#tw anorexia

[marmorada]

Hope this moid dies an ugly and humiliating death. Like to charge reblog to cast

#tw ed #tw eating disorders #tw anorexia #tw suicide

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER TWELVE: FRUIT

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, implied child abuse

This is chronologically the twelve chapter

READ AFTER THE CUT...

-

You ascend to your room alone, glancing back over your shoulder in the paranoia that one or the other man pursues you like night after the sun.

Neither have taken you by way of carnality since Will rutted you against the wall. It seems an unnatural strike of fortune, and one unlikely to last.

There is too much lust between these beings, hunger of such echoing depths that the sensual urge is but one chained within. Their eyes all evening have picked you to the bone like carrion set at by desert birds. Your cunt parts, empty, about the memory of Will’s fingertips; there is a sense of art unfinished, a crescendo in the crashing of keys only the hands of men can bring into violent birth.

In dread of missing the sound of their approach across the landing you lie quiet in your bed, no music nor comforting hum of the television as your night-time companions. Yet footsteps only halve the house when your captors go to bed, each in their own room, an anti-climax. 

You think of Hannibal, tossed amidst the curse of unsung ardour, then of Will, crushed under the density of an unsated sleep. Such lonely men, in their way, divided by what lies unchartered between them, and with you.

Though by now settled, the skin which Will has touched—struck—still seems to burn with him. Five fingers, the rounded oblong of a palm, a hand that feeds dogs, has fired a gun, has rocked you, fucked you. A hand that Hannibal Lecter reaches for across dead miles of darkness to know as you have, and to love what you have loathed.

Unsettled, you roll on your stomach, but the pulse you hear when overwrought seems to peal through your very bones in its jeering song.

Filth, sin, soil: you taste your shame in its salt, as you have each night since long ago. Yet before your taking for the purpose of this ritual science there had never been pleasure in it, only the experience of staring always at the edges of things. The corners of ceilings, the light at the top of a door, a wall torn to grain by the night, liminality your legacy of innocence.

With Will, with Hannibal, you cannot look away, are made to witness and to partake in every aggression and gentleness with the same focus of attention. For that is what they want, your immersion in the devil’s playhouse. For you to be a doll, a daughter, embraced after the most inclement incident into a state almost soothed.

You cry yourself to sleep, wanting such a practice of love from someone who’s never once hurt you.

*

Hunger wakes you in the night, a restless drumroll that compels you upright in its rallying beat. As you stretch, thinking morosely of the marvel it is to have gorged and still not be full, you hear someone stumble in the nearby hallway, thudding against the adjoining wall.

A fight? Some drunken struggle? An intimacy overheard? No—

There is but a sole pair of scuffing footfalls on the floorboards beyond, too unbalanced to be Dr Lecter’s.

In consternation you go to your door and try the handle. It gives way easily under your hand, allowing you to peer out into the black mystery beyond.

Will lists against the right-hand wall, his eyes glazed and rolling under twitching lids. As you stare, abashed, his limbs fall under him, and he sprawls thrashing in unconscious spasms of animation.

There is blood on his face where he’s bitten his tongue, ebony in the negation of light. An oil spill on a seabird, drowning. A splash of mud on a bog's sunken dead.

You should let him suffer, step over his convulsing form and dart for nearest open window or outer door, but horror shakes you senseless of the thought before it takes full form.

Will’s fit continues, throwing the young man’s slim frame about like a machine caught in the throes of grim malfunction.

God help you: you pity him. He is human, and you are, as well.

“Will?” you say, stepping gingerly towards him. “Daddy? Can you hear me?”

It occurs to you that Will’s death is also yours, your lifelines enmeshed, a symbiosis in which only he would survive your parting. You kneel with your palms hovering over him, recalling very little that you know of First Aid, and entirely terrified of making him worse.

Hannibal’s voice comes from your left, uttering your name with a softness that somehow bears all the authority of a bellowed command.

He steps up quickly behind you, his hair disrupted from its usual tidy arrangement.

“Will’s having a seizure,” you say, in despair. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll help him,” says Hannibal. “Go back to your room.”

You stare at him, dumbfounded by his apparent calm.

“But—”

Again Dr Lecter says your name, without raising his voice, or with any particular emotion. Yet you scuttle back the way you came, jarred by the suggestion of temper in that subtle repetition.

You hear Hannibal calling to Will, the sound of him lifting the other man and carrying his dead weight back to the spare room. The door closing, the subtle murmur behind it of Will rousing, his friend's soft, reassuring reply.

Silence, as of an exhibition ended.

Half an hour edges by, and not once do you stop shaking despite the heat of the autumn night.

Presently a knock comes at your door, and the doctor enters, his eyes lowered in remorse.

“I apologise if I spoke harshly to you. I know that you weren’t being deliberately disobedient. It wasn’t my intention to imbue your evening with additional distress.”

“It’s not your fault,” you say, quite disarmed by the apology. “It’s nobody’s fault. I mean, I shouldn’t have left my room, but I couldn’t just not go out there and see what was going on.”

Hannibal’s expression is opaque, a mask of ivory.

“I detect a concern for Will that isn’t entirely manufactured for my benefit,” he says. “Could it be that such a little cynic loves something other than her hunger?”

“What choice do I have but to care about Will?” you ask, shrilly. “What’s wrong with him?”

Adrenaline runs so high within you that you see the room on a tilt like some demented circus mirror reflection.

“What’s wrong with him?” you ask, again.

This time Dr Lecter answers, his tone low and even so as not to incite further upset.

“I suspect that Will is suffering from a combination of stress and fatigue, although I can’t deny the possibility of a neurological disorder.”

“Jack said he was sick,” you mumble. “And the other night, when I— you know. He looked awful.”

Will's face is punched into your retina like a flash of light, all blinding awfulness.

“And he’s been getting so angry with me,” you say, in a panicked rush. “Even though sometimes he’s almost nice. Is that why? Because he’s not well?”

“Will’s health has certainly contributed to his recent outbursts,” says Hannibal, smoothing your rumpled coverlet with fastidious hands. “The absence of control he feels amidst his fever leads to acts of impulse, particularly when in an environment he’s uncertain of, or feels threatened in.”

“I’m not threatening him,” you insist, hotly. “How could I?”

“I don’t mean in the literal sense. Will has very few close confidants, and those he possesses he guards dearly— that, or it is he himself that Will defends against his competition.”

You look up sharply, and Hannibal smiles, all benign conspiracy.

“Yes, little one. Having considered your thoughts on Will's dislike of you, I suspect that he also fears you may supersede him, or else share intimacies with me that he alone would otherwise possess. Yet Will’s envy is more complex than mere romantic ire, for unlike other rivals he has contended with, Will finds himself in the position of dizzying power over you.”

Dr Lecter pauses, his head at a rueful incline.

“For my part, I admit that it was rash to elect Will as the disciplinarian between us without taking all factors into account. It seems that I underestimated how antagonistic your relationship would become as his immersion in your treatment progressed.”

This you do believe, at least in that the doctor’s dissuasion of Will’s most outrageous verbal lashings is clearly genuine. Your bickering, in its familial likeness, he enjoys: an outright skirmish, repellent it its indecency, he does not.

“As you’ve indicated,” says Dr Lecter, going about your room to address its customary disorder, “Will’s becoming aware that his resentment is not entirely warranted as he finds himself increasingly sympathetic to your case. Such feelings are at odds with his desire to be alone in my company— an intricate conflict for any mind, let alone one so fiercely ablaze.”

“Ablaze?” you repeat. “What do you mean?”

“If my suspicions are correct, then Will’s condition may have been agitated by the ingredients in various dishes served in my home these past few weeks. The symptoms are closely matched to Will’s behaviour— disorientation, loss of consciousness, personality changes, mood swings. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t notice this much sooner.”

There is something performative in Hannibal’s guilt, his unshed tears like the glass eyes of a taxidermy animal. He’s known of Will’s ailment far longer than he suggests, and as he turns his back to close your chest of drawers you feel relieved, no longer forced to entertain this show of lies.

“You mustn’t mention any of this to Will until he’s received a formal diagnosis,” says Dr Lecter. “It may be that he’s simply mentally unwell, which would be a far more complicated outcome to navigate. But what you’ve seen of him lately is merely a conjunction of symptoms and heightened territorial emotions. Will’s true self you’ve yet to meet.”

The assurance is of little comfort to you, being that the nearest you’ve come to perceiving Will at his most natural and honest is in his private conversations with Dr Lecter. Through these you’ve glimpsed a complex creature, one that approaches evil with a newborn’s chary exploration.

You want to believe, for your own sake, that the sensitivity you’ve received from him sporadically evidences the continued persistence of his soul. Yet you cannot decide if he began a good man, changed through Dr Lecter’s influence, or if he’s always been a hunter, each kindness a flash of marsh fire luring you to drown.

The image of Will—twitching, defenceless—ultimately overrides this dilemma of thought.

“So what do we do now?” you ask. “We have to help him.”

Pleased by your concern, Hannibal leans across the bed to kiss the downturned corner of your mouth.

“I’ll reschedule tomorrow’s appointments so that I can tend to him. Will needs rest, first and foremost. As for his role here, it would be safest for him to delegate the majority of his more strenuous duties until he's recovered. I’ll continue them, in his stead.”

Choosing not to linger on the implications of this, you ask, “What about me? What can I do?”

“Healing Will is not your responsibility, little one.”

“But I’m making things worse,” you say, fretfully. “I know it. How can I make him like me?”

Not without humour, Hannibal says, “You can begin by tempering that sharp tongue a bit. Like Will, you rarely attempt to sweeten your words. I’ll never encourage you not to bite, but it is important that you roll on your back when we bid it. You must be our good girl, above all else, or if not good then charming, at the very least.”

You roll onto your side, crushing your face into a valley of pillows.

“I guess I really haven’t been playing along enough,” you mutter.

Hannibal chuckles.

“Not nearly enough, for all your promises. But it’s early days yet, sweet girl. We’ll see how you are once we're used to one another.”

*

 

Morning comes rudely, stalling the excitement like an opera’s intermission.

You take breakfast with Hannibal, only distracted from the usual struggle of eating by the presence of Will’s vacant seat. Having thought of him without respite for hours you’re in state of nervous delirium, your flinching knee a seismic force under the table.

“I want to see Will,” you blurt out, at last. “I want to see if he’s alright.”

“I’ll be taking a tray up to him in a few minutes,” says Dr Lecter, scarcely bothering to hide his delight in this new interest. “Don’t ask him too many questions. No doubt he’s feeling somewhat delicate this morning.”

You watch as Hannibal prepares a separate meal for the other man, cutting fruit and stewing tea leaves with loving ceremony. When he puts a strawberry to your lips you take it, your tongue rasping the juice gamely from his fingertips.

The shock of the previous night has amputated your mulish declination to humour him; even the disgust that meets your every concession is hushed, made redundant by a renewed vow to leave this house on soft feet rather than screams.

Other women have befriended their keepers and lived, as will you, if you can bear to pander to Dr Lecter as long as they.

*

Accompanying Hannibal to Will’s room you find that you’re oddly excited, even gleeful in anticipation of the visit. You’re taken with the notion that his seizure will incur some unknowable change, though whether in Will himself or the dynamics of the households you cannot predict.

Never have you seen him so utterly fragile, the dilapidation of a man. You think of a child, foisted on a detached father by a mother Will had never seen fit to name.

Will he be ashamed that you’ve seen that self so clearly? Will he be angry, indifferent, or else fear the power his weakness allows you as though your thumbs press deep in the fluttering dell of his very throat?

There is another possibility, however, the one your morning-fresh hopes hang onto by their nails: that he’ll remember how you’d crouched at his side and called to him as he shook in the darkness.

“Wait here for a moment,” says Hannibal, as you crowd up behind him at Will’s bedroom door. “I’d like to speak to him alone first.”

You hang back as Dr Lecter goes in, pressing your ear to the door the moment it shuts at his back.

“You’re awake,” says Hannibal, simply. “How are you this morning?”

There is a pause as he sets down the beautifully arranged tray somewhere in the room.

“I feel like I could sleep for another forty-eight hours,” says Will, his voice thick and slightly nasal, a sickbed tenor. “I should probably get up and head home. I need to check on the dogs.”

“I called Alana and asked her to look in on them,” Dr Lecter replies. “It’s inadvisable to drive in this condition. Try to eat. You’ll revive much quicker if you line your stomach with something.”

“Yeah, well. I can’t make any guarantees of keeping it down.”

You hear the metallic scraping of a fork about Will’s plate and writhe in envy. Even unwell he eats without thought of the fat that disallows your enjoyment of any meal. You live vicariously through him, in that moment, imagining the liquor of fruit across his tongue, the forbidden pearls of white sugar.

What you’d give not to be a slave to thinness, the goal whose end will never form.

Hannibal says, "Present issues aside, I can't help observing that you've been conflicted, as of late, Will. One might even say confused."

"Have been since the start of all this,” says Will. “The clouds still haven’t cleared. A bilious forecast.”

"Yet you've no wish to abandon this project for brighter climes."

Will gives a little snort of derision.

"I'm too enmeshed in this household to extract myself now. The night I first touched her was my signature at the end of the page. Indelible ink. No taking it back."

You flatten your face to the door so as to better interpret Hannibal’s silence.

"You feel a genuine duty to our little one, for all your misgivings,” he says, at last. “I was beginning to question if I’d made a mistake."

"She's abrasive,” says Will. “Not exactly malleable. I believe you know what you’re doing, but on paper it seems like an ill-fitting adoption."

"Children are reflections of their parents, and so far she’s shown herself to be a mirror of you. Towards me she is cool, distant, and distrustful. With you, there is an attraction of sorts. Not sensual, nor even familial, but it’s enough that, in spite of your every rebuttal and harsh word, she’s beginning to develop something of a rapport with you."

Laughing tersely, Will says, "Not sure I see it."

"You don't allow yourself to,” says Hannibal. “But you’re aware of that truth, all the same. Each time you relent into even momentary tenderness you turn against her in savagery that is vastly unearned.”

“You asked me to punish her,” Will says, sharply. “Encouraged me to— relish it.”

The admission does not move you; these men have knifed ecstasies of you like oyster flesh enough times to have indicated their tastes.

It is the why you listen for, the object they skirt about with the same flirting avoidance of a tryst that cannot be.

“I’m not referring to punishment,” says Dr Lecter. “This I have openly supported. It’s how you address our charge that’s beginning to make her feel displaced.”

“Are you criticising me, Dr Lecter?” asks Will, with a smile in his voice.

“Certainly not. I’m merely observing a pattern of behaviour, and its impact upon my patient.”

To this Will says nothing, but the tension between the two men is as visible as the door that stands between you.

"If you yearn for the hours that you and I once spent alone, I'm able to accommodate by replenishing that time together,” Hannibal says, at last. “But the blame for that neglect is solely mine. I've foisted our little one upon you without consideration of what response such an abrupt change would elicit."

"You don't have to apologise,” says Will, as surly as ever. “It’s an adjustment. I’m getting used to it.”

Your ears catch the delicate action of him lifting the tea cup on his tray, then of setting it down again.

“I spoke to her alone last night,” he says, abruptly. “Told her of my intentions to stay part of this. For a moment it felt like we connected. Like that was the promise she was looking for. But when I refused her something she wanted, she accused me of being ‘like him’. I figured you'd know who she was referring to.”

“Yes,” says Hannibal. “I can make what I imagine is an accurate guess.”

“Whatever parts we try out here, I don’t want to become the unnamed shadow that stands at her shoulder. It made her the way she is. There’s a tastelessness to that kind of evil.”

"I know. It’s more than apparent that you repel her less through genuine hatred, and more through the necessity to protect yourself from what it would mean to know her, and for her to know you in return.”

As Will replies you hear the huskiness of genuine emotion forced out between gritted teeth.

“All this would be a wasted effort if she were ever taken from me.”

“That won’t happen again,” says Hannibal, at once. “The pillar of salt left when you looked back at Abigail will never form with our new charge. When our second daughter turns to me with the same thirst for intimacy she’s developed for you she’ll be, at last, our Chloris, the nymph turned mistress of flowers."

He speaks with such tender compassion that it starts an ache somewhere in the underwing of your ribcage. What necromancy he conducts here to wake your dead and mangled innards into a living heart you cannot guess, only fear the compassion you’re capable of towards such creatures as would destroy you.

"Our little one would like to speak to you, it seems,” says Dr Lecter, closing the previous subject with a seamless finality. “Should I let her in?”

Will shifts uneasily on the bed, creaking its springs.

“She asked to see me?” he asks.

“She did.”

You imagine the younger man scraping a tangle of hair back from his temples as he gathers his thoughts.

“Where is she?”

Thus your cue to enter announces itself: you open the door, peeping at its edge, oddly shy.

"Hey,” you say, in a semi-whisper.

Will is as grey and moist with feverish sweat as deep-sea stone. His vast eyes nest in violet shadow, the whites a thread work of capillaries.

You pity him, this shambling experiment of Dr Lecter's creation, one of many, no doubt.

"Hello,” says Will, dully. “Sorry about last night."

Edging into the room, you allow Hannibal to slip discreetly away behind you with a light pat on your shoulder.

"Are you okay?" you ask. “How are you feeling?”

"Tired, mostly,” says Will. “I'll get over it. Need to. I’ve got a case to work on."

He scrutinises the half-empty tray before him from under lowered lashes.

"I'm surprised you helped me. You could have run off. Hit me over the head with one of Dr Lecter's vases."

"I wouldn't do that,” you retort. “You even said so. That I— can't."

"No, but you could have gotten away. So why didn’t you?"

There is no surprise in his voice, nor even suspicion, which you’d expected. He merely sounds ill, and trying to be interested, in spite of it.

“I don't know,” you admit. “I felt bad for you, seeing you like that. I didn’t want to leave you."

A weary cynicism twists Will’s features into momentary ugliness.

"You were afraid of being alone with someone you could never hope to understand without me."

"Not just that,” you insist, alarmed by the truth of the insight. “I was scared for you. Really. You should go to a hospital. You need tests. Meds. Scans and stuff, maybe.”

Will searches your face with eyes like dull rain, and some of the guardedness falls away from them.

"If it gets any worse, I will,” he says. “Just not today.”

You see how much he detests his own weakness, the potential to be devoured like an animal fallen in a savannah. If you strike, he will struggle, and sick as he is, you will lose.

So you offer him the gift of submission instead, the cunning exertion of a child's mite power.

"Okay, Daddy.”

You feel rather than see Will straighten in response to the word.

"Don't think I'll ever get used to that,” he says. "It’s alright to use my name. There aren't any rules against it."

"No, but he wouldn’t want me to.”

“When have you ever cared what Dr Lecter thinks?”

Shrugging, you mumble, “I guess I’m just sick of fighting all the time.”

The sick man scrutinises at you for so long that you hop from foot to foot in discomfort, itching your sole against your calf.

“It’s going to be hard for me to trust you,” says Will. “You’re probably just going to pretend until you see an avenue to get out of here.”

“Everything’s pretend, here,” you say, smartly. “Nearly all the conversations in this house are about myths and dreams. Dr Lecter talks about them like they’re real, or something.”

Amusement lights the sunken dark of Will’s gaze.

“He finds their philosophies more valuable than the moral structures most people follow.”

“And me?” you ask. “Am I valuable to him?”

Being that you’re still convinced that your worth to Dr Lecter is entirely reliant on Will’s continued interest, you only ask to discern if he himself understands this, or if he believes Hannibal would love you of his own accord.

With a tired caution, Will says, “Right now, I think you entertain him. What else he feels about you I don’t know.”

“And what do you feel?” you persist. “Still don’t like me?”

At this the young man laughs and shakes his head.

“Ask me again once I’ve gotten to know you. If you can agree to a truce, that is.”

“Fine,” you say, and you put out your hand for him to shake. “Truce. Let’s try that.”

With a wry grin Will accepts, letting go almost at once with a sharp inward breath.

“You’re freezing!”

“Haven't you noticed?” you say, hastily stuffing the offending hand under one arm. “I always am.”

It’s an unfavourable symptom of your hunger, this blood and touch of ice. Under even the sweltering gasp of summer’s heat you’ll shiver, knock-kneed, and suffer at the slightest feather of a draught.

Still, that cold affirms you. Were you to be warm again you’d hate yourself, having regained enough of the weight your system craves to regulate its heat.

Glancing up, you notice Will examining his own hand as though he shares your temperature, his fist a twin to frost.

"Come along, little one," says Hannibal, materialising in the doorway again. "Will needs more rest. Perhaps you’ll see him later on.”

But by late afternoon Will has dragged himself home without saying goodbye, and as before his absence eats a crescent into the house.

*

Some days later you pass an evening with Hannibal like so many others, yet unlike for the new state induced in you through his medicinal enterprise.

You're accustomed to the concoction of drugs that regresses you to a needy youth, the sleepers, the stimulants, the tea that lowers you from the electric heights of righteous hysteria into something slowly numb.

Yet whatever element comprises the pill flushed down by water from today’s gently tipped glass elevates you to orbit a heaven above you, so removed from your imprisonment that you observe all below with an objective eye.

Dr Lecter has bestowed upon you the rare trust that you may eat without prompting or assistance, and you have done so, temporarily rescinding your disordered agitation to a mycelium half-dream.

Thus entranced, you watch yourself drape the tines of your fork back and forth across your half-eaten plate, enthralled by patterns on the porcelain that are not there.

Your eyes drift repeatedly to a painting on Hannibal’s wall, mounted coyly for any dinner guest to comment on.

Naturally, you’ve seen the piece many times before, and have been, in turns, startled and disturbed by its subject.

Now you find yourself dully intrigued, as you were by the Japanese prints. This attention does not go unnoticed by Dr Lecter.

“What is it, little one?” he asks, intently. “Do you have an interest in art?”

“I don’t know,” you say, confused by the banality of the question. “It’s just this picture. Isn’t it... rude?”

Hannibal smirks, eyeing the image with a fond appreciation.

Its focus is a supine young woman, draped, half-naked, on a rumpled bed towards which a curious swan approaches with its curved neck bowed.

Likely it is the original painting, procured at auction, its price unimaginable; all things in this house are ripe with expense, even you, its demanding charge.

“Artistic nudity is only considered rude by children,” says Hannibal, blithely, “or else by shallow and ignorant adults. Does the depiction of genitalia offend you, my darling?”

You gaze up at the cowrie of a cunt under its shadow cap of hair, pinkly presented on spread silk, and think how often your own has been arranged likewise for Will or Hannibal to admire.

“Why is it in this room, specifically?” you ask.

You struggle with the syllables of the words, spitting the sibilants in a manner unbecoming of so distinguished an event as dinner with Dr Lecter.

“Doesn’t it put people off their food?”

“I find it makes for an amusing conversation piece,” says Hannibal, pouring himself another generous glass of wine like the blood of some celestial giant.

You attempt to grimace, none of your muscles quite taking to the motion.

“I don’t think it’s funny at all. Just creepy. Sad.”

“Are familiar with the story of Leda and the Swan? Zeus, a virile and insatiable God, looked upon the queen of Sparta and desired her. So, in order to seduce her, he transformed himself into a swan so that she would be fooled by his beauty and appearance of vulnerability to take him to her bed.”

“He tricked her,” you say, quietly. “He didn’t seduce her, at all.”

Dr Lecter’s face scarcely moves, but there is something of laughter in the lines of his strange beauty.

“So it’s the deception that unnerves you,” he says. “The pretence that he was an innocent creature rather than the all-powerful and lustful deity he truly was.”

You nod, not wanting to admit that you see your own face mirrored in the brushstrokes of the damned queen.

Prophet-like, Hannibal interprets the gesture with flawless vision.

“You empathise with Leda. Recognise the parallels between her story and your own.”

“Is that why you put it there?” you retort, emboldened by the miles between you and the girl slumped in the dining chair. “Because you think you’re the swan?”

“The bird is a shield for the truth, remember,” says Hannibal. “So what would the swan be, in me?”

Dropping the fork with a discordant clatter, you consider.

“The polite, handsome doctor,” you say, at last. “You fool everyone: Jack, Alana Bloom. My parents. They would never have left me here if they knew what you really were.”

Hannibal turns his head at a slight angle, as though by doing so he might uncover some mystery in your face.

“And what am I, little one?”

“I... don’t know,” you admit; a killer, certainly, though there is more to him even than that. “There are a lot of things you’re hiding from me.”

“Tell me your perceptions, then. There’s no need to spare my feelings; after all, you so rarely do.”

Amidst your mushroom-made divinity, you are fearless in your answer.

“You’re a bad person. You’ve done things that would get you into a lot of trouble. Hurt people. Not just me. Not just Tobias. And you don’t feel bad about it. You think that everything you do is right, somehow. Like you should be allowed to do it. Like you’re the gods in all these stories.”

Hannibal absorbs this with the silence of having been sated by your answer.

“And what about Will?” he prompts, some moments later. “Is he, too, a starving monster under the cunning guise of a tender animal?”

“No,” you say, with less certainty. “He’s... sick. You're using him, making him think that this is what he wants.”

Your captor laughs over the rim of his wine glass.

“That’s where you’re wrong, little one. The Will you think you see is only one wing of a swan. Soon, you will glimpse beyond that fragile veil, and feel the mythic need of all immortals to plunder from the weak, merely for the pleasure of knowing that they can.”

A sudden sadness tugs you back to earth like a choke chain, iron-like the lump in your throat.

“So you don’t want to help me, after all,” you mumble. “It really was all a lie.”

Taking your hand across the table, Hannibal presses a thumb to the pulse at your wrist, a soothing motion.

“Not at all,” he says, firmly. “I’m quite fond of you. I wish you to be strong. Each time you find yourself resenting Will and I you must remember that Leda did not die after Zeus bedded her: she became a mother. In you, I seek another outcome. More than one, and not all of them so horrible as you imagine. There will be beauty in this conversion, as well.”

You gaze at him with disbelieving eyes, close to rejecting the hope he grooms in you.

“What other outcomes are you looking for, Dr Lecter? How can I become all the things you want if I don’t understand them? What’s really going on?”

Hannibal kisses your knuckles and places your fork back into your hand.

“Nothing you need to think about at the moment,” he says. “Now, finish what’s on your plate. I’d like you to move on to dessert.”

Just like that, you are his little girl again, the moon having passed across the sun.

#tw eating disorders #tw noncon #tw rape #tw fatphobia #tw anorexia #hannibal fic #yandere will graham #yandere hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader x will graham #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal lecter x will graham #will graham x reader #manna fic

[justanotherhyperfixation]

Everything now. Season 1 Episode 2. People think anorexia is all about wanting to be beautiful. Wanting to be thin. And believing they're the same thing. But it wouldn't matter how thin i got when i still feel this wrong. Like there's something missing in me. Something that reaches far deeper than delicate hands and elegance and estrogen. You are incorrect Mia. Incorrectly feminine. You must have been sick that day they taught you how to be a girl. A real girl.

#those lines aimed right #everything now #everything now netflix #tw ed #tw anorexia

[paloma-ascends-into-hellfire]

people love their ghostly, frail anorexic friend until her hair thins and she looks genuinely skeletal, or until she throws up or binges.

people love their hyper adhd friend until he forgets your birthday because he was daydreaming.

people love their quiet, honest autistic friend until they shut down, or visibly stim, or are a bit too blunt, or they weird out your other friends.

people love their tidy ocd friend until she tells you about her intrusive thoughts or trichotillomania (how the fuck do you spell that)

people love their sad-boy depressed friend until he shows you his sh scars or gets admitted to a psych ward or you’re scared he’ll actually kill himself.

people love their gay friends till they get a partner before you.

people love their trans friends until they’re a bit too out there, or they don’t quite pass.

people love their brown friend until he brings up colonialism.

people love their disabled friends until their disability impacts them.

people love their fat friend until she starts loving herself.

people love you, but only if they can step on you to get higher than you.

#tw eating disorders #tw anorexia #tw bulimia #tw suicide #tw sui implied #tw self harm #colonization #colonialism #racism #ableism #depression #adhd #autism #neurodiverse #ocd

[teathattast]

#autism #autism memes #tw anorexia

[dailyashleighraichu]

“B-but… how…? She never had issues with food before!”

“….I knew there was a reason she wanted to lose weight…”

"I can't say with certainty as she didn't tell me, but these things can happen suddenly. One traumatic event can be all it takes for something like this to develop.”

"If you talk to her directly about this now, it may push her away further. And, if you will permit, I’d like to talk to her first on her own to better understand her mental health at the moment, and then formulate a plan for both everyone here,” he gestured around the room with two of his tails, “and also for herself. Does that sound fair to everyone?”

“I’d say that’s pretty fair.”

Coro and Taima nod in agreement. Ash still looks incredibly worried, however.

"I don’t want to lose her, Dew-!"

“I take this very seriously, as both a consulting doctor and a parent. Which is why I am going to make sure everyone knows what to do, so that Joule can begin the healing process.”

"If she needs to be hospitalized for a time, I can make sure she is well looked after with my co-workers, But I will only know how to best work with her, and everyone here, until after I assess her.”

"Now then, could you please show me where Joule is? I will speak with her now.”

"Y-yeah. Of course."

He starts to show Lucky to Joule’s room, but is stopped as Taima joins him.

"Tai...?"

"She’s not just your sister, knucklehead. I want to listen too."

Coro nods, and the twins show Lucky down the hall to Joule’s bedroom.

#Ashleigh's Art #Guest Artist #pokemon ask blog #daily pokemon #arc: stop the presses #asksavel #raichu #alolan raichu #dewott #Dewchu Twins #ninetales #alolan ninetales #ashleighraichu #dewdewott #corodewchu #taimadewchu #luckyninetales #tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #tw panic attack #it's 11:30 pm i am in hell /lh #No but for real this collab has been a treat to work on so far

[bodhrancomedy]

I didn’t even know I was following #motivation and I got recc’d a pro-anorexia post. Love that.

I do love how people tag here/sac.

#tw anorexia #eating disorders #disordered eating

[goldenheart-supremacy]

But what if Ambrosius had anorexia during puberty until adolescence because he was pressured to watch his weight and got scolded if adults like the director thought he was eating too much?

Cue Ballister the moment they started dating cooking the best things on earth that Ambrosius has no choice but to eat because GREAT GLORETH Ambrosius could just inhale everything

And Ballister would go feral if anyone questions it like

"Shut the fuck up, that's why we have muscle training. LET HIM EAT."

He even snapped at the director once and apologized later for the disrespect BUT not for what he said.

It was the first time he talked back to her and the director was shookt and a little A LOT terrified.

#Nimona #Ambrosius Goldenloin #Ballister Boldheart #Goldenheart #tw anorexia

[eoieopda]

this is a celebratory/positive post; however, it relates to eating disorder recovery after relapse, so i’m hiding it below the cut. please ignore if this is something that will make you unsafe and/or uncomfy (or if you just don’t want to see it because this is a k-pop blog, first and foremost, lol).

note: in my personal experience, this is not a thing people talk about. that’s why i’m posting this — so people know i’m here. if you’re similarly situated, i’m in your corner whether we’re moots or not! 💕

as of today, i have officially gone two (2) entire weeks without restricting or purging in any way! this is by far the longest i’ve gone since my major relapse in july 2023 ✨ hopefully actually acknowledging this win out loud for once will help me keep the streak going.

okay, that’s all!! ily!!!

#jade speaks #tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #tw bullimia #tw ed #tw ed descussion #tw eating disorder recovery #do not reblog #because although that seems clear to me i’ve noticed that it is sometimes not clear to others re: my personal posts

[cloudxxiii]

WHAT'S THAT? A NEW OC?!

Yep, that's right!

This is Mortimer Walten! A 32 year old guy who just needs a hug and some therapy. //TW: Anorexia, child manipulation (??)// All of my posts of him will be marked with a trigger warning for Anorexia, even if it doesn't include anything about anorexia, due to the disorder playing a big part in his character.

I'll put more about him in other posts. This is only a little introduction to him.

#dexter's ocs #mortimer walten #ocs #my ocs #my oc #oc #oc art #meet my new oc #meet my ocs #meet my oc #myart #my art #tw anorexia #tw eating issues #tw disorded eating #tw ed mention #tw ed #tw eating disorder

[yikesharringrove]

ed steve being ghosted by billy and assuming it's bc of his body or weight

tw: eating disorder (anorexia) btw this is angst with happy ending

"So, um, yeah. Just call me back if you want to do something tomorrow night."

Steve hung up the phone, wiping his sweaty palm on the leg of his jeans.

He had had plans with Billy last night. Plans that, when Steve texted to confirm, never actually happened.

He had texted to see if Billy wanted to do something tonight.

No response.

Texted to say that he was free all weekend if Billy was available.

No response.

So, the phone call was his last-ditch effort.

He called Billy, said it's okay if he's too busy, but they could hang out tomorrow night. Steve's parents would be gone.

Usually, the promise of sex had Billy chomping at the bit to spend some time with Steve. Even if they weren't together they were mostly dating. Their hangouts didn't feel all that platonic, especially when they ended with serious make-out sessions, or with Billy spending the night in Steve's bed.

He bit at his nails, tossing his phone down on the bed next to him, flopping back to lie down.

He was trying not to overthink.

Billy is probably just busy. He's on the basketball team, and he's on the fucking Model U.N., and that stupid club (that Steve doesn't understand) eats up time like nothing else.

The bitchy voice in his head tells him that he's just too busy for Steve.

He's probably bored of him, anyway.

Steve really only has a handful of interesting things to say, and he tells the same stories again and again.

Plus, he's kinda gross.

He used to be good-looking, back when he was on the swim team and working out for hours every day.

He's not muscular anymore, he hasn't been in a while.

Once he quit sports, he was toeing the line of fat, and at least he isn't that anymore.

Well, he still is. Toeing the line, that is.

He's constantly trying not to put on more weight.

It's hard, when it seems that everything he eats goes right to his tummy, or his back, or his stupid stupid thighs.

He's been trying to keep everything under control.

He only eats once a day, if that, and he's been trying to skip when he can. He's been on an every-other-day eating streak for the past few days, and he's thinking, if Billy is so utterly disgusted by him, that he won't even respond, maybe he needs to widen that gap. See if he can go two days between.

The weight should stay off, and maybe, once he finally gets thin enough, maybe he can try again with Billy.

Once he's not quite so big, maybe he'll even let Billy fuck him with the lights on.

Or, maybe, Billy is simply done with him.

He's sick of Steve and his gross, ugly body, and ghosting him is the easiest way to do it. He doesn't have to even have to see Steve again. He can just go away and never have to look at him-

The window rattled, and Billy tumbled in unceremoniously, leaves in his hair and a cut on his cheek.

He grinned at Steve from the floor.

"Hey, Stevie."

"Billy, shit. What are you doing here?"

Steve sat up quickly, yanking the blanket over his legs, not wanting Billy to see him in such short shorts.

"My dad took my fucking phone. Something about breaking curfew, and I was super grounded last night, so I missed our date. He's fucking passed out by now, so, I thought I'd ninja my way in here."

He stood up, shaking the leaves out of his hair and dusting off his jeans.

Steve was still more than a little bit caught up on the missed our date part of what he'd said.

"Sorry? Date?"

Billy stared at him.

"Don't tell me you forgot. We were supposed to go to a movie yesterday."

"Yeah, I remember. I guess I just. I didn't know it was a date?"

And Billy, bless those big blue eyes of his, just kept staring at Steve.

And Steve was starting to feel a little squeamish about how much he was looking at him.

"Why wouldn't it be? I mean, did I just climb up that fucking stupid tree just to have you dump me, because that really-"

"No!" Steve said, wincing at how loud his voice was. "I just, I thought we were friends."

And then Billy's face went bright fucking red, and he looked down at his boots, probably getting dirt and mud on Steve's bedroom floor.

"Oh. Well, I'm sorry. I guess I misread, I mean. I'm sorry-"

Steve decided he'd have to throw caution to the wind here.

He tried to ignore the sight of his own legs, walking up to stand nearly toe-to-toe with Billy.

"I didn't think you liked me like that."

Billy looked back up at him, making quick eye contact before looking away again.

"I know what people say about me, but I don't just sleep with anyone."

"No, I mean I didn't think you liked me like that. I didn't think I was." Steve stopped himself. Now it was his turn to look away.

"What? Didn't think you were what?"

"Good enough," Steve breathed between them. "I'm not. You can do better."

Billy didn't say anything, and for one terrible moment, Steve thought he was going to agree. He was going to agree and leave the way he climbed in.

"Nah. Nothin' better than you."

Billy kissed him tenderly, and holy shit, how had Steve thought they were friends this whole time? Maybe he's a fucking idiot too-

"Stop thinking. Just let me kiss you, Baby."

It was easy to stop thinking while Billy kissed him. Because Billy kissed him like he was special.

Billy kissed Steve the same way Steve kissed Billy.

Like he loves him.

#tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #steve harrington #billy hargrove #harringrove #yikes writes #this is kinda shitty but I'm writing so fast bc there's two of us at work and i need to finish before the other girl bc i don't want #to lock up lol i'm too lazy for that

[loz-tearsofahomo]

Ao3 is in Danger of being Banned

US senators from both sides of the aisle are aiming to limit information online. The KOSA act (Kids Online Safety Act) is aiming to censor content, this includes limiting or banning sites like wattpad, Tumblr, Tiktok and more. Now why is this bad? Protecting children online doesn't sound like a bad thing? And you'd be right, online activity can be dangerous for kids, exposing them to things that they didn't ask for can be terrible. But this act will not fix it. There is no meaningful way (currently) to regulate the internet to extreme extents, these policies often limit LGBTQ sites and support. The Heritage Foundation is in support of KOSA for just this reason.

Transphobia resulting from these policies is likely. Extremely likely. Not to mention KOSA will not only limit these for children but also adults, a violation of the First Amendment. The EFF has sent letters of concern for this act. And reasonably so, there is no meaningful way to discern 'good' speech from 'bad' as online filters have shown us again and again. We know bans don't work, we learnt from here! When tumblr tried to ban pro-anorexic content, it backfired in people changing their lettering to get through filters and thus making it easier to find by creating tags like 'thynspiration'. US states are currently banning books 'inapropriate for children' by limiting information about race, sexuality and gender discrimination, I'm afraid this act is seeking to do the same thing. Sites like ao3 that are archives for LGBTQ youth are likely to be threatened. Both Democrats and Republicans are in support of this Act, as well as big brands such as Dove who put Lizzo as the face of it. When the US bans sites, they are often unavailable everywhere else as well as a result.

What can you do?

Spread the word!!! Tell friends and family about it!

Contact your lawmakers now to tell them to reject KOSA.

Sign a petition!

I have set up a mini archive on google drive for ao3 fics you want to preserve if this bill gets passed! Fill out this form to submit fics to be saved on an organized spreadsheet and on hard drives. You can access all the other fics people have saved and submitted from this spreadsheet! The spreadsheet should be up to date soon!

���🚨Please reblog to say no to censorship!🚨🚨

KOSA articles and links under the cut

Information about KOSA and similar Bills:

The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online

Lawmakers update Kids Online Safety Act to address potential harms, but fail to appease some activists, industry groups

Congress is flooded with bills for childproofing the internet / But civil liberties groups are spooked many of the bills could cause more harm than good.

Kids Online Safety Act Remains a Threat to Minors and Free Speech

How far should the government go to control what your kids see online?

Congress proposes anti-child abuse rules to punish web platforms — and raises fears about encryption

The Kids Online Safety Act Is a Heavy-Handed Plan to Force Platforms to Spy on Young People

LGBTQ Activists Call On Lizzo To Drop Her Support For Kids Online Safety Act

#KOSA #KOSA act #censorship #kids online safety act #politics #lgbtq community #ao3 #wattpad #tumblr #tiktok #tw anorexia #tw transphobia #tw transphobes #lgbtq #bisexual #lesbian #gay #trans

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TEA

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, implied child abuse and more

Read after the cut...

-

For a near week your deceptive submission endures, the hours newly tightened by a schedule your host has contrived to divert you from your anti-appetite.

Days rise from the borderless veil of time like castles from a dawn mist. Made a school child again, you sit before documentaries and foreign art films, take up a journal whose pages bear but glances of your internal woe.

You find yourself wishing that you could write with any particular talent.

As a girl you’d yearned to be an author, never daring to materialise the urge with any substantial effort. Now you can’t imagine you’ll ever be allowed so loose-penned a profession, if any at all, kept covetously home and infantilised until you cannot think beyond a fraction of words.

Why, then, does Hannibal go to such arduous lengths to educate you? Surely it is only so that—before the eyes of peers—you'll be the cultured averment of triumph through therapy.

In the soirees of your doctor's hopes you cleave, willing, to his side, bewitching the throng with smirking witticisms before sucking his cock with that same clever mouth when the last guest steps, merry and ignorant, into the night.

Already Hannibal aspires to materialise that abstraction. You find proof enough of it in the wardrobe he’s amassed for you, which expands as the days progress.

Some of his choices are attractive to you, reluctant though you are to consider this— long velvet gowns in puce, umber, black, blouse and skirt co-ordinations plucked from the runway, some still in boxes emblazoned with designer names.

Others of the selection offend you, however, in their bald intent for closed-door wear. Girlish dresses in light chiffon, corseted silk in flowering lace. Short necks and hemlines, some of them scarcely reaching the knee. Then there are sheer nightclothes stored in perfumed sheets, no practicality but for the sort of sleeping in which no slumber is to be had.

You’re to dress like some obscure young celebrity, a whimsical echo of an era thirty years passed. Still, there is an attempt in this incredible closet to appease you as well as to change, adapting your preferences to a style acceptable to Hannibal’s eye.

It’s of particular note to you that the garments are each the same size, implying that you haven’t gained significant weight since your last awareness of its value. Conceivably the labels might have been replaced, but it’s so unlikely a trick that the theory is quickly thrown out.

Hannibal is inviting you to trust his process with a peace offering of equilibrium, the second-best prize to starvation.

You are not such a fool as to take it yet, though in action you may appear to have done so.

When in the presence of your keepers you remain in unwavering character, an amplified, changeling copy of the child you'd once been. In this way you're allowed your little misbehaviours—pulling a face at food you do not like, or the shrugging rejection of an idle caress.

So long as you sit at meals, and don’t speak in any manner that threatens the illusion of family you are unharmed, and laden with unending gifts. It would be a winning childhood, had you been born into it through a far less insidious violence than that which brought you here.

Still, the awareness that you must simper and lisp for another month before you venture an escape soon wears upon your tolerance.

One Saturday morning, alone in your room, the silence of that cushioned cell amplifies your every thought to a piqued tenor.

You miss when hunger bled like smoke through your skull, ridding its halls of all but its fey shape. With a scalding clarity you behold what you are now: a homunculus, the issue of diablerie, cut small by men’s black magic.

You cast yourself amidst a tide of cushions and mimic your own words upon them in a bitter snarl.

“‘Yes, Daddy’”, ‘no, Daddy’. ‘Little one’. Oh God! It’s all so stupid. Stupid!”

An involuntary laugh chatters through you like a coin thieved from a beggar’s cup, hateful and maniacal. Yet you perform this anger as you do the docile coquette, the bounds between that self and your own a gradient that softens by the day.

It’s become rather easier to be a monster’s daughter than a woman, this you cannot deny. The longer you are extracted from the world the less you’ll remember of how to live within it, if you ever knew, before.

The misery of this thought proves too much to bear.

You cry until your head is as hot about the brow as a horseshoe turned white from the forge. The sobs wrench the muscles of your stomach in two pained halves, and still you weep until you laugh again, thinking how deranged you’d sound to any eavesdropper in the rooms below.

Afterwards you sit very quietly, like an ailing bride in a Victorian novel; you are, after all, very ill, and it suits you well to behave so.

Having nothing better to do, you switch on the television and skim through the channels with neither aim nor interest.

Thin, beautiful women populate the screen, their waists like darner flies, their wrists as narrow as your thumb. Even the history programmes feature experts with trim figures in sensible interview dresses.

Perturbed, you flick on and on until you find something on eighteenth century Paris, hosted by a grandfatherly old professor marked safe from scrutiny in the absence of compare.

You watch until your lids fall, thinking of catacombs full of monk bones, the cloying scent of ancient death, each as forgotten under dust as you are by all those who once loved you, and revered by those who never have.

In the afternoon Hannibal wakes you gently by turning the television off at the set.

“Are you feeling alright, little one?” he asks. “It’s unusual for you to sleep in so late.”

You hum in a noncommittal fashion, scarcely bothering to open your eyes.

Perhaps he’ll let you drowse the day away; you’d dream through all horrors like this, should your insomnia give you reprieve. A week, a month, a year sold to the sandman in exchange for peace— yet the dark would follow you there, also, antlered men in imagined night.

“You’ve been in bed long enough,” says Hannibal, peeling back your sheets with a brisk tug. “Up you get. Alana is visiting us this evening. She’ll have some questions for you.”

Weakly attempting to thieve back the blanket, you say, “I really don’t feel like talking to her. Can’t you do it? Please?”

“Jack won’t be satisfied with a second-hand report. Alana must see that you’re comfortable here. Not a particular incentive for you, but I can provide others.”

You open one eyelid, enticed by this readiness to bargain.

“So what do I get if I say yes?”

“A light dinner,” says Hannibal. “And—depending on your behaviour—perhaps another reward we’ll negotiate later tonight.”

At this you sit up; starving is a precious contraband in the doctor’s abode, worth more to you than every decadent thing under its rafters.

“Feeling better already, I see,” says Hannibal, through one of his charitable smiles. “Please stand by the mirror and allow me to dress you.”

Unbidden there comes the thought of his hand under your skirts, pressing inwards like a starfish sucking at a stone.

“Oh, come on, Dad,” you say, in flustered haste. "Really?”

“There’s a certain picture I’d like to create for Alana’s benefit,” he insists. “One of wellness and serenity. Your selections tend to imply something far more brooding and morose.”

With a testy little sigh you slip out of bed, rubbing your arms free of rising gooseflesh.

“You bought me those ‘brooding and morose’ outfits, remember, Dad? What does that say about you?”

“That I seek to please you,” says Hannibal, touching your mouth with playful thumb. “Today I hope that you’ll return the gesture.”

He holds aloft a pastel blue dress in transparent lace, a beaded line of detailing pointing downwards at the hips in a suggestive v.

“I don’t know,” you say, far more sharply than intended. “It’s short. And I don’t like the colour.”

“The shade will suit you,” Hannibal replies. “And you’ll wear a shift underneath for modesty, if that’s your concern.”

You don’t bother with reproof; he’s guiding you out of your nap-rumpled clothes and into the dress before you can think of an excuse he’ll entertain.

Unresisting, you only glance aside, breathing shallowly so as not to brush your chest against him as he adjusts your collar.

That Hannibal hasn’t made love to you since you shared a bed makes you think that he’s waiting for something, a moment fermented to sweeten the sex. He is, you warrant, as driven by pleasure as any man, being only of a tighter and more methodical restraint.

You can’t decide whether you’re glad of the wait or if you’d prefer he throw you down on your bed and ravish you now to have done with it.

Doubtless Hannibal considers an identical dilemma, turning you before him like a ballerina in a mirrored jewellery box.

“Even the greats couldn’t hope to replicate this image of you,” he says, as he inspects his work. “To attempt it would have them rending the canvas to pieces rather take credit for their failure.”

The compliment is long forgotten when, later, Alana breaches the house, her pretty face above her mulberry blouse like a lily in a violet bouquet.

Her casual manner in kissing Hannibal’s cheek at the door suggests a social visit, as does the gift of white wine under one thin arm. Still, she remembers her duty, taking you aside with a subtle professionalism within two minutes of having greeted her host.

Her kindness is a shingle in a cyclone, dashed away by the futility of its own existence.

“Dr Lecter told me you’re doing a lot better than when I last saw you,” says Alana, placing one of her graceful hands atop your own without comment as to its frigidity. “Are you feeling more positive now, or would you disagree with that?”

Slipping your fingers out from under hers, you say, “Well, I have a TV now. I’m allowed to do a lot more things I’m actually interested in. That helps. Thanks for that, by the way. I know you talked Dr Lecter into it.”

Smiling, Alana says, “I can’t take credit for that. He was already making preparations when I brought it up. He's racked up quite the shopping bill.”

The notion of Hannibal navigating the catalogues of online stores is ridiculous, somehow anachronistic, but then again you’ve witnessed him tapping at a sleek iPad, a jarring sight, on every occasion.

“How about mealtimes?” asks Alana. “I understand you’re working towards a plan that’s easier for you.”

“It’s still hard,” you mumble. “Tough. You know.”

Your eyes are on Alana’s patent court shoes, picturing a blandly organised rack of identical heels in alternate shades. Perhaps ankle boots for the colder days. Simple. Nothing flash.

Alana pauses, quickly assessing your disinterest in the exchange.

“Hannibal says he’d like you to agree to more therapy sessions,” she says. “He feels you’re opening up. I think we both know that’s probably wishful thinking on his side, but don’t shoot him down just yet.”

“I won’t,” you say. “Couldn’t anyway, right?”

Alana rearranges her discomfort into another closed-lipped smile. You can’t envision that lipstick ever moving, striped across her face as yours has been by both of the friends that she holds dear.

“So how are things between you and Will now?” enquires Alana, quite on cue. “Rumour has it you’re getting along like a house on fire.”

Truthfully Will has rather cooled since the night of the seizure, his envy retreating to the black of some inner primordial cave. He seems both caustically amused by your recent performance and cynical of its longevity, yet neither judgement is as severe as before.

The thought of your kindness sits with him, has been taken up with the cagy hunger of an orphan to a heel of bread. Piece by piece you’ve given him more of it in flirting words, but these he’s yet to take, turning each away with a smirk.

“Don’t try so hard,” he’d said, only a day ago, but when you’d thrown an idle foot across his lap as you read a book beside him he hadn’t removed it, only pretended to ignore the intrusion.

“Me and Will are okay,” you say to Alana. “That’s all.”

You must give away something of your successes in your expression, for Alana’s mouth twitches into a coy grin.

“Just okay?”

At that moment Hannibal knocks on the open door, a merciful trespass, setting you free of her.

*

As promised, you’re offered a modest salad while Hannibal and Alana make their way through numberless courses over the gifted wine.

At first you’re too absorbed in the mortification of eating in front of the other woman to pay attention to their mounting chemistry, dragging the same tattered leaf through streams of congealing oil.

It’s only as you’re making a fortress of cutlery across a lump of uneaten meat that you take full stock of the flirting at work before you.

Though attempts are made by both parties to fold you into the conversation they are mild at best, almost neglectful.

Alana glances up into Hannibal’s eyes in frequent, laughing enjoyment, touching his shoulder or forearm lightly; he, for his part, looks upon her lips and the curves of her form and speaks fondly to her, his voice hushed with a want of sex.

You’ve heard it often enough to know it, and should be glad to have his attentions otherwise distracted.

Yet your hands creep under the table, squeezing your thighs and stomach as though to claw out the matter you've ingested through your meat.

"I'm done," you blurt out, cutting across Hannibal's opinion of a recent classical performance he’s attended. "Can I go upstairs?"

It's with difficulty that you bite off the habitual 'Dad' that has replaced 'doctor' in your vocabulary.

Hannibal offers you a near invisible look of disgruntlement at the interruption, quickly mollified by Alana's fingers at his elbow.

"I'm sure we're boring you," she says. "Go on up and relax. You don't have to stick around just to be polite."

You glance at Hannibal, seeking his approval before you stand. His eyes, within so static a face, are black glass in their suspicion.

"I'll come up to speak to you later on," he says, at last. "If there's anything you need, don't hesitate to ask for it."

Rather than go immediately to your den above you linger to watch as the couple drink in the parlour, so close as to almost be in one another’s arms.

You see from Hannibal's relaxed posture that he is not ablaze with a fascinated love for Alana as he is for Will; he holds her merely with the affection of an old friend, and, too, with an uncomplicated desire.

He would never rape Alana Bloom; such violence, to Hannibal, is an entry into a cabal of which she has no part. Her value to him is as representation of his treasured comforts, and all that which Hannibal would not willingly change.

Alana is as used for her parts as you are, in her way, and oblivious to it, like some grinning scarecrow blind to the birds that snicker and creep at its back.

Yet as you watch her lean, murmuring, into Hannibal’s neck you feel a tooth of ice grind through your heart and turn away, feeling numbly for the bannisters behind you.

Almost on hands and knees you climb the steps to your bed, brought low by that astonishing cold.

Pausing at the bathroom you prostrate yourself at the toilet’s mercy, still unable to empty yourself of the pain and bile you'd evict to be naked of your jealousy.

In surrender you rest your head on the cool floor and remain there even after the compulsion to vomit subsides.

If you cannot flog yourself for your sins as the saints did then this will do, sprawled before the porcelain God of another degredation.

Presently the bathroom door creaks open, striking an unwanted rod of light across your face.

“Go away,” you mutter, wiping your face with an angry scrub of your knuckles. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Hannibal looks at you with a minister’s pious severity.

"I see. So I was correct. You object to Alana and I having a sexual relationship. Any other father would sternly inform you that it’s none of your business, and as your therapist it’s even less so.”

Raising your head, you snap at him as fiercely as you dare.

“What about me?”

“My friendship with Alana is very different to what you and I share,” says Hannibal, and you snort, wiping a stream of clear mucus across your lips.

“I’ll bet.”

Hannibal turns his head at a quizzical angle, and you perceive the very second of his understanding like the unveiling of some trick.

“You must explain yourself, darling,” he says. “What is it about this that has upset you?”

The logical answer should be that you wish to save Alana from him, that you cannot watch her beaming, black-haired head roll out from under the axe.

Instead, you blurt out, “Don’t you get it, Dad? How it makes me feel? You’re supposed to understand me, and I’m pretty sure you do. You knew that it would hurt me. You did this on purpose the way you wave me around in front of Will.”

Using the sink to right yourself you get to your feet, standing on pathetic, defiant tiptoe so that you might gaze into the devil’s face directly.

“If you have to do this, then please, just me. Just me. I can’t stand it. It makes me feel sick to think about you and her together. Knowing you’ll touch me afterwards. Don’t do this to me. Please."

“I see,” says Hannibal.

He speaks with such calm that you deflate from your anger at once.

“Very well,” he says. “I can make an excuse for Alana to leave. Would that please you, little one?”

This time you don’t answer, only stare at him with huge and terrible eyes until he retreats to the stairway.

“Oh, god,” you say, under your breath. “Amy, you’d really hate me right now, wouldn’t you?”

You hear Hannibal and Alana talking in low undertones, the female voice a coo of thoughtful sympathy. In time Alana collects herself to leave, but only when her car propels itself quietly from the driveway does Hannibal come to you again.

By now you’re sitting at your dresser, making a humiliated attempt to recollect your dignity with cosmetics. You know that Hannibal will not like what you’d made of your face—the eyes painted black, your lips the colour of your heart, a sinking, well-bound stone.

Yet all he says as he stands behind you is, “Look at me, little one.”

Your hand shakes, blotting your eyelid with an errant apostrophe of mascara.

“Don’t want to.”

“I know. I’d like you to, even so.”

The gentleness of Hannibal’s voice is an agony to you. You’ve never hated nor been more drawn to him than you are now, this impossible spirit in the vessel of a man.

Stiffly you turn on your chair, meeting his gaze to find it truly repentant.

“I won’t make love to Alana again,” says Hannibal, and you know as you do the reality of elements that he does not lie. “I see that this triggers your fear of abandonment too greatly. But it might not be possible for me to avoid all romantic advances.

“There are rumours abound as to our arrangement already, and it will seem suspicious if I don’t take a lover. But I’ll do my best to be faithful to our family.”

He pauses, watching you battle to suppress your disgust for him, for yourself, for all things in the bracken of his design.

“For now, I’d like you to relax,” says Hannibal. “This level of distress will make you ill. I’m concerned that it already has.”

Taking you by a hand as clammy as mermaid skin he leads you down to the living room to serve you from a pot of fragrant tea.

Though its calorific value is likely near to air you catastrophize with immediacy, unable to touch the cup, let alone drink.

“I’m not doing it on purpose this time,” you babble. “I’m not, Dad, please, you’ve got to believe me.”

Hannibal raises a hand to caress you— that, and only that, and yet you shrink against the couch in expectancy of a blow.

An appalled look tightens Hannibal’s expression, a hypocrisy of which he seems endlessly capable.

“There, now,” he says. “I can tell the difference between unruliness and genuine struggle. You and I both know that tea is only leaves and water— why do you believe against logic that it will affect your weight?”

“I don’t know,” you say, with a helpless shake of the head. “I feel like if I drink it I won’t be able to stop myself. I’ll eat and eat until I’m... big, and then I won’t be able to go back to the way I was. Everyone will see me differently. Treat me like they used to. People can be cruel.”

“And none crueller than you are to yourself,” says Hannibal, and he eases the cup between your hands so that you must take it or scald yourself raw. “There is nothing shameful in having a body of any kind, and any who judge you for that would wear their foolishness like a flag for all to see. Nevertheless, I’ve balanced your weight here, and will continue to do so if that is what’s needed for you to believe in my intentions.”

He aids you to drink, lifting the cup to your mouth over and over until the last drop. From the bitter taste you know it altered by some drug.

For once you do not care.

The night has left you so ashamed of your bearing that you’re half joyful to be done with it, sinking back as euphoria transforms all things that touch you into nirvana.

Your fingers drape across your body in aimless exploration, stopping only as Will enters the room with Hannibal at his side.

The younger man’s eyebrows jump as you giggle and hide your hands behind your back.

“You’re smiling,” says Will. “And I’m not sure how I feel about the circumstances.”

“Our girl is relieved to see you, Will,” says Hannibal. “A familiar face is a balm for even the most taxing day.”

Will looks from you to Hannibal ponderously.

“Alana was here earlier,” he states.

“She was, much to our little one’s chagrin.”

“Do you have to talk about her?” you interrupt, in loose-tongued irritation.

Hannibal chuckles.

“We do not. There are other topics I’d find far more engaging.”

You watch from under heavy lids as the men discuss the Lover’s case in low, library murmurs.

“Tanya Marrow was found washed up by the Patapsco River this morning,” says Will, with a grim regret. “Her wounds were fresh, meaning the Lover only mutilated Tanya and placed her into the doll when he was ready to throw her away. He was content with how closely she resembled the woman he’s desperate to make, for a while.

“But she wasn’t close enough. In the end he had to remind her that she was just a toy to him, and punish her for her lacking.”

The contrast of these dreary horrors with the rainbow light of feeling through your needy cunt should sicken you, but your mind is in disorder, barely one thought akin to the next.

“We’ve made a breakthrough in regards to the dolls,” Will continues. “The well-made ones are expensive; for one person to have so many implies that the Lover is either a wealthy collector, or that he’s able to access them at a considerable discount. Possibly for free.”

“I’m assuming the factory producing these dolls has been identified,” says Hannibal.

Will swallows a mouthful of whiskey.

“There are only four vendors known to produce the style of doll the Lover uses. Jack’s got someone looking into their customers, narrowing down the suspects to buyers in Virginia. Considering how specialised these clients are that shouldn't take long.”

The older man listens with a solemn intensity, scarcely drinking from his own glass.

“I see the Lover almost exactly now,” says Will. “He knows he has to take his bride eventually; he’s circling her, choosing women that are closer and closer to her physical proximity. The next target will be someone she knows.

“It’s a dangerous move, but by now the Lover wants someone that’s stood so close to this woman that he can taste her. Imagine her beneath him when he defiles the inferior victim.”

Fear swims, crocodilian, within you, disturbing your narcotic stupor.

Seeming to sense it, Hannibal says, “Let’s continue this line of conversation later on. I wouldn’t want to give our surrogate daughter bad dreams.”

Will glances at you, watching you fumble idly with the hem of your dress.

“You don’t plan to cast her as our daughter in tonight’s play, do you?” he asks, plainly.

“That would unnecessarily chasten the evening,” says Hannibal. “She’s the woman for whom we are legally responsible, and what we deem fit for her continued health is ours to determine.”

You recline across the couch like an empress, watching the firelight glance shadows across your skin like a garment in a dream. Hannibal slips a hand from your shoulder to your breast, teasing the tiffany lace across your nipple, and the warmth and delicacy of the touch breathes through you a shiver of ermine delight.

Only vaguely do you acknowledge your revulsion, a whisper at a keyhole on the other side of the house.

“What did you give her for her to let you touch her like that?” asks Will, curiously.

His hands play upon the sides of his whiskey glass, and the thought of them upon your thighs or between them drives your lower lip between your teeth with unbeckoned desire.

“I’ve offered her release from her spirited rebellion,” says Hannibal. “Even having promised us fealty, this act she wouldn’t easily endure. I wish for her to experience intimacy unhindered by her mental bounds.”

His fingers glance beneath the neckline of your dress and cross your bare skin as a swan's wing meets the sky, rushing a moan from you more akin to a sob in its juddering resonance.

“Besides,” Hannibal continues, “she’s had a trying afternoon. Her body welcomes this.”

Will’s face, washed honey bronze by firelight, is so neutral that even if you were not high you’d fail to extract the mechanisms of thought behind it.

“We’ve both succeeded in bringing her to climax,” says Hannibal, as his other hand folds your skirt against your pelvis. “But never her consent. Tonight, perhaps we will.”

“In this state she has no real autonomy,” Will argues. “We’re witnessing an illusion.”

Hannibal pauses, his face like that of an antiques dealer slyly unveiling some stolen wares.

“Not exactly,” he says. “Little one: you’ve described me as handsome. Do think that Will is good-looking?”

Your concentration wavers as two digits inscribe an ouroboros in your arousal. The wrongness of it all only enhances the sensation, the thought of being a lovely toy for older men to play with.

Your name on Dr Lecter’s lips recalls his question.

“Yes,” you say. “I— I do.”

You don’t know why you’re honest. Even a child, embarrassed, could lie.

Will smiles, and for a moment there is something almost sweet in his expression.

Then the dark of him slithers behind it again with predatory ease, and he leans forward, knees apart, possessed of a revelation of self-assurance.

This is the self he becomes when challenging Dr Lecter, the arrogant observer of all living things.

“I already knew that,” says Will. “I don’t mind hearing it clarified, though.”

You can’t imagine him ever admitting that you’re beautiful in return. Hannibal would, has done so already in such a succulence of language that your mouth could water with it, but not Will, not in so many words.

All that he will allow thus far is that you are not ugly. Blearily you vow to unwind from him his obsession.

“Puppy love,” says Hannibal, looking into your face with a gentle irony. “You’d like him to touch you, wouldn’t you, little one?”

This you don’t answer, and rather than press you again Hannibal makes you come with three fingers inside you, patient as you cry out and roll your head aside in conflict and delirium.

You cannot decide if he means to reward you for your participation with Will or to humiliate you for that same eagerness. It is bewildering and erotic, this envy they have for one another; to quell it you must kneel to the hierarchy, submissive always to your covetous masters.

“Join us, Will,” says Hannibal, at last.

Briefly you think that he won’t, a scoffing lord, above it all.

Then he crosses the room, sets down his whiskey and kisses you, first your mouth, then your neck, leaving the taste of smoke and almonds wherever his lips meet.

Whimpering, you kick your feet on the couch as each petal of ecstasy comes loose from a branch within you.

Sometimes Will’s teeth push against your flesh, not quite biting; Hannibal, on the other side of your neck, gently does, as though inheriting the expected assault from his would-be lover.

His fingers form a cylinder of delight in you, the pad of his thumb undoing another orgasm in a trio of strokes.

“How gifted we are to receive such delights,” says Hannibal, and as you groan he docks his arousal in your own, filling you so entirely with his cock that you think and feel only the fucking and nothing more, a witless hole.

Will brings your hand to his erection, and there is no uncertainty in that motion, nor in his lips about your breast. His rough tongue, the saliva like a paste jewel on your nipple—

Writhing, panting, you stir through pleasure upon pleasure like the layers of the earth, soft, dark, deep.

Your palm tightens on Will’s cock like a night sea about the lighthouse it yearns to bring down, working him with a knowing purpose. As Hannibal continues his pelvic rolls against you Will draws back, avoiding the early release that your cunning fist would bring.

Not once do the men make contact in a sexual manner with each other, and you don’t understand it, this avoidance of the ultimate lust. Yet perhaps it is that they fuck through you, for when Hannibal achieves his orgasm and moves away Will pushes into you without caution of the other man’s seed still warm in that same place.

He looks up into Hannibal’s eyes as he does it, watching his response as he weaves pleasure from a loom of servile flesh.

But then you make some shapeless sound of need, one hand extended, not quite touching him, and Will's eyes return to you with such intensity that you forget that brief, lost woe.

He mimics Hannibal’s command of your body, hands moving, unrushed, from breast to hip as he opens you further to him. His violence is a mage’s dance, something once done around fire, and charged now through the vessel of a young and studious man.

No wonder, then, that you have neither strength nor will to repel him. You roil, loose-limbed as the dead, only your noise and perspiring response to sensation to evidence your ongoing life.

Hannibal’s arms go loosely around you, holding your head in his lap as Will makes love to you with a brooding fervour. Every touch is like the discovery of a new and indescribable existence, having traversed to some frontier of feeling only sects of pleasure have previously founded.

You know yourself wanted by both men, now, feel it through their mutterings of ecstasy, the unending pressure of mouths and hands upon your skin. They crave your wanting of them in return, lap up your slightest sign of it, tainted as it is by Hannibal’s poison.

Will pours in you his ending, his breath a kiss against your eardrum.

You come again with both men gazing upon you, their faces as close and beautiful together as stringed pearls.

Dimly you fear that they will succeed in their work with you, no matter how fiercely you defy their twofold will.

“Hey,” says the younger man, nudging your shoulder lightly. “Snap out of it. You’re bleeding. Did we hurt you?”

Your first thought is, “yes, of course you did.”

The next, having looked down at the red dart through the milk of semen on your thigh, is the same nip of terror you know from an unexpectedly high number on the scale.

The final cognition—and one almost certainly true—is that this carnival of sex has brought that crimson forth like the incitation of bacchanalian madness.

The shock of it wrings you near dry of the doctor’s drug, a bald winter sobriety.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “It’s my period. I haven’t had one in years.”

#manna fic #hannibal fic #hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader x will graham #hannibal lecter x reader #will graham x reader #tw noncon #tw eating disorders #tw bulimia #tw anorexia #tw dubious consent #tw nonconsensual drug use #tw fatphobia

[too-much-tma-stuff]

One of the weird things about eating disorders is how progress feels like failure. I know I've gained 20 pounds but until recently it was mostly around my thighs and I'm my chest which was mostly acceptable, I could still wear all my clothes. But recently I've grown out of a couple pairs of jeans as my hips have gone from 32 to 34. This is progress, there is more then fucking bones there but my brain is absolutely screaming at me I've let myself go. Nevermind that I was starving before and I know I'm healthier now. Nevermind that my true waist is still 29 inches. This is the end of the fucking world according to my dumb brain and I'm writing this to avoid having a panic attack.

Thank you for letting me vent. I'm going to go Jean shopping with my mom Friday and donate these ones so I don't have the reminder I'm actually ar a fucking healthy weight now GOD FORBID.

#tw eating disorder #tw anorexia

[paloma-ascends-into-hellfire]

eating disorder harm reduction

no one ever compiled this so that it what we are doing today. for people with eds and people whose loved ones do. please note: i’m not a doctor. this is a compilation of things from books and ed resource sites.

for people whose loved ones have an eating disorder:

try to make sure they know these things.

try not to force them to eat, they might feel uncomfortable eating in front of people. also, risk of refeeding syndrome.

if their life is in danger and you are seeking help for them, consult the person beforehand to make sure they will be safe and give them a heads-up so that they aren’t startled (especially if they’re neurodivergent! giving them notice will aid control!)

offer them ways of controlling things aside from food - practice consent, include them in conversations, don’t talk about them behind their back, compliment their makeup or hair.

be patient. the person may be irritable from lack of sleep, feelings of depression, worthlessness, etc., or malnutrition.

keep in mind that you can’t tell if someone has an eating disorder by looking at them. people of all weights do - only 17% of anorexics are underweight - and also, men and non binary people can also have eds.

general:

drink lots of water, especially if you’re drinking lots of caffeine.

drink some electrolytes at least once a week - gatorade, electrolyte tablets, coconut water, doesn’t matter, just get it into your system.

if you are getting dizzy or flushed and can feel your heart beating, quick carbs will raise your blood sugar - sweets, bread, fruit, juice, non diet soda, whatever. keep snacks around pls.

your brain uses 400-500 calories daily. eat more than this.

take your supplements!

you still need protein, have an egg or something.

don’t take adderal or insulin unless you are actually diabetic or neurodivergent, because you are raising the price by buying them and denying access to those who need it.

throw a towel over the mirror. it’s not worth it if it’ll cause you anxiety.

try to limit disordered behaviours like body checking, purging, and weigh ins.

practice good dental hygiene.

put your scale somewhere where you have to actively look for it to weigh yourself.

avoid social media and for your sake don’t go on pro ed tiktok or tumblr or twitter or insta.

get a buddy who also struggles with the same thing if possible to support each other.

get regular medical check ups (if you can afford it)

practice things within your control - makeup, hair, clothing, etc.

push your rules - eat 5 minutes before your time, or 50 calories over your limit.

for people with restrictive disorders (e.g. anorexia):

do weight and resistance training at least twice a week to prevent musculoskeletal conditions such as osteoporosis.

don’t drink on an empty stomach.

try to put gaps between fasting periods.

don’t fast for more than 72 hours.

wear lots of layers to keep warm.

eat an extra 100-200 calories on your period if you menstruate.

have a metabolism day.

take care of your hair.

as horrifying as this is to many people, please go to the hospital if you’re experiencing heart problems or if you’re passing out for more than 30 seconds.

for people with purging disorders (e.g. bulimia):

if you would like to purge, wait 15 minutes first.

after purging: drink lots of water - the emptiness you feel is dehydration. don’t brush your teeth but rinse your mouth out, preferably with an alkaline mouthwash or baking soda mixed into water. do something you want to do, like reading a book or watching a show. don’t smoke. don’t have anything acidic. eat a banana or some chocolate or a rice cake to keep your blood sugar levels in check.

if you vomit blood or your vomit looks like coffee grounds, this is a sign of internal bleeding. you could be drowning in your own blood from a hole in your esophagus, essentially. go to the hospital or call 911/999/the emergency number in your area.

stay safe everyone. i hope this helps. also, i do not use these tags - i have them blocked - but i am using them so that people on these tags will find this because they need it most.

#ed harm reduction #harm reduction #ed recovery #pro recovery #notpro4n4 #tw eating disorders #tw ed not ed sheeren #pro a4a #ana trigger #ana rant #tw anorexia #tw bulimia #anamia #⭐️ving #edhr

[nightmaretherabbit]

@omgafhsfanin2014

Los Nightmares headcanons:

Deuz:

He/Him

Transmasc

Bi-curious

Deuz oldest of the group.

Can sing pretty well but is too shy to show anyone.

Becomes friends with Spring at some point and feels sympathy for what he's been through.

Was the one who came up with the idea of the whole gang painting their nails.

Disowned by his family because of being trans.

Maggie:

Genderfluid (any pronouns)

Biromantic,ace

Second oldest of the group

Oxy's older sister by 2 years

Has a crush on Golden. A very big crush-

Very protective of Oxy and will hurt anyone who hurts him in the slightest.

Besties with Felix. Pink hair best frens 🩷

Onnie:

Demi-Boy (He/They)

Bisexual

Second youngest of the group,only a year older than Oxy

Learned to play guitar when he was little from his mom

Feral animal<33

Has insomnia,anorexia, and depression

Loves to cook for his friends in his free time

Autistic

Oxy:

Nonbinary (He/She/They)

Demiromantic,Demisexual

Youngest of the group

Maggie's younger sibling by 2 years

Very quiet person

Hates people who are mean to their friends and sister.

Loves to draw in her free time.

HOH (Hard Of Hearing) in his left ear

Knows ASL & LSM

-------------------------------------------------------

That's all I have rn. Sorry it took me a freaking year to do this :')

#ntr talks #fnafhs #fnafhs z3r0 #fnafhs los nightmares #fnafhs deuz #fnafhs onnie #fnafhs oxy #fnafhs maggie #fnafhs au #my au #fnafhs headcanons #tw anorexia #tw insomnia #tw depression #mutuals #fnafhs: your magic. mine to have au