When your plans unravel in the sand
Apr. 4th, 2025 09:14 amHannibal Lecter/Anthony Dimmond, Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Canon divergence 3x01
COW-T 14, week 5, m2 - meme di Spiderman
In the Studiolo Hannibal faces the man in front of him, the man that had studied under Roman Fell and that, despite knowing that Hannibal is an impostor - that Hannibal has probably disposed of the original - has lied for him to Sogliato.
“I'm curious as to what fate befell Doctor Fell to see you here in his stead,” Anthony Dimmond has his back to him. This is a game he thinks they’re playing and Hannibal has no intention to lose.
“You may have to strap me to the breaking wheel to loosen my tongue,” he allows his lips to curl upward in a challenging smirk, his eyes shifting from the man to the torturing device put on display between them.
“You overestimate my affection for the genuine Doctor Fell,” Dimmon smiles, “Clearly, you found him as distasteful as I did.”
“On the contrary,” Hannibal smiles at his own joke. He was delicious, once seasoned with the right spices. And then he waits for the man to ask. He knows he’s smart, he’s dark, he’s twisted - he had placed the idea of going to the polizia between them and then he had told him he had discarded it. Hannibal knows the man can put two and two together and ask him. See him.
It’s not like Will - no one could ever be like Will, nothing could ever compare to what there was between them.
“We can twist ourselves into all manner of uncomfortable positions... just to maintain appearances with or without a breaking wheel,” Dimmond licks his lips, and Hannibal wonders if they are giving the same meaning to the words he’s saying.
“Are you here to twist me into an uncomfortable position?” He asks, slightly amused.
And when Dimmond looks at him, eyelids fluttering, drawing the words as if he was coating them through treacle before dragging them out of his mouth, Hannibal knows.
“I'm here to help you untwist... to our mutual benefit.”
He could. He wanted as much from Will, he had been molding and shaping him to get him where this man already is. There’s no challenge in this, Dimmond is nothing more and nothing less than a talking pig, and Hannibal knows that taking him up to his offer would mean simply putting a band-aid where a jagged wound is still bleeding.
He allows himself to think about it, though.
He knows Will is alive - he was the one to cut him, to plunge the blade in his abdomen, fully knowing where to strike to let him survive. He has proof of his dexterity with a knife, he has seen the photos on TattleCrime, and although he’s very grateful to Freddie Lounds for sneaking inside the hospital to take her scoop and confirming his hopes, it doesn’t mean he won’t kill her later for daring to take a picture of the colostomy of a comatose Will.
“So, are we taking this in a place a little more private?” Dimmond asks, raising his eyebrows in what should be a seductive way, “I’ve been told my methods of persuasion are excellent, and way more enjoyable.”
Hannibal nods, “You know where I live,” he smiles and nods in the direction of the exit.
He’s not sure if he will kill him, yet. He knows Will is alive, he knows he will leave him a gift, something to bring Will to him - he already knows what and where, a body in the shape of a human heart, in the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, just over the Memento Mori, he can see it in his mind palace as if it had already happened. He wonders then if it would make Will jealous to know he has killed with someone else other than him, showing him he could be replaced. If it would be too provocative, too taunting. He misses Will, he misses what they could have been together, but he knows their story can end only if one of them dies, and not before.
So yes, maybe he will take Dimmond with him, and maybe he will let him show him how he bends and twists as Hannibal tells him of all his killings - as they plot together their next, as they share their meals. And he won’t kill him - yet.
After all, Hannibal has always been nothing but faithful to his friends, and Will is the only thing that matters.