#odette reader

Snow had already begun to swallow the sound of the world when you fell.

The impact had not been graceful.

Angels were not meant to fall.

Your body struck the frozen earth like something that had been violently torn from the sky. Bone shuddered beneath your skin. Your wings collapsed beneath you in a tangle of white and darkened feathers.

For a long moment, you could not breathe.

Then sensation returned.

Cold like knives sliding beneath your skin.

Pain followed, sharp, invasive, everywhere at once. Every nerve that Heaven had once quieted awakened with brutal enthusiasm.

Your lungs burned with the effort of air.

Your heart pounded wildly.

You had never felt your own body like this before.

You lay in the snow beneath towering fir trees. The clouds swallowed the stars above you. The forest seemed endless.

For the first time since your creation…

You were alone.

Your fingers twitched against the frozen ground.

Slowly, painfully, you forced yourself upright.

Your wings dragged heavily behind you as you staggered forward. They were enormous, nearly three meters from root to tip, but now they felt wrong on your body, like broken limbs that refused to obey you. Feathers scraped against ice and mud, leaving trails in the snow behind you.

Your halo no longer floated above your head.

It sat in your hands.

Cracked. Dim.

You walked.

You did not know how long.

Time felt different now. Hours passed or perhaps only minutes. The forest eventually thinned until the dark line of a road appeared beneath your bare feet.

Streetlamps flickered weakly through falling snow. Your wings scraped along the pavement. Your skin trembled violently with cold. Your breath came in small, ragged clouds.

Your gaze lifted.

And you saw a house.

Two stories of dark brick. Every window glowed softly from within.

It stood apart from the other homes.

Beautiful.

Wrong.

The moment you looked at it, something deep inside your ruined grace stirred.

You walked toward it anyway.

Like a wounded bird returning to an unfamiliar nest.

By the time you reached the garden, your legs trembled so violently you nearly collapsed. Your wings dragged through the snow behind you, feathers dirty and heavy.

You stopped beneath one of the windows.

Inside, warm golden light flickered.

You should have left.

You knew you should have left.

But instead, you stood there in the darkness, staring through the glass.

A man moved within the room.

Tall.

Precise.

Composed in a way that made your chest tighten with something unfamiliar. He poured himself a glass of deep red wine.

Your breath fogged against the glass.

You couldn't look away.

Then…

His head lifted.

Slowly.

As if he had heard something that did not exist.

His eyes found yours through the frost-covered window.

And he did not flinch.

Your fingers tightened around your broken halo.

Inside the house, the man placed his glass down. His movements were unhurried, almost graceful as he approached the window.

When he stood before you, the light revealed his face clearly.

Calm. Thoughtful. And something darker, buried very deep behind his eyes.

Without breaking eye contact he opened the window.

Cold air slipped between you.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke.

You felt your heart hammering painfully inside your chest. The sound alone felt overwhelming. Angels were not meant to hear their own hearts.

Then, quietly, you spoke.

“Hannibal… Lecter.”

The name left your mouth like instinct.

Angels knew such things, and even if divinity was slipping from you, it stuck out to you.

His soul was…

Rotten.

Beautifully rotten.

A slow blink passed over his dark eyes.

He studied you with unsettling patience.

You watched him.

“You speak my name,” he said softly.

His voice was velvet, soft soothing against your trembling form.

“And yet… we have never met.”

His gaze drifted down your wings, massive things now dragged through dirt and blood-streaked snow.

“Are you lost?”

You nodded slowly.

The movement felt heavy.

“I am.”

Your voice sounded smaller than you remembered it ever being.

Your fingers tightened unconsciously around the halo.

“I cannot go home.”

The words felt like glass inside your throat. A faint crack echoed through the halo in your hands.

You gasped softly.

Another fracture had split across the halo’s surface.

You held it closer to your chest immediately, as if your pure warmth might heal it.

“I am far from it.”

For a moment, Hannibal said nothing.

His gaze lowered to the broken ring.

Then his eyes returned to you, curious in a way.

“You fell from Heaven?”

Your answer came instantly.

“No.”

Too quickly. Too defensive.

You turned away from him before he could ask anything more.

Your legs finally gave out beneath you as you stepped further into the garden. The cold grass bit through your skin as you collapsed into the snow.

Your wings shifted weakly.

One of them unfolded partially, feathers scattering into the white ground beneath you. Some were stained with blood from the violence of your fall.

With a tired motion, you pulled the wing over your body like a blanket.

Your breathing slowed.

Below you, the snow welcomed you into its cold embrace.

Above you, the night continued to fall.

Hannibal stood at the window watching.

For several seconds, he did not move.

An angel.

Collapsed in his garden like a dying bird.

He felt no pity.

But fascination.

That bloomed immediately.

The surgeon in him saw injury.

The artist saw ruin.

And something darker wondered what an angel might taste like.

He left the window.

Moments later, the back door opened.

Cold air rushed inside as Hannibal stepped out into the snow, coat hastily thrown over his shoulders. His footsteps were quiet as he approached you.

His voice was soft.

Almost gentle. As he towered above you.

“You’re freezing.”

Your eyes peeked over the edge of your wing.

The feathers trembled slightly with every shallow breath you take.

You watched him.

“No,” you whispered again.

Your voice was weaker now. Thinner. As if the cold is slowly stealing pieces of it.

Angels were never meant to shiver.

Angels were never meant to feel the cold gnawing into bone.

But your body trembled anyway as your divinity left you, too far from home.

With a quiet, pained gasp, you dragged your wing fully over yourself again, burying your body beneath the damaged feathers like a wounded creature hiding in its own plumage.

Your breath stuttered.

The torn flesh in your wing stretched and sent pain right through you.

Hannibal saw it now.

The rip.

A thin but unmistakable tear through the soft layers of feathers.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

Fascinating.

You claim not to feel the cold.

Yet pain…

Pain speaks a language every creature understands.

Without asking, he reached toward you.

Slowly.

Two long fingers hovered beside the wound, careful not to touch the torn skin just yet. He pressed gently into the surrounding feathers instead.

You flinched instantly.

Your wing snapped close with a rustle of feathers, hiding the wound.

“Don’t– touch me.” you hissed.

A wounded animal’s warning.

Hannibal withdrew his hand at once.

Not offended or irritated.

Only… observing.

Interesting.

“The wound requires cleaning.”

His gaze flicks briefly toward the warm glow of the house behind him before returning to your dark, wary eyes.

You shake your head immediately.

“It doesn’t…”

Your voice cracked slightly as you clung to the last bit of hope that your divinity was not lost.

Angels healed.

You always healed.

Before Heaven took everything from you.

Your body curled tighter against itself as another wave of pain rolled through you. With every passing second, the strange heaviness of your human flesh became more apparent.

Your heart was too loud.

Your lungs burned.

Your muscles ached.

Pain was no longer something you merely understood.

Now it lived inside you.

You gasped softly.

A small whimper escaped your throat before you could stop it.

You tried so desperately to push yourself upright, but your arms trembled violently beneath your weight. Your wings twitched uselessly behind you. Nothing about this body obeyed you the way it should.

Hannibal saw it.

The failed movement.

The awkward struggle.

Angels, he had always imagined, would move like poetry.

You moved like something broken.

Something that had forgotten how its own body works.

A living thing whose flesh was betraying it.

He made a decision.

Before you coil protest again, he slid one arm carefully beneath your shoulders and another behind your knees.

Then he lifted you, almost effortlessly.

If it weren’t for the wings.

They were heavy.

Shockingly heavy. The weight nearly equal to your own body.

You did not fight him this time.

Fear flickered in your chest, but something else rose beside it.

Something strange.

Something almost familiar.

Your halo pulsed faintly in your trembling hands.

The light was weaker now.

Dim.

Fading.

You clutched it tighter against your feather-covered chest as a small sob caught in your throat.

“Please… no…”

Hannibal paused, not because you resisted him.

Because of that.

The plea.

His eyes lowered to the object you cradled so desperately.

The halo.

Its glow flickering like a dying star.

He studied your face.

Tears clinging to your lashes.

Your lips trembled.

Angels cry.

Apparently.

“What is happening to it?”

You pressed the ring harder against yourself. As if you could push it back into your soul.

“I’m dying,” you whispered, even if it wasn’t entirely true.

But it is the closest word your mind could find.

Angels were not meant to feel like this.

The pounding heart.

The aching muscles.

The unbearable weight of sensation flooding every nerve.

You had once felt human pain only through empathy.

Now it belonged to you.

And it was unbearable.

Hannibal exhaled softly.

You were not dying.

Not yet.

He carried you through the open door of the house.

The heat from the fireplace made your body shudder harder due to the sudden contrast.

Carefully, almost delicately, Hannibal lowered you onto a plush couch near the fire.

Your wings spilled across the cushions, feathers scattered softly across the dark fabric.

For a moment he simply stands there.

Watching.

Assessing.

The wound.

Your trembling body.

Sleep came to you in fragments.

It was not the easy, weightless drifting you once knew.

There was no quiet suspension in something divine and endless. 

This was different. 

Heavy. 

Demanding. 

Your body pulled you under whether you wished it or not.

And pain followed you there, 

lingering like something patient, 

something unwilling to release its hold.

When you finally surfaced again, it was not by choice.

The sound of the front door closing echoed faintly through the house, 

distant yet enough to pull you from the depths. 

Your eyes opened. 

Slowly, 

unfocused at first, 

your body reluctant to move as awareness crept back into you.

The room felt too warm. 

Too real.

You pushed yourself upright in the soft linen bed.

Movements slow and careful. 

Your wings shifted behind you with a quiet rustle. 

One of them still ached.

A dull, persistent reminder of what had been done to you.

What had been fixed.

Your gaze drifted toward the window.

Snow fell steadily outside. 

For a moment, you simply watched it, trying to ground yourself in something familiar.

Something distant from the strange, suffocating reality you had woken into.

Then you noticed it.

Two cars.

Parked just beyond the window.

The thought lingered only briefly before footsteps echoed somewhere below.

He was home.

The sound of movement carried through the house with unsettling clarity.

Coats being set aside.

And then, footsteps ascending.

Closer.

Closer.

A knock came at your door. 

Soft. 

Controlled.

It opened before you could respond.

“You’re awake.”

Hannibal’s voice was calm.

Observational.

As though he had expected nothing else.

You lifted your head immediately.

Your attention drawn to him without hesitation. 

Your wings lay draped across the bed behind you, one still bound in careful dressing.

“Yes,” you said, nodding once.

There was a pause before you added, softer, “Hello.”

The word felt uncertain in your mouth.

Hannibal stepped inside fully, closing the door behind him.

Your hands had come together without thought, fingers lacing loosely as they rested in your lap.

It resembled prayer, though you no longer knew what you were praying to.

Or who.

His gaze lingered on it for a moment.

Then he moved further into the room, taking a seat in the armchair across from you.

One leg crossing over the other as though this were any ordinary visit.

“I trust you slept well.”

It did not sound like a question.

You nodded again.

“My back still hurts,” you admitted, quieter now.

Almost hesitant, as though acknowledging the pain felt like a failure rather than a consequence.

You adjusted your wings carefully, the movement small, controlled.

Hannibal’s eyes sharpened.

Not with concern, but with interest.

He rose without comment and crossed the room, retrieving a small bottle from the bedside table. 

The soft rattle of pills sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet space as he shook two into his palm.

He held them out to you.

“Take these.”

“They will dull the discomfort.”

The words settled heavily, carrying something unspoken beneath them.

Your pain was no longer entirely your own.

He decided when it lessened.

When it remained.

You had hesitated only for the briefest moment before obeying.

The pills had felt foreign on your tongue.

Chalky, 

bitter, 

wrong.

And when you swallowed them dry, the sensation dragged painfully down your throat.

As though your body rejected the very idea of being altered so… artificially. 

Still, you said nothing. 

You simply thanked him, 

Soft and quiet.

Hannibal watched you closely as you did it.

There had been something deeply satisfying in that moment.

Not the act itself.

But the way you complied. 

No resistance. 

No questioning. 

Just trust… or something close enough to it that it hardly mattered.

You shifted on the bed afterward, wings stretching instinctively behind you, the motion pulling at healing tissue. 

A small, involuntary wince escaped you before you could stop it. 

He noticed, of course.

He always noticed.

“Lift your wing a bit.”

It wasn’t phrased as a suggestion. 

It wasn’t even a request. 

A command, delivered without force because it didn’t need any.

You hesitated only a fraction of a second before obeying.

Both wings lifted, spreading slightly despite the strain. 

The injured one protested immediately. 

Pain blooming through it in a hot, pulsing wave.

But you swallowed it down.

Lips pressing together as if silence could erase the sensation entirely.

Hannibal nodded, pleased in a way he didn’t bother to hide.

He moved closer then.

Seating himself at the edge of the bed.

His gaze swept slowly over your back. 

Over the careful bandaging.

Over the places he had touched and altered. 

Then his hand came to rest against your side.

The contact made you flinch.

It was small.

Almost imperceptible.

But your wings betrayed you.

They shuddered faintly, drawing in just slightly as if to shield something vulnerable.

You forced them still almost immediately, forcing yourself still.

He noticed that too.

Your body was learning before your mind could catch up. 

Learning what to expect. 

Learning what to endure.

You didn’t pull away. 

You let him touch you where he pleased. 

Your gaze lifted to meet his only briefly before drifting again.

Uncertain.

“Is somebody else here…?”

You had seen the second car. 

You had heard enough to know something had changed.

“Will Graham,” he said evenly. 

“He’s having dinner here tonight. With me.”

A simple statement. 

You nodded, not in agreement, but in acceptance, folding your wings back carefully, easing them into a resting position. 

Hannibal leaned closer then.

His fingers moved again. 

Slowly tracing circles against your hip, 

the touch lighter now, 

almost soothing. 

Almost.

“I need you to stay in this room after our guest arrives.”

“Can you do that for me?”

There it was again.

That careful illusion of choice.

You nodded.

“I will.”

And you meant it.

Not because you had to.

But because something in you.

Something that had once belonged to heaven, to devotion, to purpose.

Something had already begun to shift… to bend… to seek something new to anchor itself to.

Him.

Hannibal watched you in silence for a long moment.

The absence of hesitation.

How readily you had agreed.

A low hum left him at last, quiet and satisfied.

“Good.”

When he moved away, you felt it.

The absence of something steadier. 

Something anchoring.

He crossed the room.

You followed him with your eyes.

As though pulled by an invisible thread. 

By the time he reached the door, you had already sunk back into the bed.

Your wings folding over you instinctively, cocooning your form in soft white.

You looked smaller like that.

Breakable.

Hannibal paused with his hand on the doorframe and turned to look at you once more.

A transformation unfolding exactly as it should.

The faintest smile ghosted across his lips before it disappeared again.

Then he closed the door.

Softly.

The sound lingered.

And just like that, you were alone.

Time stretched differently after that.

You did not measure it in hours.

Not the way humans did. 

Instead, you felt it…

each passing moment pressing faintly against your ribs, 

settling into your bones.

The room was quiet.

Too quiet. 

Your thoughts began to echo in ways they never had before.

Boredom.

It came slowly.

Uncertain.

Something you did not fully recognize.

Fear came with it.

It coiled low in your chest. 

Unfamiliar and unwelcome.

Tightening.

Hannibal had left you. 

Not abandoned…you told yourself that firmly.

And yet…

You waited.

Because waiting felt right.

Because believing in him felt necessary.

Because without that belief, 

there was only the hollow, 

aching absence of everything 

you had lost.

So you stayed.

Still. 

Patient. 

Voices.

Two of them.

The low murmur of conversation drifted upward, accompanied by the soft clink of cutlery, the occasional shift of chairs across polished floors. 

Hannibal’s voice carried easily, smooth and controlled as ever.

Another voice answered him.

Will.

The name meant nothing to you yet, but the presence did. 

Another human. 

Another unknown.

You listened without meaning to.

Your body still as you strained to understand words that blurred together into tone rather than meaning. 

Dinner passed like that.

Below, everything remained perfect. 

The food, no doubt, had been exquisite. 

The wine chosen with care. 

Eventually, he rose, and guided his guest toward the stairs with quiet insistence.

Will followed.

The door opened.

Light spilled into the room, cutting through the dim stillness you had settled into.

You sat up immediately.

The blanket clutched instinctively to your body, wings drawing tighter around you as your gaze snapped toward the unfamiliar figure standing in the doorway. 

For a moment, the world narrowed to that single point…

stranger, 

presence, 

unknown.

Your breath caught.

Then your eyes moved.

They found Hannibal almost immediately, searching.

Not for protection, but for something deeper. 

Something instinctive.

Guidance.

Permission.

Recognition.

And now, without words, you waited to understand what you were meant to be in this moment… 

and who, exactly, you were allowed to be in front of someone new.

Hannibal stepped into the room after Will.

He watched you immediately.

Watched the way your gaze found him without hesitation, as though drawn by instinct rather than thought. 

You searched his face, 

not with panic, 

not even with confusion.

But with… 

the need for direction.

It pleased him more than he allowed to show.

Your vulnerability lay bare in every movement, every breath. 

There was nothing divine in it anymore.

Not in the way you held yourself, not in the way you waited. 

You looked… broken.

And yet, there was beauty in that.

He gave you the smallest nod.

So subtle it might have gone unnoticed by anyone else in the room.

But not by you.

Will shifted beside him, visibly unsettled.

Your gaze lingered too long.

Too openly.

And it made something in him falter. 

His fingers moved restlessly at the hem of his shirt.

His eyes betrayed him.

They dipped, just briefly, catching on the shape of your wing.

Stitched.

Torn.

Something unnatural forced into repair. 

There was something deeply wrong about it.

Something that made his stomach tighten before his gaze flicked back up, almost guiltily.

To Hannibal.

As if seeking permission to react.

To feel.

To understand what, exactly, he was looking at.

Hannibal said nothing.

And that silence was permission enough.

You let the blanket fall.

Slowly.

There was no shame in the motion. 

No instinct to hide yourself, or your nudity, beyond what your body had already learned. 

The bandages wrapped across your chest and back, splotched with slight tinges of red.

They stood stark against your skin.

A testament to what had been done to you.

To what you had endured.

Or perhaps…

what you had been made into.

You sat up properly then, adjusting your wings.

Before reaching to switch on the small lamp beside you. 

Warm light spilled across the room.

Soft but revealing.

Catching in your eyes as they settled fully on Will.

“Hello,” you said.

Your voice was gentle.

Too gentle for the space it filled.

Will swallowed.

Hard.

There was something deeply disorienting about you. 

Your voice did not match what he saw.

Did not match the wrongness.

You sounded… untouched.

“Hello.” he echoed.

His eyes lingered again despite himself.

Taking you in piece by piece.

The way you moved. 

The unnatural grace that still clung to you, even now. 

The way your body seemed caught between something sacred and something disturbingly fragile.

You tilted your head slightly, studying him in return.

There was no fear in it.

Only curiosity.

You rose from the bed slowly, your wings shifting behind you as you did.

The moment your weight fully settled onto your feet, pain flared.

Sharp.

Unrelenting.

Your body betrayed you.

A small, broken falter.

A wince you couldn’t quite contain.

Your hand caught the edge of the bed to steady yourself.

Will moved before he could stop himself.

A single step forward.

Something he couldn’t quite name.

But he halted just as quickly, as though remembering where he was. 

Who he was with.

His gaze flicked, again, to Hannibal.

Hannibal did not move.

He simply watched the moment unfold with quiet interest.

Eyes tracing the tension in Will’s posture.

The hesitation. 

The pull toward you that he was already failing to resist.

And you…

Standing there between them.

Unsteady.

Wounded. 

Still reaching, whether you realized it or not, for something to hold onto.

Something to believe in.

Something to follow.

Will’s gaze followed your every movement.

He noticed everything, the way your body resisted itself, the slight tremor in your legs, the way your wings dragged behind you as though they no longer belonged to you.

Every wince, every breath drawn a fraction too sharply, it all settled uneasily under his skin.

He stepped closer without thinking.

“You’re hurt…” he murmured, almost to himself, “You shouldn’t be standing.”

“I…” you began, forcing yourself upright despite the strain.

Despite the way your body protested in small, undeniable ways. 

“I am fine.”

The words came out soft.

Wrong.

Your wings shifted behind you, heavy and unsteady, brushing against the floor as if they had forgotten their purpose. 

Their lightness.

You stood fully now, though it cost you, and your eyes, inevitably, returned to Hannibal.

Seeking.

Waiting.

Hannibal made no effort to stop you, no effort to correct Will. 

The moment was too delicate, too revealing. 

Will stepped closer again, this time without hesitation.

Close enough to catch you.

His eyes flickered briefly toward Hannibal, searching for something.

Permission, perhaps, or restraint.

But found nothing there. 

Only that same composed stillness. 

That same watching.

Indifference.

He looked back at you.

“No,” Will said softly.

“You’re not.”

His gaze lingered on your wings, drawn to them in a way he couldn’t explain. 

Damaged.

Stitched.

Wrong.

And yet, undeniably real. 

He could see how they pulled at you, how they weighed you down.

“You can barely stand.”

For a moment, you held yourself there.

Suspended between will and limitation.

Between what you had been… and what you were now.

Then something in you gave.

You sank back down onto the edge of the bed, a soft sound slipping from you as the strain finally eased from your body.

Will exhaled.

Your gaze lowered to the floor as though it might offer something steady to hold onto.

You did not speak unless spoken to.

It had already become instinct.

At some point, Hannibal left.

You did not hear the exact moment the door closed, but you felt it, the quiet shift in the room, the absence of him settling into the air like something hollowed out.

And suddenly, it was just you and the other man.

Will shifted his weight, then stilled, then shifted again, as though his body could not decide whether to stay or retreat. 

His hands disappeared into his pockets, an attempt at grounding himself in something familiar, something ordinary.

But nothing about this room was ordinary.

Nothing about you was.

His gaze kept returning to you.

Drawn. 

Pulled.

Unable to settle anywhere else for long. 

It flickered over your wings, over the visible tear and the careful stitching, over the way they lay heavy and unnatural against the bed.

His fingers twitched slightly.

As if he wanted to reach out.

As if he had to stop himself from doing it.

Silence stretched.

Long enough to become something tangible.

“Are you Hannibal’s friend?”

Your voice broke through it softly.

You lifted your gaze just enough to meet his.

Studying him with quiet intensity before shifting back, retreating further onto the bed. 

Will blinked, caught off guard.

“Uh… yeah,” he said, clearing his throat, his voice rougher than he expected. “Yeah, you could say we’re friends…”

The word felt inadequate the moment he said it.

His eyes dropped again, pulled back to your wings despite himself. 

“Hannibal said you were… an angel.”

He hesitated on the word, as if testing how it felt in his mouth.

“Is that… true?”

You did not answer immediately.

You should have.

Once, it would have been simple. A truth so inherent it required no thought, no hesitation.

But now…

Now it felt…

Uncertain.

Your gaze lifted again, searching his face instead.

“Do you believe him?”

Will stilled.

The question unsettled him more than the answer would have.

He frowned slightly, his hands tightening in his pockets as he considered it.

Not just the words, but you. 

The way you asked. 

The way you watched him.

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I believe Hannibal… but…”

But this should not exist.

But you were sitting right in front of him.

He didn’t finish the thought.

He couldn’t.

“I am real,” you said.

“And an angel… or at least I used to be.”

“Used to…?” he repeated, his voice low, careful. 

“You mean… you’re not an angel anymore?”

His gaze flickered again to your wings, as though searching for confirmation.

Or contradiction.

“I fell.”

Something shifted in Will’s expression then.

Subtle, but unmistakable.

“Fallen…” he echoed, the word heavier now, dragging meaning behind it. 

You nodded.

“Yes.”

And there you were.

Not monstrous.

Not corrupted in the way the stories would have insisted.

Your wings, though damaged, remained soft, pale, almost painfully white. 

They framed you like something sacred that had been mishandled, not destroyed. 

Will stared a moment too long.

Because nothing about you aligned with what he thought this should be.

You did not look like something cast out.

You looked like something that had been taken.

“Why…?” he began, his voice quieter than before, as if the question itself required care. 

“Why did you fall?”

He couldn’t reconcile it.

There was nothing about you that suggested corruption, or malice, or anything deserving of exile. 

You looked too gentle. 

Too untouched.

You shifted, drawing your legs up onto the bed, folding inward as though the question itself had weight.

“I don’t know,” you said simply.

There was no hesitation in the answer.

Only emptiness.

“ I really don’t.”

And then you disappeared.

Your wings rose around you, enclosing you completely. Feather layered over feather until there was nothing left of you but the faint suggestion of movement beneath them. 

A living cocoon.

A barrier.

A retreat.

Will watched it happen in silence.

Something in his chest tightened.

You looked smaller like that. 

Smaller than before, diminished in a way that had nothing to do with your physical form. 

He took a step closer before he could stop himself.

His hand lifted slightly, betraying him, hovering in the air as though drawn by instinct toward the soft curve of your wings.

He didn’t touch you.

But he wanted to.

The urge sat heavy in his chest, unfamiliar and unwelcome.

“You don’t know… why you fell?” he asked again, quieter now, as though repetition might force meaning into the answer.

You were silent for a moment longer.

“God doesn’t love me anymore.”

Your voice came muffled from within the feathers, fragile and matter-of-fact in a way that made it worse. 

You did not say it like a fear.

You said it like truth.

Your eyes appeared then, just barely visible between the layers of white, watching him through the small opening you allowed.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I… don’t know.”

Again.

Always the same answer.

And then you vanished once more, wings pulling tighter around you, closing you off completely.

Will exhaled slowly.

“You don’t know a lot of things about yourself, do you?” he said, quieter than the words deserved, a faint edge of something bitter threading through them.

You didn’t respond.

Because there was nothing to say.

Because it was true.

What you had been, what had defined you, was gone, stripped cleanly away, leaving something hollow in its place. 

You were still here, still breathing, still existing…

But without that, without purpose, without direction…

You were nothing.

Will stood there, staring at the silent wall of feathers.

You looked like something wounded. Something that did not understand the harm done to it, only that it hurt.

“Don’t you… miss Heaven?”

“There is a lot of pain in being… human,” you answered quietly from behind the shelter of your wings. “In Heaven, I did not… feel like I do now.”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment.

“I know that feeling.”

His gaze lingered on you longer than he intended. 

“…You feel too much now?” he asked.

“Yes,” you said simply, as if it were the most obvious truth in the world. 

“It is always… something. Something touching me. Hot, cold. Pain. So much pain. Fatigue. Hunger. Thirst…” 

“I do not know much about being human. But this… feels like agony.”

The word settled between you both.

Agony.

Will’s jaw tightened, something unreadable tightening with it in his chest. 

Like suffering was simply another condition of existence you had not been warned about.

“Yeah,” he said again, quieter now. “That’s… what it’s like.”

A pause stretched. 

The room felt too still, too aware of itself. 

Will glanced toward the door without turning fully.

“…Do you want me to go?” he asked.

“…No,”

Something in his posture shifted at that.

Subtle, unconscious relief, immediately followed by confusion at his own reaction.

“You’re… different from Hannibal,” you said then, your voice softer now, almost contemplative.

“But also… similar.”

Will stilled.

“Similar?” he echoed carefully, eyes narrowing just slightly as he tried to read you through the gaps between your feathers.

You hesitated, then slowly lowered your wings enough for them to fall away from your body. 

You sat on the bed properly now, knees drawn up, head resting against them.

When you looked at him again, it was directly.

Your eyes were dark in the dim light.

Too steady, too open in a way that made Will feel briefly like he was the one being examined instead.

Will swallowed once, slowly.

“…How?” he asked at last. 

“Different… but similar?”

You glanced at your wings again, then at him, at the way his attention had already fixed itself there.

“You can touch them,” you said quietly.

Will’s eyes snapped up immediately, like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been allowed to want.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted his hand. 

It didn’t move with certainty so much as restraint, as though he expected the moment to turn against him. 

His fingers hovered just above the edge of a feather.

“…You don’t mind?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Just be careful.”

You shifted slightly to give him space at the edge of the bed.

The movement slow and deliberate, wings adjusting behind you. 

Will sat down.

The mattress dipped under his weight, and for a brief second the intimacy of it registered in his posture.

How close he was.

He exhaled once, steadying himself, before lowering his hand again.

When his fingers finally made contact, it was almost reverent.

A single feather beneath his touch.

He let his hand linger there, slowly tracing the length of it as though trying to confirm its reality.

You flinched.

It was small, involuntary.

Your wings tightened slightly around you before you could stop them.

“I’m sorry–” you said immediately, voice quieter now.

Will’s hand stilled at once.

He saw it clearly then.

The way your body had reacted before your words even followed. 

Like something that had learned pain before it learned language.

“No,” he said quickly, softer now, recalibrating. “No, it’s okay. I’m not–”

His hand retreated a fraction, hovering again instead of withdrawing completely.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

You shook your head. 

“No. It is just…” 

You hesitated, searching for a way to explain something you still didn’t fully understand. 

“I am not used to it.”

His fingers returned.

Slower this time.

More deliberate.

The way the feathers responded under his fingertips, the subtle sensitivity in your body that you couldn’t fully control, the faint tension that lingered in your muscles even when you stayed still, it all registered in him with unsettling focus.

Will exhaled slowly.

“…It’s warm,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

“Your wings…” Will murmured, almost absentminded now, eyes still fixed where his hand had just been. 

“They’re beautiful.”

You glanced at him from behind them, feathers shifting slightly as you adjusted your posture. 

“Thank you,” you said quietly. “They are… very big and heavy now that I am human.”

As if to demonstrate, you lifted your uninjured wing and slowly unfolded it as far as the room allowed.

It felt like the space could barely contain you.

The wing extended, impossibly large, spanning the bed and spilling into the air beyond it, feathers catching what little light there was and breaking it into something soft and unreal. 

Too vast for the body it belonged to. 

Too alive for something so still.

His eyes tracked every detail as though trying to memorize something he already knew he shouldn’t be looking at for too long.

His hand lifted again without permission, hovering near the edge of a primary feather.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” came a voice from the doorway.

Hannibal.

Will startled so sharply he pulled his hand back at once.

“Uh–yeah,” he said after a beat, clearing his throat. “Yeah. They are.”

Hannibal stood at the threshold, perfectly composed, watching the scene.

“I think it is late, Will,” he said mildly. “Isn’t it?”

You drew your wings back in slightly at that, folding them around yourself. 

Your attention returned to Hannibal almost immediately, while Will remained just slightly outside of it.

Noticed, but not held.

Will checked his watch out of reflex. 

The numbers confirmed what he already knew: time had slipped.

“Yeah,” he admitted, voice rougher now. “It is late.”

He stood, adjusting his jacket in a motion that felt too sharp, too suddenly aware of himself. 

His eyes flicked back to you anyway, despite everything telling him to stop.

You were still there, seated on the bed, wings wrapped around you.

For a moment, he looked like he might say something else.

Instead, Hannibal’s hand settled lightly on his shoulder.

A gentle pressure. A correction.

“Come,” Hannibal said softly.

And Will moved.

Not immediately. 

Not unwillingly. 

But moved all the same.

At the door, he glanced back once more.

You hadn’t changed position. 

You were still watching them go.

“Goodbye,” you said.

Something tightened in his chest at that.

An instinct he didn’t have a name for. 

Not quite pity. 

Not quite regret. 

Something worse for its lack of clarity.

He wanted to turn back.

To say he would return.

But Hannibal guided him out before the thought could fully form into action.

The door closed.

A quiet click.

The hallway outside your room was too quiet after the door clicked shut.

Will walked slightly ahead at first, then slower, as though something had snagged on him and refused to let go. 

Hannibal observed him without comment for several steps.

“You’re distracted,” Hannibal said at last, almost conversational.

Will gave a short exhale that might have been a laugh if it had contained any humour. 

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I am.”

Hannibal tilted his head slightly. “By what, exactly?”

Will didn’t answer immediately. 

His gaze drifted back toward the closed bedroom door at the end of the hall, as if he could still see through it.

“…Her,” he said quietly. “...Them. I don’t know.”

Hannibal’s expression remained composed, but something subtle shifted beneath it.

“The angel,” he supplied gently.

Will hesitated at the word. 

“If that’s what …they… are.”

Hannibal began walking again, guiding them down the stairs. 

“What did you notice?” he asked, voice mild.

Will frowned slightly, thinking. 

“It didn’t feel… like a person trying to be something,” he said at last. “More like something trying to learn how to be a person.”

That earned a faint pause from Hannibal.

Not surprise.

Interest.

“And how did that make you feel?” Hannibal asked.

Will’s jaw tightened. His answer came slower. 

“Like they shouldn’t be alone in it.”

They reached the lower floor. 

Hannibal studied him for a moment longer than necessary.

Then, softly: “You felt compassion.”

Will didn’t deny it.

Hannibal’s gaze drifted upward for the briefest instant.

Something like satisfaction settled quietly behind his ribs.

Not at Will’s empathy.

At what it could become.

“Yes,” Hannibal said at last, as if agreeing with an observation only he fully understood. “She inspires that.”

Then, almost thoughtfully: “And compassion, when nurtured… becomes attachment.”

Will glanced at him then, catching something in the tone that didn’t fully belong to kindness.

Hannibal met his gaze evenly, unreadable as ever.

“I wonder,” Hannibal continued softly, “how long it will take before she begins to understand that she is not the only one learning what she is made of.”

Will frowned. “What does that mean?”

But Hannibal had already turned away, adjusting his cuff as though the conversation had ended somewhere Will hadn’t noticed.

Your wings dragged behind you as Hannibal settled you onto the couch.

The sound they made was soft but unpleasant, feathers scraping faintly against the polished floor before spilling over the edge of the cushions. Snow melted slowly, dampening the pristine white into clumps of gray.

He noticed, of course he did.

A faint crease appeared between his brows as he studied the way your wings were long—much longer than they had appeared outside when folded tightly against your body.

Now he saw their true scale.

When unfolded, they must have been enormous.

Magnificent.

And ruined.

You didn’t resist him anymore.

The fight seemed to have drained from you somewhere between the freezing garden and the suffocating warmth of the house.

Your body shifted carefully on the couch as you adjusted your position, moving slowly so the heavy wings growing from your back weren’t crushed beneath your weight.

The movement was awkward.

Unnatural.

The heat from the fireplace spread across your skin in slow waves.

And then something strange happened.

Your brow furrowed. Your shoulders twitched slightly. The warmth tingled.

It crawled across your skin in a thousand tiny, prickling sensations that made your breath hitch in confusion.

Your body reacted to it instinctively, nerves awakening to something they had never been meant to feel.

You stared at your own hands.

Heat.

You were feeling heat.

Hannibal watched the change in your expression carefully.

Confusion. Discomfort. Wonder.

How strange, he thought quietly, to experience warmth for the first time.

He turned away from you and moved toward a shelf near the wall. Hidden among neatly arranged books and decorative objects sat a small medical kit.

He retrieved it.

Antiseptic.

Clean gauze.

A pair of medical scissors.

When he knelt beside the couch again, the supplies rested neatly in his hands.

“May I clean your wing?”

Your response came immediately.

“No.”

The word was soft, barely more than a breath.

There was no strength behind it.

No real resistance. Your eyes dropped back down to the object still clutched tightly in your hands.

The halo.

Its glow flickered weakly against your palms.

“I need to fix this first…” you whispered

Hannibal paused, ah, so that was where your true concern lied.

Not the torn flesh.

Not the bleeding wing.

The halo.

You cradled it against your chest like a dying heart.

He studied the faint cracks running through the ring. The dimming light within it pulsed unevenly, like something alive that was slowly losing the will to continue.

Interesting.

He set the medical supplies aside for the moment.

Curiosity outweighed practicality.

“How,” Hannibal asked slowly, “do you fix it?”

If you believed it could be repaired… then perhaps there was a method. Or perhaps the answer lay beyond anything a human mind could understand.

Your throat tightened.

Those horrible, wet tears gathered in your eyes again.

You closed them quickly, pressing the halo tighter against your chest.

“I don’t know…”

The sob escaped you quietly.

Raw.

Broken.

The sound hung in the room like something fragile shattering.

An angel crying.

The irony was almost beautiful.

This divine being reduced to the same helpless grief as the creatures they once watched from above.

After a moment of hesitation, he reached out.

Slowly. Carefully.

His hand came to rest atop your head.

Large. Warm. Heavy.

It might almost have resembled comfort.

A paternal gesture, perhaps.

Though his expression remained unreadable.

“You’ll figure it out.”

Then he withdrew his hand and picked up the medical supplies again.

You did not stop him this time.

Not because you wanted his touch.

But because you simply didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore.

You buried your face against the halo, sobbing quietly into the dimming light.

The tears did nothing.

The glow continued to weaken.

And with every passing moment you felt it more clearly, your divine presence fading from you piece by piece.

Pain replaced it.

Your wings ached.

The torn flesh burned like an open wound across a limb.

Because that was what they were.

Your wings were not decorations. They were part of you. To cut one open was like slicing into an arm.

Perhaps worse.

And they were filthy.

Snow. Mud. Blood clotted between feathers.

Folded as they are, the wound is trapped in damp warmth, the perfect place for infection.

The tear ran along your feathers.

The trembling of your body.

The useless tears.

Those could not help you.

But the wound?

That he could fix.

Without asking again, he carefully lifted your injured wings.

The movement was slow, maneuvering the enormous limb so he could reach the wound.

The feathers rustled softly.

They were surprisingly soft beneath his hands.

Luxurious. Almost decadent.

You shifted forward instinctively, leaning onto your stomach as you allowed him access to the wound.

While your clean feathers felt like silk. The damaged ones were stiff and sticky with blood.

The moment the antiseptic reached the torn flesh…

You gasped.

Your wing jerked violently.

Pain shot through you like lightning.

The twitch was immediate.

Hannibal did not stop.

Disinfecting wounds required contact.

Pain was unavoidable.

His hands remained steady as he worked, carefully cleaning away dirt and clotted blood from the edges of the tear.

The deeper he went, the sharper the sting became.

Another broken sound escaped you.

The sound was so devastating and desperate, this time he paused.

Just briefly.

Then he continued.

Your eyes peeked over the curve of your wing.

The feathers trembled where they shielded you, rising and falling with your uneven breaths. Through them, you watched him.

Your vision was blurry.

Too wide.

Too bright.

Everything felt too much.

Pain spread through your wing in deep, pulsing waves. Like something alive beneath your skin.

You had always known pain existed. You had watched humans suffer it. You had understood it the way angels understood all mortal things.

But knowing was not the same as feeling.

Now it was inside you.

Your throat tightened as Hannibal pressed deeper into the wound.

Another broken sound escaped you before you could stop it.

Your body curled inward instinctively, like a wounded animal trying to hide its injured limb.

But there was relief inside it too.

A strange, terrible relief.

Your breath stuttered.

Whines and soft, helpless whimpers sliped from your throat before you could swallow them down.

There was nothing divine about the sounds you made.

Nothing holy.

Just pain.

Hannibal felt your wing resist.

The muscles tensed beneath his hands, the enormous limb trying to fold itself shut around the injury.

His grip tightened slightly.

Not rough. But firm enough to keep the wing open.

“Easy.” he said.

He worked slowly.

Almost patiently.

Cleaning a wound like this could not be rushed.

Each careful dab of antiseptic drew another sharp breath from you, another trembling shudder through your body.

Until suddenly…

His fingers reached a deeper section of torn flesh.

Your entire body jerked violently.

The couch creaked beneath you.

Your hand grabbed blindly at something, and found the edge of the cushion. Your fingers dug into the fabric, clutching it as if it might aid you against the surge of sensation ripping through your wing.

Your wing snapped back from his grasp.

“I– it–!”

Your voice fractured into useless fragments.

You had no language for this.

Pain had words among humans: burning, stabbing, throbbing.

You only had feeling. Feeling for the very first time.

Hannibal set the antiseptic bottle aside as you pulled your wing away so violently.

Your chest heaved as you gasped for air.

“Breathe.” he instructed calmly.

Your lungs obeyed before your mind did.

You drew in shaky breaths, each one deeper than the last. Slowly, your wing loosened from its defensive curl.

Hannibal waited.

Only when the feathers relaxed slightly did he attempt to touch near the wound again.

But your body tensed instantly.

You pulled the wing away again.

“I– I can heal–” you sniffled.

The delusional lie came out weak and desperate.

Even as you said it, you knew.

You had known the moment you hit the earth.

Your divine power was gone.

Or leaving you.

Or dying.

Still you clung to the illusion.

Your trembling hands lifted the halo above your head, trying to place it where it belonged. Where it used to sit, hovering effortlessly above your crown.

For a moment…

It worked.

The halo floated.

Weakly.

Unsteadily.

Its light flickered like a dying candle.

Then gravity took it.

The ring dropped.

You caught it desperately before it could fall.

Your hands shook around it.

“Why…” your voice cracked softly, “won’t it work…?”

Hannibal watched the pathetic attempt with quiet interest.

You clung to the lie of healing. To the belief that this was temporary. Some divine mistake.

This was no longer about a wound.

Something deeper was breaking inside you.

Slowly, he reached forward again, but not toward your wing.

Toward your hands.

His fingers hovered near the halo you clutched so desperately.

“It might be gone.” he said quietly.

You shook your head immediately.

No.

It could not be gone.

Heaven would not abandon you like this.

Would they?

Your eyes lifted to his, wide and wet.

You held the halo out toward him.

“Can you fix it…?” you asked softly.

The request was almost childlike. Hopeful.

Hannibal studied the object carefully.

Cracks spread across its surface like fractures in a mirror.

The light inside it flickered weakly.

He was a psychiatrist. A surgeon. A man of flesh and bone.

“I don’t think,” he said carefully, “that this is something medicine can fix.”

Silence settled between you.

Then he added quietly,

“It might require… something else.”

“What else…?”

Hannibal paused.

Prayer?

Divine intervention?

He did not know.

But one thing seemed entirely clear to him, whatever power had once fed your halo, was no longer reaching you.

Crushing that hope entirely would have been easy. But… a part of him wondered how long he could drag it out.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “it required a connection to what gave it power in the first place.”

A vague answer.

Your broken halo flickered in your hands and your eyes looked at it with utter hope.

And Hannibal watched you like studying something both beautiful… and terribly doomed.

“God?” you whispered.

The word felt strange in your mouth now. Heavy. Mortal.

God.

Love.

Worship.

Concepts he had dismissed long ago. Yet here you were: a fallen angel sitting on his couch.

His head tilted slightly. The movement was slow, thoughtful, predatory in its patience.

“If that is the case,” he said calmly, “perhaps your halo requires faith to sustain it now.”

You sniffled quietly, your throat tightening.

“I… I have faith,” you defended yourself.

“I believe in God,” you whispered. “I love God but…”

Your voice broke at the sheer blasphemy of your next words, “But I think maybe they don’t love me anymore.”

Silence settled in the room.

Hannibal listened.

An angel doubting divine love. There was both poetry and irony in that.

“Love should not be conditional.” he said simply.

Your head throbbed.

The pain pulsed, deep in your skull. The human body was a cruel vessel, full of nerves and weakness and hunger.

“It is…” you whispered.

Your legs drew upward. Your arms wrapped around them, wings folding inward as if to hide you from the room, from him, from everything.

You pressed your forehead against your knees.

Ugly. Crying. Mortal.

You felt contaminated by it.

Once you had sat among the stars, watching over all mortal beings.

Now you trembled like a wounded animal in a stranger’s house.

Tears. Trembling limbs. A migraine blooming like rot inside your skull.

Human.

Hannibal watched you intently.

How humiliating it must have been.

This was what you were now.

He let his hand touch you once again, resting, simply resting, against your back. Not your wings, but your skin.

You flinched.

Your skin had never known contact like this before.

Hannibal stilled immediately.

His hand did not press or move.

It simply… stayed.

A presence.

A test.

Would you tolerate touch if it asked nothing of you?

If it merely remained?

You did not pull away.

But your wings shifted, folding tighter around you as they wrapped around your body like a shield.

You trembled.

You looked like a statue abandoned in a cemetery garden.

An angel carved from marble and forgotten beneath the weather.

Your feathers were filthy.

Blood had dried along the edges. Dirt clung stubbornly to the white.

Hannibal noticed everything.

It was… unpleasant.

Unsanitary.

And aesthetically offensive.

His hand withdrew.

Very well.

No touching.

For now.

But the condition of you could not remain like this.

It was degrading.

And Hannibal had always had very particular standards.

He rose smoothly.

He studied you for a long moment.

Then asked, calmly: