Chapter Text
ACT I
"Repetition is the only form of permanence nature can achieve." - George Santayana
A teacup shatters on the tile floor.
A single sliver, delicate as a slice of chilled, unsalted butter, rocks on its side and then stills.
Hannibal stares down at it, as if in silent prayer, as is his custom on evenings such as this. He waits a measure, then two, and then two more, but the cup makes no move to put itself together.
Funny how part of him always thinks it might.
To Hannibal, this is tantamount to a religious ritual. He performs it before every hunt, to give himself time to reflect on the intentionality of his actions to come; the finality that comes with ending a life. Some may interpret this act as a rite to honor the would-be victim, but those people don't know Hannibal Lecter.
There are few who do.
The rollicking waltz of Bach's first Golberg variation, Glenn Gould's 1955 recording, carries him out of his reverie. Gould recorded the Goldberg variations once at age twenty-two, and then again at forty-nine. Despite the fact that Hannibal is much closer in age to the latter, he prefers the former recording. It's lively as an afternoon wind stirring the surface of a lake. It also skips the repeat signs that would send the player back to the beginning of each section to perform it again.
Tonight's plan isn't the sort of act one can repeat, at least not in the same way, with the same person, a second time.
He reaches for the broom and dustpan leaning against the countertop and sweeps up the remains of the teacup.
As the second variation begins its sprightly march down the keyboard, Hannibal's land line rings. Briefly he thinks of ignoring it, then decides answering his home phone this late at night would support his alibi, should the need arise.
"Hannibal, forgive me, I hope I'm not calling too terribly late."
"Mrs. Komeda, always lovely to hear your voice. I was just settling in for the evening." There's a spring in Hannibal's step as he climbs the stairs to his bedroom. "To what do I owe the delight?"
He can hear the woman, a fellow board member for Opera Baltimore, preening through the phone. It's all too easy to charm her.
"I've just received the news we were able to get the licensing for Decker's setting of La Traviata for next Spring."
"And such a long time in advance. Molto brava." The suit he's chosen for this evening is laid out on the bed. Green plaid. Hunter green. He smiles in appreciation at his private joke and picks a piece of lint off the lapel.
"I thought I'd let you know since you were the one who pushed for something modern. You seem like someone who would prefer a more classic aesthetic."
"What I prefer most is to keep them guessing."
As if they ever could.
"You are always full of surprises," Mrs. Komeda says, then shifts from praising to pouting. "Speaking of which, when is your next dinner party? The board is simply starving for one, you know."
"You cannot force a feast, Mrs. Komeda. The feast must present itself."
"Well don't leave us wasting away for too long, Hannibal. Arrivederci," she says.
"Buona sera, signora," Hannibal replies. He can hear her quiet giggling as he ends the call.
He's still smiling as he changes into his suit, for reasons known to him and him alone.
A few hours later, Hannibal has everything he needs—a fresh syringe and medication cannister, his plain-edge Spyderco Harpy knife (recently sharpened), and of course his vinyl coveralls, stowed under the false bottom of the Bentley's trunk. After a modest meal of greens and some meat from his most recent kill—and a quick peek at the rest of that meat curing in his basement—he sets out.
In the Bentley, he tunes the radio to his favorite classical station, just in time for the strident first movement of Beethoven's Ninth symphony. It will do.
Tonight, Hannibal will be paying a visit to a Census Taker who visited his home at 7:00 a.m. three years and two days ago. Rather than wait until an hour when most people would be prepared for surprise visitors, he chose to disrupt Hannibal's morning routine. And when Hannibal tried to politely decline, he only pushed harder.
It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to ask for his business card, and from there it wasn't difficult to find his home address. Interestingly, it's outside the city, all the way in Virginia. The fact that it's closer to Quantico sends tingles through Hannibal's fingers—perhaps he should have tracked the head of the BAU's path to the FBI Academy so he could leave the body where it would be easily be found.
In the end he had decided against it. Needlessly complicated, especially since the man has done nothing to provoke Hannibal since he sent Miriam Lass sniffing at his office door.
The stars are bright pinpricks in the black sky. The closer Hannibal draws to his destination, the fewer lights line the roadway, which is for the best. The place he has selected to park his car is poorly lit, but it only makes for a short walk to the Census Taker's home.
Hannibal hopes the pig isn't secretly a drinker. He's got a nice bottle of chianti at home that would make an excellent pairing with liver. Dark fruit mingling with the offal's minerality sounds more delicious than anything Eden could provide.
His thoughts are interrupted by a haunting site halfway across a rural bridge.
A specter stands by the roadside, dressed in dark clothing as if asking to be part of the grill of an approaching vehicle. It leans against the railing, facing away from traffic. Perhaps it is contemplating the stars. Or perhaps, given the location, it is contemplating something else.
As Hannibal approaches, the specter turns his face away from the railing and looks straight at Hannibal. Surely he wouldn't recognize anyone with headlights shining in his face, but it somehow seems that way.
The closer Hannibal gets, the ghostlier the man looks. There's a blank expression on his timeless face; cherub's curls form a halo around it. But against that softness, his eyes are like wet blades. There is pain beneath the glaze over his eyes, as if those blades are turned inward more often than not.
Seconds seem to crawl. Hannibal feels a magnetic pull so fierce that he almost stops the car. But then, as fascinating as he might be, letting this thing see him would derail all Hannibal's careful plans.
Perhaps they will meet again in daylight. Or perhaps the specter will be sitting in his backseat when Hannibal looks in his rearview mirror. Hannibal may actually welcome him.
But when he checks his rearview mirror, all he sees is darkness.
It only takes another ten minutes to reach the Census-Taker's house . When Hannibal arrives, no lights glow from within it. He creeps forward as quietly as his vinyl suit will allow until he reaches the attached garage window. He has already tested for alarms, and there are none.
The window is unlocked, as it was when Hannibal was doing his research. The interior door connecting the garage to the house is also unlocked. It doesn't squeak. Hannibal has already oiled the hinges.
Even if he hadn't, Hannibal has watched the man through his bedroom window and knows he is a heavy sleeper. He was plenty youthful when he first disturbed Hannibal, but now, just three short years later, his hairline has receded, and he looks every bit like he's at the bleeding edge of middle age.
Hannibal has already examined the pill bottle he keeps next to the bed. It is simply a pink antihistamine that contains diphenhydramine hydrochloride—a powerful tranquilizer to buy over the counter.
A risky habit, but it will not be the thing that kills him.
Hannibal reaches the open door of the bedroom, where he's met by an electronic approximation of winds and waves—the Census Taker uses a white noise machine, a tool for the nervous and hypervigilant, one that Hannibal sometimes recommends for his own patients. Ironically, this is one of the few cases where hypervigilance could have saved a life.
Usually, in the modern era, the lion is not in the room. People have learned to suppress their protective instincts through shaming and pathologizing the very things that have helped humankind survive thus far. They drown out noise and dull their senses to try and chase away bad dreams.
Waking in Hannibal's basement will be worse than any bad dream this man has ever had.
The dark figure in bed is barely visible in the moonlight. Hannibal holds out his prepared syringe like a lightless torch as he creeps forward. When he inhales, the scent on the air gives him pause. It smells heavily of sex underscored by a faint wisp of floral perfume.
That can't be right. The Census Taker doesn't have a wife or girlfriend.
A mechanical snap echoes from beyond the shut bathroom door, directly behind Hannibal. He spins to face it.
The door is now framed by light, and a woman's soporific voice says, "Ben, are you awake?"
The light hits Hannibal like a slap across the face. A strange young woman stands in the doorway in laced underwear and a man's oversized shirt, her eyes wide and round as spotlights. Hannibal has never seen her before.
This must be a one night stand. How else would the Census Taker have found a lover during Hannibal's weeks of surveillance? He'll have to kill two pigs tonight. She's seen him, fully lit, and would easily be able to identify him.
This one misstep yanks the cloth out from underneath Hannibal's set table, and his whole plan crashes to the floor.
Within a second of her appearance, the woman withdraws and tries to slam the door. Hannibal blocks it with his hip, huffing like a bull behind shoddy metal fencing. It gives immediately, and she falls back against the sink, shrieking all the while.
"Get the fuck away from her!"
Something crashes against the back of Hannibal's skull, and warm liquid rolls down the back of his neck. Unfortunate. The blow doesn't register as pain, but he would prefer not to leave blood at this scene.
Hannibal stumbles backward, dropping the syringe when the back of his knees hit the bed. He grasps for the knife on his hip. No livers will be retrieved tonight. The Ripper will not take credit for these kills. They will be far too messy.
The light from the bathroom door isn't enough for Hannibal to see what's in the Census Taker's hand, but there's no time to puzzle it out. Hannibal bounces off the mattress and onto his feet, reclaiming his balance before lunging forward.
But by the time he hears a pistol cock, it's already too late.
—
A teacup shatters on the tile floor.
Hannibal is back in his kitchen, staring down at the shards, scattered like the dessicated skeleton of an animal long dead. Glenn Gould rips through the first Goldberg variation, a man unbound by time.
How…
The dark bedroom has been replaced by Hannibal's own kitchen, as orderly as it ever is aside from the mess of powder and broken ceramic pieces on the floor.
Had it been a nightmare? A vivid fantasy? Some other trick of the mind? Rarely if ever has Hannibal been troubled by anxiety—certainly never to the point of hallucination.
He pinches himself hard, so hard the small patch of skin between his fingers turns purple.
Even more vexxing is how high he jumps when the phone rings. The teacup has not been dealt with, but he's been standing there struck dumb for so long that the third variation is already playing through his speakers.
He answers the phone, biting back his unease.
"Hello?"
"Hannibal, forgive me, I hope I'm not calling too terribly late," Mrs. Komeda says.
Curiouser and curiouser.
"Not at all," he says. He knows he said something different before, but he is too preoccupied to remember what. The shape of whatever unspoken sentences he'd used forms a vacuum that Mrs. Komeda doesn't hesitate to fill.
"I've just received the news we were able to get the licensing for Decker's setting of La Traviata for next Spring."
"Decker's setting." Hannibal echoes. At the moment, these words mean next to nothing to him.
"You know," she says with fond exasperation. "The one they used at the Met during Netrebko's run? With the minimalist set and the massive clock? I thought I'd let you know since you were the one who pushed for something modern."
"Ah," Hannibal says. "Yes. I remember now."
"You seem like someone who would prefer a more classic aesthetic," she says. "Always full of surprises."
Hannibal forces his mask back into place and manufactures some good humor, despite the fact that his palm is clammy around the handset.
"I would hate to be boring."
"Well if that's your goal, it's been an eternity since you threw a dinner party, Hannibal. The board is simply starving for one, you know."
"You cannot force a feast, Mrs. Komeda. The feast will present itself," Hannibal says, then cringes at how well he's supporting his own sense of deja vu.
"Well don't leave us wasting away for too long, Hannibal. Arrivederci," she says.
"Buona sera, Signora."
He hangs up as her titter plays in his ear. The phone slips from his grip and falls the last couple inches to the countertop.
Is he dead? He closes his eyes and walks himself through the last thing he remembers before the cup hit the floor. Shapes in the dark. Screams. A click. A gunshot.
He must be dead. Perhaps this is Hell, and Hell consists of living the last night of your life over and over again.
Unlikely. More likely, it had been nothing other than an unpleasant vision brought on by anxiety. A shuffling of his short and long term memory. A waking dream. Fascinating, if unsettling.
But he won't let that stop him. He has a pig to kill, and he'll be sure to check for extra house guests before he makes himself known. He should not let this uncanniness interfere with his plans, or that will only give the whole delusion—for it has to be a delusion—power over him.
At last it's time for his outing, and right on cue, Beethoven's Ninth storms out from the Bentley's speakers, strings and timpani blazing. Hannibal sits for a moment in the driveway, repeating to himself that it's just a trick of the mind.
When he runs a hand over his face, it comes back greasy.
Hannibal will wait until he sees the specter on the bridge. When and if he sees him, Hannibal can decide then what he should do.
But when he reaches the bridge, there's no one there.
That settles it, then. He can continue with his plan, and this time he will be prepared to deal with both the man and the woman.
He glances in the rearview mirror. Nothing in his backseat.
But perhaps a ghostly hand reaches out and taps Hannibal by the shoulder, because he feels a sudden chill of uncertainty. What happened to the specter? If it was truly nothing more than a man, there's no reason he wouldn't be standing in the same spot.
Unless he'd jumped from the bridge, that is.
Hannibal turns the wheel hard to the left. No one is on the road to complain as he flips 180 degrees and returns to the bridge. Checking won't hurt; in fact, if the woman is with the Census Taker, a delay may give her the opportunity to go back to sleep before Hannibal arrives.
In a blink, the Bentley is parked at the spot where the man should be standing. Hannibal turns on his hazard lights and steps out of the car, circling to stand on the edge of the bridge.
There's a slim few inches of curb for him to stand on, and the concrete railing comes up to just above his hips. It's the perfect height for Hannibal to lean over. His gaze skims the dark water, illuminated by quiet moonlight.
The stream's surface is rough, and the night smells of wet rocks and motor oil. But the specter is nowhere in sight.
Hannibal leans out in hopes of examining the tressels braced beneath the road. And it's probably because he's already out of sorts tonight, but he leans just a little too far.
Before he can regain his balance, Hannibal tips over the railing and falls a hundred or so feet into shallow water.
—
A teacup shatters on the tile floor.
That same sweeping, staccato variation hammers on Hannibal's ear drums. He jumps back from the mess in front of him and dashes to turn off his stereo.
The only remaining noise in the room is like wind through bellows, and Hannibal realizes that it's the sound of his own jagged panting.
He had died. Of that he is certain. He had felt the cool wind against his skin as gravity yanked him at full speed toward the water and silt below. The memory of impact and the sound of cracking bones makes him paw at himself. Somehow, his body is still intact when it very much should not be.
He looks down. The bruise he'd pinched into his arm is gone.
The phone ringing cuts through the silence. Hannibal glares at it where it sits on its caddy, having magically returned to the original spot when he specifically remembers leaving it on the countertop.
He doesn't want to answer. But he has to. More proof is required.
"Hannibal, forgive me, I hope I'm not calling too terribly late."
He hangs up immediately. Proof enough.
At last, he is willing to admit that someone or something is trying to send a message. This may be incidental, but perhaps the message is that tonight is not a good night for a hunt. The Census Taker will live at least another day.
If time continues past this evening, that is. If Hannibal is not, in fact, in Hell.
Ceramic being swept up from the ground decorates the quiet with an intolerable scraping noise. But the work is soon done. He looks in the cupboard at the remaining teacups, counting them until he's confirmed there are eight in total.
There are not two additional teacups missing. Just the one whose pieces he has just dumped into the garbage.
If Hannibal didn't have such a strong stomach, he would be hugging the toilet by now. As it is, he simply endures an elevated heart rate and the release of adrenaline that pushes him toward hyperarousal.
Sleep. That's what he needs.
It's only a little past nine o'clock, but Hannibal climbs the stairs to his bedroom anyway. His hunter green suit is laid out on the bedspread, awaiting him. Against his usual fastidious nature, Hannibal picks up the suit and dumps it into a chair, stripping off his clothes and crawling under the covers.
All he needs is to take a few deep breaths, then lock the visions—or are they memories?—away in his memory palace. He wants to forget them altogether, but once he encodes them, they will be easier to bury.
In his imagination, he is more sedate than he currently feels. He walks through the entryway of the palace, glancing into rooms with open doors, calming himself with the pnemonic devices that trigger more pleasurable visions. A string quartet. A late spring day in Paris. A particularly beautiful heart cradled over its former owner's open rib cage.
At last he finds a space for what has taken place this night. Reviewing each moment, once, and then a second time, he takes a snapshot of each like a spy recording classified information. The tea cup. The bridge. The gunshot. The ground.
Satisfied, he steps out of the room, takes a thick metal key from his pocket, and locks the door from the outside.
When he turns around to leave, he finds himself nose to nose with the specter. This close, his features are murky, as if he stands behind fogged glass.
This being will not be locked up so easily. One moment, his hand is at his side. The next, it's wrapped around Hannibal's throat.
Hannibal wakes gasping.
Sunshine seeps from the edges of the curtains, the golden beams pulling him back into the waking world. Every inch of him warming with the relief of the night ending at last. It isn't Hell, or even purgatory, but whatever it is, Hannibal feels a sense of freedom like he's never felt before. The nightmare is over, because that is all it was. Just a nightmare.
He all but leaps out of bed and struts to the bathroom, ready to finally start a new day and leave the bizarre night in the past.
There's a reason Hannibal doesn't like to leave clothes on the floor. It's not just about decorum.
But he has no time to chide himself for breaking his own rules as he slips, falls, and cracks his head on the the door frame.
—
A teacup shatters on the tile floor.
The sunshine is replaced by night; the silence by a spirited piano.
So then. Maybe not a dream after all.