. “I’m speaking to you."

Without looking up, you answer, "I don't know what you want me to say."

"You needn't say anything at all. It's your behaviour I wish to change."

In a flounce of irritation you throw the journal upon the floor, its spine creasing.

“I do what you say, and I don't fight you anymore,” you say. “Isn't that daughterly enough?"

"For the purposes of your treatment,” says Hannibal, “it is not. You remain closed to me, parted only by narcotic aid. I'd prefer you to open to me of your own volition. With Will, you prove yourself increasingly capable of that.

“I’ve given you all you’ve asked for, and more, and yet you show little gratitude. I wouldn’t wish to remove these luxuries for you to appreciate my endeavours.”

You look at him, then, this man both jealous and performing jealousy to groom you into his concubine, and in looking see that he will deconstruct your room into the barest cell, should he not have his way.

"I do appreciate what you’ve given me," you hastily protest. "I do, Daddy. You don’t have to take anything away. But I— I just don’t know you the way I know Will.”

“But you do,” says Hannibal, rising to sit beside you, a dangerous proximity. “That’s why you are so afraid of me, is it not?”

You begin to object, trailing off at the sound of approaching footfalls as the younger of your captors returns, listing in the churning swell of stress.

“It's the investigation,” says Will. “Another doll’s been found. Savannah Belmont. It’s too soon to be the Lover’s kill. He has a cool off point between each abduction.”

Hannibal straightens in his seat, rapidly alert.

“A copycat, then.”

Will nods, his throat tightening. His eyes touch your face briefly, and you offer him a small, close-lipped smile, an extension of comfort from across the room. His shoulders drop from their rigid line, and when he speaks again the frantic note in his voice is tempered slightly.

“Definitely a copycat,” he says. “The Lover disposes of the dolls by throwing them into rivers like garbage. No attempt to lay them to rest. Savannah was put on display, placed in a chair on a dirt bank as though she was waiting to be found.

“Both killers meant to degrade their victims, but only the copycat’s is implied to understand and accept that humiliation. Savannah Belmont died aware of her inferiority in the eyes of her murderer.”

You find yourself sitting on your hands to prevent them from betraying your agitation with their unsteadiness. Your leg, however, you cannot control, the right foot gyring an inch above the floor.

Hannibal eyes it without speaking, folding your reaction into the lengthy tome of his mind.

“The victim’s stomach was missing,” says Will, turning to pluck a bottle of whiskey from a nearby cabinet like some bronze fruit. “That’s new. The Lover’s mutilations are all with the purpose of fitting the bodies of his victims inside their silicone casings. He has no surgical skills.

“This new killer obviously has expertise. Savannah’s stomach was cut precisely from her body with the clear intent of taking it as a trophy.”

“Her stomach?” you repeat.

You feel the heaviness of meat within you and are chilled by the coincidence.

Hannibal could not have known what the copycat would take to reference it, could not have known of his existence to begin with, and yet as you glance at him under your lashes you don’t quite trust the seriousness of his expression, his eyes gleaming dimly as tarmac in the rain.

“You mustn’t worry, Little One,” says Hannibal, turning to lift you up onto his lap. “The Lover can’t hurt you. We will protect you, always.”

He settles your head against his chest, which resounds with the slow beat of his heart and the machinery of organs digesting his own rich meal.

The monster knows of your renewed distrust and is unthreatened by it, declawed and tooth-filed as you are by his influence over you and all the passageways of the world you’d otherwise cross in your escape.

“Thank you for taking care of me, Daddy,” you mutter, against his shirt, and the warmth of Hannibal’s palm cups your buttocks with a tormenting friction, both threat and tease at once.

While you hate him—are in terror of him, always—your form is increasingly enamoured by his touch as though it knows that it must be so, or die.

“No need to thank me for performing my duty to you, Little One,” says Hannibal, into your ear. “For you belong to me, and to Will, and you must never forget it.”

[kmac4him1st]

My wonderful God, you are to be praised above all; teach me the power of your decrees! I speak continually of your laws as I recite out loud your counsel to me. I find more joy in following what you tell me to do than in chasing after all the wealth of the world. I set my heart on your precepts and pay close attention to all your ways. My delight is found in all your laws, and I won’t forget to walk in your words.’ Psalms 119:12-16