#the comfort and the hurt comes from one person and it’s destroying meeeee

[liminalghost]

Fanfic writers got me like

@sebaurouge - sovereign of summers lost

@jesternlove - the malicious rod

Please accept this token of appreciation 🫶

[ajokeformur-ray]

Introducing - Dr. Hannibal and Mrs. Erika Lecter.

Self - shipping game (started by @jokersspookyhyena​; thank you for the tag, darling!💗)

I’m really nervous about posting this because Hannibal is...  very special to me. The bond we share is on a similar level to the one I have with Joker. The only real difference is the length of time; Hannibal has been with me for far longer. I love him so much that it hurts and I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am without him.

PLEASE NOTE - 

Mentions of abuse, dissociation and passive suicidal tendencies - unspecified, just named as listed. It’s relevant and almost central to our relationship. If you want to skip this bit, it’s the question asking his favourite things about me, specifically. Every other question is safe, loves! My connection to him is raw, and so are my answers.

Word count: 2, 450 (uhhh... woops??)

When did you get together/how long have you known them?

Hannibal and I go way back. I have known Hannibal Lecter, as a character across all forms of media, since I was thirteen, but NBC’s Hannibal I met when I was shy of eighteen. I adore all portrayals of Hannibal Lecter, but this Hannibal is my most favourite one. Not because Mads Mikkelsen is outrageously attractive, although that’s also true, but because in him I found solace, peace, acceptance, understanding... and safety, in more ways than one. Over the course of the time we’ve known each other, our dynamic has always changed and it’s grown with me. As I’ve gotten older, the dynamic has become increasingly romantic. When I look back on my life, Hannibal’s always been with me, and thank goodness because I wouldn’t be who I am today without him. I am so grateful to and for him for so many reasons it’d be impossible to list them all.

Nicknames, both yours for them and theirs for you!

Sksksksksk I annoy Hannibal with all my nicknames for him: Hanni is the one I use for everything, more than his own name, pretty Hanni when I want cuddles but I’m too shy to actually say, my love when I’m feeling tender for him (all the time) sometimes I’ll combine nicknames and say; Hanni, my love. Sometimes I call him my precious cannibal... that’s for our most romantic moments, though. When I’m talking to others about him, I usually attach “my” to the front of his name. He’s not mine, of course, and I don’t own him and he doesn’t belong to me, but the bond which we have is mine, and this is an important distinction.

Hannibal doesn’t have many nicknames for me. He most often calls me by my name, little fawn/doe when I’m especially skittish or he makes me accidentally jump (it’s not hard to do, though it’s not fun for him because it takes ages for me to calm down), dearest, my love, and the most recent addition is, phoenix or my phoenix... I wrote about that here if you want to read about why he calls me that!

Who’s on top?

Hannibal, most often. He likes to push, destroy and reset boundaries in his own image, though, so sometimes he’ll make me go on top just to see what I do. Spoilers: I always nuzzle my face into the warm crook of his neck, lock my arms and legs around him, and close my eyes. If Hannibal desires for anything sexual, then he has to roll me to be underneath him because once I’m on him, all I want is the safe cage of his embrace (though, on the rare occasions I get... amorous, I just aim my hips downwards every time I shift to get comfortable. It’s subtle enough to be missed, but Hannibal knows me and his chuckle rumbles through his chest and it always makes me smile).

Who is more protective?

Mmm... Hannibal, I would say. I don’t take the best care of myself and Hannibal often has to help me. Erika, don’t you think you should eat something? It has been several hours and you don’t want to get a stomach ache from not eating for so long, do you? and other such less than subtle reminders. 

However, I’m not totally helpless and if anyone hurts my Hanni, then oooooooh, this fawn bares her teeth. You do not touch my Hanni. I may be afraid of confrontation and of raised voices, but if I catch wind of anyone targeting Hannibal, then none of that matters. Good luck taking Hannibal to prison, Jack, I’mma square up and you better be ready to catch these hands. 

Who said ‘I love you’ first?

Meeeee ~ , I did!!!!! Because I knew him so young, for about six years of our friendship, I used to just say “I love you” and Hannibal would smile patiently but otherwise not encourage anything, for obvious reasons. But one day, I said I loved him and Hannibal gave me the time old reaction. “No, Hanni, listen. I love you.” He blinked once, twice, smiled... and still didn’t say it back. But that’s okay - I like to think that he loves me too. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. He’s Hannibal Lecter, who knows? If it’s a moment which needs for him to say it back, he’ll most often say, “and I, you.” It’s close enough.

Who does the household chores? Including cleaning, cooking, anything around the house.

Hanni and I split everything. I live with him and he refuses to let me pay rent or for food and the like (I have something of a guilt complex so I always feel bad for 'taking’ anything without giving something back, which is usually more than what I was initially given), so instead if something needs doing, I’ll do it without saying anything. Hannibal is incredibly self-sufficient and I stay out of his kitchen (I can cook well enough but Hannibal’s Japanese knives scare me so I stay out of the way and he’s very particular about the order of things in his kitchen), and I don’t go in his office either, but the rest of our home is mine to do whatever I want with. Sometimes I’ll deliberately stay out of his way and when he comes a-running (but not to help), he finds I’ve done odd jobs here and there around the home. He doesn’t thank me for it, he knows I don’t want that, so he dips his chin and eyes me with those gorgeous chocolate eyes, and I know I’ve earned myself a cuddle session later. Both of us know that that’s what I was after the entire time, though neither of us addresses it. He’s taught me well. A bit too well, he sometimes thinks.

Who gets hurt more often?

Me 😂 I have been known to trip over my own foot standing still and it’s not unusual for me to stand up and to sway as I try to find my balance and for Hanni to reach up to grasp my wrist until I’ve settled. It’s embarrassing and my cheeks always go bright red from blushing, but the heat of his hand seeps into my skin and I can’t tell which of the two body parts burns more. Sometimes his touch lingers on my skin and I end up sitting back down, not wanting to leave my precious cannibal. This was what Hannibal wanted the entire time and we both know it but we don’t address it, and I realise that either I’m becoming more like him, or he’s starting to adopt some of my own mannerisms. You and I have begun to blur is something Will once said to Hannibal, but it’s not a wholly exclusive sentiment. There are aspects of me which are because of Hannibal and we both know it.

How do you sleep?

I don’t, not without my Hanni. He most often lays on his back and lets me settle myself half on his body and half off. One of my legs stretches across his body so that my inner knee is pressed to his outer hip and I wrap my arms around his shoulders. My face finds its way either into his chest so I can hear his heartbeat and feel the rumble of his voice in my ear, or pressed into the warm crook of his neck so I can feel his pulse against my skin and know that he is alive and safe. When at last do I fall asleep, for it takes me a long time to settle and to get comfortable (seven hundred position changes and a sacrifice to Satan), Hannibal turns off the light he allows me while I fall asleep (if I wake up in the dark, I’ll be scared to the point of a panic attack and then he will wake and comfort me. This increases my trust in him and further ensures that I won’t leave him. We both know he does this but again, it’s not addressed. I trust him implicitly, which again... is all a part of his plan.) and then he turns onto his side with me pressed tightly to his chest.

Sometimes, on very rare occasions, when Hannibal has been hurt or if he’s sick, he likes to lay atop me and our positions are the same as above, but reversed. So he’s the one clinging onto me and I am the one on my back, protecting my pretty Hanni from all who seek to do him harm or to take his freedom away from him... that’s something I’d never condemn him to. I love him far too much to ever put him through that. Beasts belong out in the wild, do they not?

Fears?

Hannibal fears having his freedom taken away from him, he fears being completely vulnerable, he fears never being understood... his fears are bigger than me, so I can only love him as hard as I can every single day, without hesitation, thought or fault.

And, well... I have lots of fears. My biggest fears are the dark and... certain physical illnesses and Hannibal has offered multiple times to get me a suitable therapist, but I refuse every time. I have my Hanni, so I have everything.💖 He knows me and he knows that if he just stays, I’ll even lay in the pitch darkness for him... if he just stays. So he stays and, oh, my fear smells delicious and he craves more... so I crave his closeness and on it goes. We kind of... led each other into this relationship but looking back, I definitely don’t want it any other way. I’m not sure about Hannibal. 

Favorite physical and personal feature about them?

I love all of Hannibal, but his eyes are the warmest pools of chocolate I’ve  ever seen. I like to cup his face in my hands, especially when we’re sat in his study by the fire, and I like to get very close to him so that my nose is touching his and I just look into his eyes, the soft orange glow of the fire giving his dark irises a red tint... he has the eyes of a shark. 

And that voice... asdfghjk 🥵🥵🥵 many a panic attack has been stopped before it’s started, many a nightmare soothed, by even one word. Hanni has to be careful what he asks of me because he knows that I won’t ever say no to him, but that was all a part of his plan... so long as I love him, I am useful to him. I lost all of myself once and Hanni helped me to find her. His voice led the way, it called out to the darkness in me, and I could only answer his call. He saved me.

And I love his hair... especially in the mornings when it brushes against his eye lashes, I... I just love him.🥺🥺🥺

My favourite personal feature of Hannibal’s is his mind. His psyche is an ocean with murky, never before charted depths, and I long to dive in at the deepest part and to never resurface. I long for his tongue to cut into me, for his words to slice me apart, and then for him to submerge me in the depths of his mind, in the depths of the love he may have for me, and to soothe away the metaphorical wounds I inflict upon myself daily (my inner voice most often sounds like my abusers, try as I might). I long to become one with my cannibal so that never are we torn asunder.

Their favorite physical and personal feature about you?

Mmm... this one is really hard to answer because I am not, ah... favourable of myself in any way. My dress just rode up to my thigh, though, and I can literally see the answer: my tattoo. A few years ago, something terrible happened and as a result, I dissociated to the point of barely functioning and I experienced passive suicidal ideation for a long time even after I escaped that situation (Hanni is the reason I left that, too). Instead of giving into that, though, I designed and then got a tattoo and though I wanted to die, Hannibal made me feel alive that day. Though I know that Hannibal doesn’t like his meat branded (😂), I also know that he loves my tattoo. It’s a physical mark of my love and my devotion to him, and of course it strokes his ego. He quite literally saved my life and I wanted to immortalise that instead of destroying myself further.

Even if I do say so myself, she’s gorgeous:

His favourite personal feature about me is the fact that I see him. I know exactly who Hanni is. I know what he’s done. I know what he’s capable of. I know his past, his present, and I see who he is. I can look at him and guess within an accurate measure as to his thoughts and feelings. I see him and I know him and I love him genuinely, with everything that I am. There have been multiple points in my life where I’ve lived for him in a very raw and real way, and he knows that. Hanni is a rare gift and by some stroke of luck, I was given him. I’ll never be able to repay him for his kindness.

Something intimate you do together?

We lay together. Not just cuddling like I answered in a different question, but we talk. About anything and everything. Hannibal listens more than he speaks up until he notices I’m getting tired, and then he speaks and I listen. He’ll cite Dante in Italian or quote Shakespeare, he’ll talk about Schrodinger's theory or answer my question do killed spiders become ghosts? And we spend that time together. There’s an intimacy not just in naked bodies but in bared souls too, and when both forms happen at the same time? It’s the purest, rawest intimacy he and I are capable of. And it happens nightly - no exceptions.

Who needs more TLC when sick?

Hanni rarely gets sick or injured, so this is me again. I usually work as best as I can through my sickness and I’ll tell him that I’m fine, I don’t need anything... but he takes care of me because he knows I want him to, even if I won’t say it. I’m the kind of person who longs to be wholly self-sufficient and independent, and I can do it, too, but I soften considerably when someone treats me the way I treat them and it almost always makes me cry, no matter who they are. I’ve learned to be strong so when I’m taken care of, I don’t know how to handle it... but Hanni does. Hanni has seen me at my best, at my worst, at my worst and everything in between, and he can handle all of me. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.