#yadda yadda you get it

[defectivevillain]

this winding labyrinth, ch4

chapter 4: regurgitation

pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Reader (reader is not gendered, race-ambiguous, and no physical descriptors are used)

summary:

You wish you never met Hannibal Lecter. But you yearn for his presence. You want to forget him. But he never truly leaves your thoughts. Now, you’re left to pick up the pieces of a broken design. A battle of instinct rages on in your mind—one of bittersweet relief and cloying grief, fearless resolve and poignant regret; a clashing between affection and antipathy, pride and pain. What will win, in the end? Only time will tell.

this is chapter 4, act 2 of this broken design. if you haven't read act 1 or chapters 1-3, this won't make too much sense.

ao3 version | Spotify playlist

warnings: canon-typical blood, violence, and gore; animal death; smoking, addiction. (justification for these two narrative choices in the endnotes)

Sometimes, the mirror looks at you first. 

Your mistakes and your crimes haunt you at every turn, inhabiting the shadows behind your back and the reflection before your eyes until all you can hear is gunfire and all you can see is blood dripping down your skin. Your knuckles ache in remembrance, your finger refuses to stop twitching. You flinch at every minute noise, stiffen at every passing shadow. Sure, you passed your psychological evaluation. Sure, you’ve returned to teaching and fieldwork. And you’re okay. 

Sure.

Despite everything that has happened to you recently, it’s both grounding and disturbing to remember that the world hasn’t really changed in your absence. There are still too many criminals to catch, and not enough people fighting to find them. There will always be corpses. You will always be left to handle the aftermath. How many people have to be killed before a murderer reaches the desk of Jack Crawford? You find yourself going to the Bureau’s library during the majority of your time between lessons, desperate for answers to the questions that have remained unsolved. Is there truly a way to prevent criminals from becoming criminals in the first place? How many strings have to snap for a person to consider killing another? ( Not very many, Clark Ingram leers in your ear.)

Your attitude towards criminality has changed in the time you’ve spent at the FBI. Before, you were optimistic—perhaps a little naive. Not only did you believe that every person had the potential to change, but you wholeheartedly believed that they wanted to change. You’ve met too many killers now to be so deluded, to think that they would choose mercy over malice when given the option. You’ve been burned before—put aside your misgivings, suppressed any reasonable doubt in the face of a charming smile and glittering eyes. You don’t intend to let anything like that happen again. 

If only intention caved so easily. In all reality, it could very well happen again. You know damn well you’re not exactly in the safest state of mind at the present moment. Dueling desires for solitude and company wage war in your mind, making your actions puzzling at best and contradictory at worst. You’re losing your self-concept, blurring your own visage until you’re a muddled mess of darkness and inexplicable spots of color. 

In the past, when you felt untethered, you’d submerge yourself in work. That’s one thing about you that hasn’t changed. When you don’t have the answers, when you can’t quite silence the self-deprecating commentary constantly playing in your mind, you turn to paperwork and cold cases. You rifle through photographs of gruesome murder scenes that look achingly familiar. You find yourself committing particularly difficult cases to memory, if only to keep your mind busy.

Cold cases aren’t your priority, however. After all, you’re a field agent. The majority of your work is focused on the murderers that still roam the streets—the ones that leave behind victims gasping for breath and puddles of crimson. There is no shortage of cruel acts to keep you occupied, as you track down killers of all walks of life. 

And you have some close calls. After your muted conversation with Jack in the hospital all those months ago, you take extra caution and care when you’re in the field. But you’re still human. You get scratches and scrapes, bruises and the occasional graze of a bullet. Thankfully, you don’t sustain an injury serious enough to warrant a hospital visit, but your wounds are still prominent enough to leave marks on your body and draw your attention in the mirror. 

As time passes, the scars you acquire set into your skin, and you realize that the pain you once felt is never far. Your body is slowly growing into a tapestry of marks, littered with remnants of unspeakable cruelty. Each scar is a reminder that you survived another monster, and the thought brings you equal gratitude and guilt. On good days, the marks are badges of honor; on bad days, they send you spiraling as you question why you were chosen to survive.

Crime never rests, and neither do you. Your sleep continues to be positively awful, as you’re plagued with nightmares. Abel Gideon smiles as he sinks a knife between your ribs; Frederick Chilton towers over you with a gleaming eye; Clark Ingram shoves you into a horse’s womb, next to its still beating heart and warm organs; Franklyn Froideveaux sits in your office, asking you why you sentenced him to his death. Abigail Hobbs chokes on her own blood as her throat is sliced; Peter Bernardone is strangled to death with a lead rope.

The worst of your nightmares doesn’t feature any of these people. Instead, you’re seated in the chair in Hannibal’s office. The clock ticks on the wall. Your leg bounces restlessly. Hannibal appears to be writing or sketching something on his notepad. He makes no acknowledgement of your presence.

You soon grow accustomed to falling entirely silent in that office chair, to inhaling and exhaling quietly, to not making a single movement or sound. You are delivered to this nightmare three times. It shouldn’t scare you. Yet there is something in the air of that office, some unspoken tension and anticipation that sends sweat rolling down your neck and forces you to wake in your bedroom with panting breaths. Each time you wake, your abdomen burns and the scar on your face stings. 

You don’t tell anyone about this recurring nightmare. As you take on another case, the subject of your nightmares becomes the killer you’re searching for and the victims she’s already left behind. And, slowly but surely, you begin to forget that suffocating silence. 

Months later, though, when an uneasy sleep returns you to Hannibal’s office once more, you aren’t prepared. You sit on the chair and take a deep breath. Hannibal’s pencil—which hasn’t ever stopped skittering and gliding across the paper—stills at the noise. His head slowly rises until he’s looking at you, and suddenly everything around you seems inconsequential. You feel like the breath has been ripped right from your chest. His gaze steadily rips you apart, layer by layer. 

When you wake, you can’t fall asleep again. You spend the rest of the night and early morning trying to rid yourself of the feeling of eyes on you. Sometimes, when you blink, you can see Hannibal in your entryway. (Sometimes, when you blink, you see him standing next to you as you look over a victim’s body, humming in disinterest.) 

You’ve been trying to bury your memories of the past, but they aren’t quite as far away as you’d like. Hannibal Lecter still has a tight grip on your waking mind. You are unable to forget him. (“I want you to know exactly where I am, and where you can always find me.”) 

As it turns out, no one is keen to forget Hannibal Lecter. The Chesapeake Ripper still dominates the news and the papers. The public is fascinated with Hannibal, with the skilled surgeon-psychiatrist with no obvious indicators of insanity and a rather steep kill count. Even though Hannibal is imprisoned, his name doesn’t seem to leave the mouths of FBI trainees talking amongst themselves or news anchors reporting on crimes. Nearly everyone is fascinated, intrigued by the story of Hannibal Lecter. There are a few exceptions, fortunately. Namely, Jack Crawford, Beverly, and Alana are the few people who treat you as they always do. 

Still, you’re close to a breaking point. All the attention on the Chesapeake Ripper is making it utterly impossible to forget him. You want to move on more than anything, but everyone around you is constantly reminding you of the fear, betrayal, remorse, anger, and helplessness that clung to you after Hannibal stabbed you and nearly left you to die in his office. You’re forced to relive the worst night of your life again and again and again. 

You don’t have patience for people who just want information from you. So when you see Freddie Lounds waiting for you as you exit a crime scene one afternoon, you’re extremely apprehensive. As you walk to your car, you find yourself unwittingly getting closer to Freddie in the process. You’re waiting for her to start asking you about the crime scene or the Chesapeake Ripper. Instead, Freddie simply nods at you. You blink at her, before hesitantly nodding back. 

From then on, Freddie seems to make a habit of breaking your expectations. Like right now, for instance. You’re leaving another crime scene, another corpse, when you see Freddie sitting on the steps of a nearby building, a cigarette dangling between her fingers. She beckons you closer and, after a moment’s consideration, you settle on the stairs next to her. Freddie wordlessly holds out her carton of cigarettes. You regard it with a mix of emotions. You know you shouldn’t take her up on the offer, know damn well that the last thing you need in your life is addiction. 

But there’s a small voice in the back of your mind, whispering to you that the cigarettes will offer you a safety that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s growing louder and louder, amplified as it echoes in the empty chamber of your mind palace. You take a deep breath. What more do you have to lose?

“No time like the present,” you eventually acquiesce with a grimace, before grabbing a cigarette. Somewhere, somehow, this feels like the point of no return. You’ve crossed a line that there can be no coming back from. 

“Yeah,” Freddie responds eloquently, immune to your internal crisis. She reaches out to light your cigarette. You stare at the smoke emanating from it. Truthfully, you’ve never smoked before. You watch Freddie and try to emulate her movements, taking a deep breath before pressing the cigarette to your lips and inhaling. Immediately, you’re coughing. It takes you several seconds to regain your breath, and Freddie is absolutely no help—instead laughing maniacally at your suffering. 

“How have you been?” You ask, once Freddie has stopped laughing at your pain. “How are things with TattleCrime?”

“Boring, now that Lecter’s behind bars,” Freddie remarks. You choke on a laugh at her macabre honesty. And, in typical Freddie fashion, she entirely dodges the question directed towards her. She must be doing alright, you think, if she’s sitting out here peacefully. 

“I bet,” you grimace. TattleCrime’s entire brand relies on criminality. For a while there, Hannibal was dominating the front page. There’s clearly less source material now that he’s in prison. “Hey, you could write an article about me. My unsightly scar…” You break off, trying to remember other headlines or articles about you. That’s all you can remember, thankfully. You’ve been trying your best to keep yourself away from the news, because you know it typically brings nothing but trouble. Even so, it’s everywhere.

��Ah, yes, and how the Ripper left you alive?” Freddie says, “Because that topic isn’t exhausted just yet.” She continues wryly. You feel a slight smile rising on your face. No doubt, she has also taken notice of the extensive press coverage surrounding both Hannibal Lecter and, well, you. 

“It’s growing pretty ridiculous,” you admit, allowing yourself to think about it for a moment. Thoughts of Hannibal are never far, but you’ve grown used to suppressing them. With a slow inhale, you allow yourself to contemplate.  “I’ve heard everything from us being in a secret relationship to the Ripper not wanting to end his kill count on an odd number.” The statement is punctuated with a slow exhale of smoky breath. 

“What do you think?” Freddie asks, regarding you sincerely. Her gaze is attentive, but not intense. She is interested in hearing what you have to say, for reasons you can’t quite comprehend. “Why did he leave you alive?” 

“...To prove a point,” you respond hollowly. You’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with this unshakeable fact, yet you haven’t been able to fully grasp its implications just yet.  

“That’s grim,” the journalist admits, taking another drag. She glances at you in concern, you pretend not to notice—it’s a game you’re already accustomed to playing with Bev. “You’re certain?” Freddie asks. After a moment’s contemplation, you shake your head wordlessly. Of course you’re not certain. Hannibal isn’t so easily predictable. Your hand unconsciously rises to touch the scar on your face. 

“Gideon gave you that scar,” Freddie recalls with a frown. She brings her cigarette to her lips again and her shirt sleeve slips down in the process, revealing abrasions around her wrist. You aren’t the only one with scars from that night, it seems. 

“It was healing,” you whisper, goosebumps rising on your skin as you touch the scar. You’re not sure why your voice has fallen so quiet—there is no one else around to hear you. Still, the admission feels damning. “Then… Hannibal tore it open again.”

There’s a startled intake of breath. “On purpose?” Freddie asks. 

“I think so,” you agree, trying to reach the words caught in your throat. You look down at the pavement beneath your feet. Eye contact feels too difficult right now. “I have to wonder if he knew… knew I’d be forced to see him in my mind’s eye every time I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror.” Your throat feels tight. Surely, he would’ve known. Was that his parting gift—a reopened wound, a permanent remnant of what you had?

“Hey, did he really surrender?” Freddie frowns, looking to you for clarification.

You nod. “He surrendered in my driveway,” you elaborate, before you can contemplate the consequences of giving the TattleCrime journalist confidential information. 

“Really?” Freddie gasps, her eyes widening. 

“Yeah,” you confirm. You’re not sure why you’re telling Freddie about this—perhaps because she’s a good listener; perhaps because you just need to tell someone. When you blink, you can see the headlights of Jack’s police car burning through the darkness; when you blink, you can see Hannibal’s eyes gleaming in the dark, pinning you in place. “He said he wanted me to know where he would be, and where I could always find him.” The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, one of the voices reminds you. You shake your head and turn to Freddie, only to realize that she has been struck speechless. 

“And that isn’t the only scar,” you continue with a wry laugh. At Freddie’s questioning look, you take a deep breath and lift up your shirt—just high enough to show her the faded scar on your side. “He snuck into my hospital room and took my kidney ...Then he fed it to me.” You shudder in remembrance, almost able to feel the familiar burning sensation curdling in your throat as you unknowingly digested your own flesh.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but tense silence. Freddie then sighs. “I’m thinking you’ll need these more than I will,” she says shakily, handing you the carton of cigarettes. You take it instinctually. “How in the hell are you still alive?”

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” you admit quietly. The admission settles heavily in the air, creating an uncomfortable tension. “Why do I get to live, when everyone who has ever interacted with the Ripper before has died?” What makes a victim? What makes a survivor? 

“I’d almost say it’s luck, but… if anything, it’d be bad luck.” Freddie responds with a hum. She clasps her hands on her knees. A soft breeze rolls through the air and rustles her hair. 

“You’re probably right,” you acquiesce. The sun begins to recede behind a nearby cloud in the pale blue sky. Sometimes, when you look up at the sky, you wonder if Hannibal is able to look up at it too. 

“Everyone’s saying Lecter has special privileges as a prisoner.” Freddie says, as if sensing your thoughts. She’s looking to you for confirmation.

“I wouldn’t know,” you say with a shake of your head. At Freddie’s confused glance, you elaborate. “I haven’t visited.” She nods. “I can certainly see how he gets special treatment, though. No one understands the Ripper, so he’s an enigma to everyone. Plus, Hannibal is rather respected in the medical world. He was a really good surgeon, from what I’ve heard. Several publications in The American Journal of Psychiatry…… I’m sure Chilton’s having fun with him, though,” you say, a weary smile rising on your face. 

“Oh, that reminds me… Look at this.” Freddie reaches into her bag and pulls out her phone. She squints down at it and types in her passcode, before proceeding to tap it a few times. You wait patiently. Moments later, she turns up the brightness on her screen and hands her phone to you. You squint down at the screen.  

“ Hannibal the Cannibal: The Savory Mind of Dr. Lecter ?” You recite aloud, unable to hide your disbelief at the thought of Frederick Chilton publishing an entire book about Hannibal. You can’t help but wonder how he got enough information from him to write it—especially when considering Hannibal’s casual contempt for Chilton. 

“I know, right?” Freddie laughs at your shock. “I doubt Lecter’s very happy about it.” She exhales in a puff of smoke. 

“Oh, the back cover blurb for the book is on here,” you say, staring at it for a moment before beginning to read aloud. “The trial of Dr. Hannibal Lecter revealed to the public another side of a man who was a respected member of proper society in Baltimore. A man who was respected as one of the most brilliant psychiatric minds among his peers. A man who was a gourmand and often entertained society’s elite at soirées where they wined and dined on expertly prepared exotic dishes prepared by the host himself-”

“Did you ever go to one of his parties?” Freddie interjects. 

“No, thankfully,” you say, “But he brought me food… one of the first times we met. I had no idea, so I ate it, of course.” You shudder, thinking back to a dimly lit hotel room, a steady gaze, and an unfamiliar taste on your tongue. 

Freddie seems to have another question on the tip of her tongue, but she’s holding back. You squint at her, before deciding to just ask her if she has a question. Sure enough, she does. It takes the journalist a few moments to ask it. “...Did you ever suspect him?” Freddie’s question is no louder than a whisper, but it seems to reverberate through your mind with all the force of an ear-shattering scream. 

“...Yes,” you admit, because the secret has been eating you alive from the inside-out. A small weight has been lifted from your shoulders, but it’s inconsequential when compared to the blood on your hands. You chance a glance at Freddie. She doesn’t look entirely surprised, although she is staring straight ahead with a slightly troubled expression. “Constantly.” You choke out before you can stop yourself. 

Recognition flashes in Freddie’s eyes and there’s a stab of fear in your chest. “You knew he wouldn’t leave behind enough evidence,” Freddie realizes aloud. Your fear fades, replaced instead with guilt. You know your words will betray you, so you just nod your head silently in agreement. In reality, Freddie is giving you way too much credit. Desperate to change the subject, you return your attention to the blurb on the back of Chilton’s book and continue reading. 

“...A man who worked as a psychological profiler for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A man who was in fact the notorious Chesapeake Ripper. An infamous serial killer with a murderous career as shocking as it is prolific. The trial of Dr. Lecter—shocking as it was, was only the beginning of the disturbing story of the man who became known as Hannibal the Cannibal.

“This book is a deep psychiatric assessment from the very Doctor who worked with Dr. Lecter as well as knew him once as a friend-” You sputter and stop, nearly choking on laughter. “A friend? That’s definitely a stretch.” You think back to how Hannibal introduced himself to Chilton, to the thinly-veiled fury in Hannibal’s eyes as he lingered on the edges of your conversation with Gideon. ( “Stay away from Lecter. I was the same, you know—enamored with my wife. It doesn't last long, trust me-”)

“Chilton annoyed Lecter, didn’t he?” Freddie asks, pulling you out of your memories. You’re thankful for the interruption; it takes you a moment to process her question. Once you do, you’re quick to nod in confirmation. Freddie doesn’t seem surprised by that. “I get the sense Lecter doesn’t quite… do friends, anyway,” she then remarks. That’s an accurate assessment, you think. What Freddie says next shocks you, though. “I think he made an exception for you.”

“Me?” You whisper.

“You,” Freddie nods, staring at you perplexedly—as if she didn’t anticipate you to question that statement. You decide not to probe that topic any further, instead settling on continuing to recite the blurb. 

“A revealing study of what caused Lecter to torture and kill the people around him. What caused him to even eat his victims and feed them to unknowing house guests. A perfect storm of brilliance, violence and psychotic behavior that resulted in one of the worst serial killers in history… 

“Chilton is a shitty writer.” You finish with a heavy sigh.

“Agreed,” Freddie nods. You hand her phone back to her and she scrolls further down in the article before reciting more text. “About the Author: Dr. Frederick Chilton… most recently has been working as the Hospital Director of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he worked directly with and studied Dr. Lecter himself. 

“Yeah, even I know that’s a load of bullshit.” Freddie concludes with a roll of her eyes. For a few minutes, the air falls still between you. Then, Freddie’s voice breaks the silence. “Do you think you’ll ever see Lecter again?” You swallow hard. 

“I don’t know,” you respond. The dishonesty makes your skin prickle, as that statement lies in firm contradiction with the inexplicable yet assured knowledge that some time, some day, you will have to see Hannibal Lecter again. It may not be soon. It may not be today, tomorrow, or the next day, so you stick with your noncommittal answer. At some point, you know you’ll need to consult the Chesapeake Ripper. One day, another elusive murderer will come along—one who defies the FBI’s carefully devised reason and rationality and subverts all attempts at identification and capture. 

But you will not meet this killer for several more years. In every moment leading up to that fateful interaction, you will have to grapple with the inexplicable, irremovable apprehension settling in your chest—the one that whispers Hannibal Lecter is closer than you think, in a soft murmur. You pinch the bridge of your nose and take another drag, settling into the quiet alongside Freddie Lounds. 

Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, unbeknownst to you, a tall man with sharp eyes and a cleft lip opens the door to Gateway Film Laboratory in St. Louis, Missouri. The clerk greets him with a smile, before their eyes catch on the paper in his hand. Lips pressed taut, the man inhales slowly and hands them his job application. 

“Lovely to meet you… Francis Dolarhyde,” the clerk says, addressing him by name once they read it on the paper. Their gaze rises to meet him once more. “Thank you for your application. I’m sure you’ll be hearing from us very soon.”

next chapter

The excerpts from Chilton's book are taken directly from the prop used in the show.

Justification: In this fic, smoking is used primarily as a narrative device. The reader picking up smoking is largely indicative of the stress and trauma they've had to go through in the years following the Ripper's capture. Also, smoking provides them a little solace. Smoking (as you probably know) blackens your lungs and severely damages them. The reader is aware of this and, perhaps a small part of them takes comfort in the fact that they're destroying their organs—making them inedible for a cannibal (cough, cough, Hannibal).

I know that's pretty macabre, and I want to emphasize once more that I am not encouraging smoking. It's sort of romanticized in this fic, as are a lot of things that really shouldn't be. In reality, smoking is harmful. I'm not trying to patronize any readers who smoke—I just want to make it clear that I am also not trying to encourage it in any way whatsoever. The events of the last book have really affected the reader, prompting them to find different (and less reliable) coping mechanisms. Being stabbed by someone you consider to be a friend (and perhaps even something more) is not something that a person can recover from in the blink of an eye.

thanks for reading! <3

check out my other works, sorted by fandom.

hannibal taglist: @its-ares @tobbotobbs @xrisdoesntexist @gr1mmac3 @tiredstarcerberuslamb @yourlocalratwriter @kingkoku @kahuunknown @atlas-king1 @pendragon-writes @slipknotcentury @cryinersaved @the-ultimate-librarian @starre-eyes @pendragon-writes @peterparkeeperer @gayschlatt69 @flow33didontsmoke @mrgatotortuga

[mercyluvsyouuu]

Hello angel fanatics (myself) please have this picture my brother took while we were touring a cave

Do you. Do you see the vision. Do the formations in the middle not look like an angel to you. Do you see what I mean. Do you see what I me

[p41nty]

What the hell are pro shippers? Nobody has ever explained it to me

basically proshipping is a term for people who enjoy and support ships that are problematic (adult x minor, parent x child, incest, etc etc)

[battiegutz]

shoutout the avf discord

[spw-art]

*wolf whistles* who are THESE lovely ladies in non period appropriate clothing?

[vepppy]

struggling so bad trying to balance work and my WIPs rn its frustrating

[reputable-opportunist]

how i process fiddlestan

[hajihiko]

A surprise visit

[backmarkerr]

feeling very blessed by 2024 simi rn 😌

[palossssssand]

human trito + kinoga :]

[honeyed-lemonade]

frankly I think as a fandom we’ve been blowing things out of proportion on the regular far too much

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is not understanding the concept of friendzone.

.

[revenantghost]

Hey, I’m just here to say you’re extremely missed and that, even though there’s probably not much I could say to make any of the bad things less awful, I’m hoping for an easier and gentler future for you soon. Take care, ok?

Oh man, thank you so much for sending this, and I'm sorry it's taken so long to respond (and to the other person who sent me an ask, too—I'm not sure when I'll get to it but please know it was seen and means so much). It has just been. So awful. I won't dump on the public at large everything that's happened, you don't need that novel, but it feels like every day life's falling apart more and more.

Just, seriously, thank you for sending this, and to the couple of people who checked in with chats (again, I'm sorry if I haven't responded yet, spoons are just very limited). There have been a lot of times throughout this where I get overwhelmed by everything going on and some truly horrific people I've met in the fandom and I've considered deleting everything permanently! Very often!!! Tbh I'm still struggling with that VERY intense urge while writing this. I feel so unsafe, and scared, and run down.

And tbh, it's really hard to believe anyone could care about me when I feel so awful and worthless, I feel like it must be an obligation, or I somehow accidentally manipulated people, but I'm trying to cling to that being the brain demons talking. Because I really appreciate the time and effort anyone's taken with me. And I really miss fandom and fun, even if it's weighed down with some significant trauma—I still love the stories and the characters and, most importantly, the amazing people I've met here. Outside of any fandom I've poked around in, the wonderful people I've met matter the most, and I'm trying to cling to that.

I really enjoy talking with everyone, running little projects/events, and for the first time in years actually writing again. (I've been slowly plucking away at that AU I mentioned a few times and I want to start posting for an event this month but! Ahhh!!!) I would like to try and be active again, and I'm so sorry for just being such an absolute goddamn mess. I feel like this is all too much to even say, but I do want to just be honest about all of it. Still, again, thank you so much for reaching out <3 And I'm sorry this is so ridiculously long even though I don't feel like I'm saying much and nothing important, I didn't intend for this answer to be a word-vomit update, just. Things suck, but you guys are good, and I hope things are as okay as you can be on your side of the screen <3

[recareels]

i was just talking to maisie about this but have we thought about the potential of mr reca removing unpleasant memories from your mind? not things from your past, because those things have made you who you are and who he fell in love with, but events that occur after you are his. i feel like that’s a fairly obvious notion given his abilities but aaaaaaah i just !!!!! think he would have such a hard time keeping his hands to himself and not tampering with your mind when you come to him exceptionally upset about something that happened.

he doesn’t expect it to affect him nearly as much or as hard as it does, but seeing his precious baby so unbelievably distraught over something (and what that something actually is—the severity of it—doesn’t fucking matter. what matters is that his little girl is upset and he must fix it) has a sudden, intense need clawing at his chest; an urgent desire that has sprouted talons and sharp, gnashing teeth and before he can even comprehend what he’s fucking doing, he’s soothing you by devouring that memory, burning it to ash, making sure it can never hurt you again.

[verchielmarch]

Look at my Mediscout kissing gif boy

[beanghostprincess]

Would any of you actually be interested in a short fic about the Fan Letter girly getting to meet Nami instead at the end of the short or am I the only one here dying to do this