#responsiblyprofessional

responsiblyprofessional replied to your post “Owes starters too bedelix perhapsmercytoo nigelwasmyhusband”

//I'm here forever if you need :)

It had been some months since Hannibal had left Jack Crawford and the FBI behind. He had kept up with the case they built around him, of course, reading Freddie Lounds’ articles with an almost sick sense of obligation—— it wasn’t enjoyment he sought, it was an almost compulsive urge to KNOW. He needed to know about the destruction his actions had wrought. The lives he had taken or deformed into almost unrecognisable shapes. They were mere shadows of who they used to be, all of them.

                THAT gave him pleasure.

He did not think about Will Graham. It was a conscious choice, one he had to make almost daily, but he never allowed himself to think of Will Graham outside the FBI. It was always THEM, never HIM, and it helped quell the anger he knew was dozing in a crevice of his mind. A part of him had hoped Will would survive. A part of him was aching to go back and finish what he’d started.

His eyes followed Bedelia when she moved around the room, and his fingers slowly dimmed the screen of his tablet sporting ‘TattleCrime’. He had talked about leaving the old life behind, had promised new beginnings and rebirth, but a part of him was still stuck in Wolf Trap, Virginia. He doubted he would ever get it back.

“You look magnificent, as always,” he said, rising from his chair to meet her. She would know what he’d been doing, he had no illusions about that, but a distraction might prevent her from commenting on it at least. His hand circled lightly around her hips, and he leaned towards her until his lips could touch her cheek. They brushed gently against the delicate skin of her face, twisting into a natural smile as he pulled away——

                                And stopped short.

                He froze with his face close to her neck,                 and for a moment he all but forgot she was there.                 His head tilted, and he caught a whiff of…