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“Report Tobias for what?”
Hannibal tensed slightly, turning his head at the unexpected voice.
The man to which the voice belonged — Tobias Budge himself — had blood running from his shot ear and down his neck and shoulder.
Hannibal mirrored the movement of the shocked Franklyn Froideveaux as the both of them stood up, and turned to face the man.
“I came to say goodbye, Franklyn.”
“What did you mean, goodbye?”
Hannibal’s hand twitched as he listened to his patient speak his surprise and questions to his friend.
“I just killed two men.”
Hannibal’s blood ran cold at the confession, tilting his head downwards and sizing up the man anew. Jaw tense, the psychiatrist listened as Budge talked about having killed two men, and reflected on how he had sent Will to question the man.
There was an odd twisting of Hannibal’s stomach and throat, a feeling much too close to guilt and remorse for his liking.
Hannibal turned his body once again as Franklyn started to speak to and approach Tobias, gesturing with his hands to pointlessly reassure and relax the tall man.
After Franklyn started to talk about meaningless rehabilitation, Hannibal finally spoke up.
“Franklyn, I want you to leave now.”
“Stay right where you are, Franklyn.”
The psychiatrist and his patient turned to make eye contact with the latter’s friend at the noise of Tobias’ desperate sounding demand.
“You’ve done a horrible thing, and… I know… that you wish to God that you didn’t.” Franklyn said, fear crept into his words as he continued. “But you did. And there’s nothing you can do to change that.”
Tobias’ expression didn’t change, but he started to breathe heavier and quicker, as though the man’s words were really having an effect on him.
”Only thing you can change is your future. Right?” Franklyn asked, his voice somewhat calmer, and turned to face Hannibal, as though asking for confirmation at his desperate attempt to pacify the situation. “No?”
The neurotic man turned back to Tobias, unsure again, but continued to speak anyways. “You’re probably scared. You probably feel like you’re all alone.”
Tobias breathed deeply and took a step forward, shaking his head as he looked at Franklyn.
“I’m not alone.”
Hannibal slightly turned his head, shifting his gaze from his patient to the blood-stained man still at the far end of his office.
As Franklyn’s voice droned on, Hannibal’s patience finally reached its end. Quickly, the psychiatrist walked towards the man and grabbed his neck and chin. Cutting him off mid-sentence, Hannibal expertly snapped his patient’s neck.
After the body fell to the floor, Hannibal leaned forward to be sure of the man’s death, before lifting his head nonchalantly to meet Tobias’ gaze.
“I was looking forward to that.”
“I saved you the trouble.”
The man opposite Franklyn’s dead body dropped the coat that covered his arm, revealing a spool of thick wire.
Hannibal carefully stepped backwards. Tobias swung the wire to gain momentum as one would a lasso, causing Hannibal to give the man a brief unimpressed glance, before turning his eyes back towards the weapon.
Evidently, Hannibal did not step back as far as he should have, as when Tobias swung the gut-wire forward, it cut sharply against one of Hannibal’s arms.
Hannibal barely had time to grimace in annoyance before the wire was swung again, causing the man to duck down to let it pass harmlessly over his back.
As the psychiatrist straightened up, the musician was in front of him and kicked him harshly in the abdomen. Hannibal could feel the sharp pain of a bruised kidney, and hissed quietly in pain and annoyance.
As the older man stumbled backwards, he gripped his rolling ladder and used it as a brief offense as the younger came closer.
Once the ladder rolled off, Budge swung again, wrapping tightly around the Lithuanian’s arm.
The shop-owner pulled backwards, tightening the wire and cutting deeply into Hannibal, possibly enough to cause scarring or damage to the muscles.
In a desperate attempt to dislodge his attacker, Hannibal swung a punch towards Tobias, who dodged and pushed the man away from the books. After a second of quick grappling, Budge dropped his grip on the wire and grabbed Hannibal’s glass side table then swung it at the man’s head.
Hannibal heard the glass shatter, and could feel as shallow pieces embedded themselves into both his suit and skin.
He stumbled a bit from the force of the table’s connection with his head, giving Budge the opportunity to push him towards the desk, hitting his already bruised abdomen against the edge of it.
Hannibal gasped in pain, straightening himself slightly and turning around just in time to see Budge stalk towards him.
Using Tobias’ momentum against him, Hannibal managed to lift his legs and let the other man inadvertently take the both of them over the desk, landing on the floor.
With a few likely-bruised organs, countless cuts, tender abdomen, and a wrist with cut-off circulation, Hannibal struggled to lift himself up. As he managed to do so, he felt more than saw Budge’s foot collide with his nose.
Grunting loudly, Hannibal lifted himself up and away from Tobias, who had managed to grab ahold of Hannibal’s letter opener. As he managed to finally stumble to his feet, the psychiatrist was met with the much-less-hurt Tobias swinging punches at him once again.
The musician managed to land a hit on the doctor’s jaw, who internally cursed as he felt his lip split and start to bleed.
Knocked to the side from the punch, Hannibal wasn’t able to see as Tobias drew back the hand holding the letter opener, before plunging it forward and deeply into the back of Hannibal’s knee.
Hannibal let out a loud but short cry of pain at the stab wound, before feeling the object leave his leg and feeling Tobias’ hand wrap around his neck, lift him upwards, before slamming him down onto his own desk.
The psychiatrist tightly gripped Tobias’ wrist in an attempt to prevent further harm from the letter opener. Looking to the side in desperation, Hannibal felt extreme relief as he spotted the scalpel he uses for his pencils. Grunting, the man managed to reach out and grab it, before jamming it into Tobias Budge’s arm.
As the younger man let out a cry of pain, Hannibal stumbled to his feet and delivered multiple quick punches to the slightly shorter man, before having one returned and promptly breaking his nose. Before he could do anything, Hannibal felt a foot aquatint itself with his chest, and could hear one of his ribs break.
Hannibal fell onto his back, and was disoriented for just enough time for Tobias to straddle him and bring down his fist.
In between the barrage of punches, Hannibal remembered the wire still wrapped around his arm. Gritting his teeth in determination, Hannibal managed to reach up one of his arms and quickly wrapped it around Budge’s throat before tightening.
Even as pain and exhaustion flared through his body, Hannibal didn’t loosen his grip. Shoving the man to the side, Hannibal reversed their positions and was now on top of Budge.
As Tobias choked, unable to breathe or allow blood flow to his brain, Hannibal didn’t lessen his grip even once, his grief for Will and the need of survival surpassing any hesitant thoughts he might have had in a different world.
Hannibal met Tobias’ gaze with his own, and didn’t move until the man stopped moving and could no longer feel the beat of the man’s heart under his two finger.
Hannibal slowly unwrapped the wire from around the man’s neck, sighing deeply and closing his eyes in exhaustion, allowing himself to relax for a while.
Finally, after lingering long enough to mimic the signs of shock, Hannibal limps heavily towards his desk, where he grabs his phone to make a call.
“Hello?”
“Jack, I… I’m sorry, but I didn’t know who else to call. I-I… šūdas. Jack, I was attacked in my office.”
Hannibal allowed his voice to shake and for himself to curse in Lithuanian, acting as though he were terribly shocked and shaken by the event that just took place.
“What? Doctor, what happened? I’m sending units now, are you hurt?”
Hannibal let himself take a shaky breath before speaking. “He… ahem, he stabbed me in my leg with my letter opener and kicked me in my chest, I believe I have some broken ribs as well as a broken nose. I have some more cuts, and he wrapped wire tightly around my wrist.“
Hannibal hesitated for a moment, glancing at Tobias’ body, deciding what to do, but ended up choosing to just rip the bandaid off.
“Jack, I… he’s dead now, Jack.”
Silence filled the phone line, causing curiosity to flood through Hannibal before hearing tense words from Jack.
“Don’t move, we’ll be right there.”
Jack hung up and Hannibal huffed at the rudeness. How Jack managed to become the head of the behavioral science unit was beyond him.
Nevertheless, Hannibal closed his eyes and — after fishing the handkerchief out of his suit’s pocket — applied pressure to his pulsing knee. Leaning forward to rest against his desk, he sighed loudly, knowing that his knee would probably need surgery, or even be left with a permanent injury.
By the time the head of the BSU had managed to arrive, the crime scene technicians have already started their work, Hannibal’s office had been taped off, the paramedics had begun treating him, and he was having help being lifted into the ambulance.
As the psychiatrist sat down in the ambulance, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. There, blocking the doors of the ambulance from closing, was Jack Crawford, his usual scowl still in place.
What surprised Hannibal, however, was the man standing a few feet behind Jack, looking up at him behind his wide, blue eyes and curly, brown hair.
Hannibal’s breath hitched a little as he made eye contact with the man he had believed to have been killed.
“Doctor Lecter,” Jack spoke up, an uncommon expression of slight concern in his eyes at the sight of his friend in the back of an ambulance. “How badly hurt are you?”
The Lithuanian man paused to took a quick catalogue of his injuries before he replied.
His nose and mouth managed to stop bleeding, as well as his wrist, which had subsequently wrapped in gauze in order to prevent irritation or infection of the injury. His abdomen was also sufficiently bruised, no doubt along with a few cracked if not broken ribs which sent a twinge of pain whenever he took a deep breath. There was also the matter of Tobias’ — albeit brief — choking him. He recalled the glass table that had been shattered against his head as well as the still-bleeding stab wound in his leg. Apparently, Budge had been lucky enough to almost nick the posterior tibial artery and managed to both severely damage the ligaments and almost shatter the doctor’s kneecap. The paramedics were fairly concerned about that.
By the time Dr. Lecter had finished listing off his injuries to the two agents — and he made sure his voice was quivering in order to give off the impression of a man in pain and shock — both of the men looked thoroughly concerned about his wellbeing and convinced of his shock.
Before the conversation could continue, however, one of the paramedics — the one who was particularly concerned about Hannibal’s leg — loudly cleared his throat and raised one eyebrow.
“Look, it’s good you two care about your friend and all, but we have to start moving, need to make sure he gets into surgery for his knee soon, a look at his broken bones, and if he has any internal injuries we couldn’t find. So either get in the ambulance with us or get lost.”
The paramedic shocked all three of the men. But soon, after a quick glance between the two agents, Will Graham stepped up into the ambulance while Jack backed away.
Graham gave a quick and awkward smile to Hannibal, who returned it with a small and pained but genuine smile of his own before the ambulance’s doors shut and the paramedic returned and continued looking him over.
As the EMT continued to treat the most severe of his injuries, namely his leg, the psychiatrist looked over and made eye contact with the man he had assumed was gone for almost half of an hour.
“I feared you were dead,” Hannibal said after a few beats of silence, feeling the ambulance start to move.
His chest felt light with relief — although at the time, he would insist it was because of blood loss and broken ribs.
Will blinked in surprise and opened his mouth to respond, but was rudely cut off by a paramedic who was trying to do his job.
“Alright. Hannibal, was it? I’m going to need to ask you some questions and I want you to respond to the best of your abilities.”
Hannibal turned his attention back to the paramedic and gave him a silent nod, back to pretending to be in shock.
Hannibal woke up around early morning of the next day, head hazy from the anesthesia, post-operative fatigue and painkillers.
Tobias’ stab wound ended up having damaged the psychiatrists ACL, and was sent into surgery to try and prevent as much damage as possible, but it was most likely to leave his knee weakened, if not with a permanent limp.
Hannibal let his eyes open, squinting at the bright light above him. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, the psychiatrist looked around his temporary hospital room, taking in his surroundings.
“Hey.”
Hannibal turned at the sound of a voice, blinking at the bright light, finding the face of one Will Graham.
“Will… kur atsigauti po operacijos?”
The younger agent reared his head back in shock, before furrowing his eyebrows and shaking his head softly.
“English, Doctor Lecter. I don’t speak… that.”
It took Hannibal’s tired, drug-addled brain an embarrassing amount of time to realize he was speaking Lithuanian. Clearing his dry throat, he spoke again.
“Apologies. I… forgot to translate. I was wondering, this is the room for surgery recovery?”
The psychiatrist sat up in his bed a bit, his accent much stronger than usual as he spoke.
Will nodded as the man spoke, glancing at the knee thickly wrapped in bandages with a guilty look in his eyes.
Before he could say anything, however, a doctor entered the room, capturing Hannibal’s attention.
It had been barely two months since the attack, and Hannibal was still recovering, yet to continue seeing patients or host a dinner party. Most of his time nowadays was spent cooking extraordinary meals or composing music on his harpsichord, as he was doing now.
At the sound of his doorbell, Hannibal looked up from his harpsichord and frowned slightly. Who would visit at half-past seven in the evening without any sort of warning?
Just as he had this thought, a smile crossed his face as he realized just who of his acquaintances would dare be that rude.
Hannibal leaned to the side and grabbed the cane that had been lying against the harpsichord, before gently pushing the bench away from the instrument and standing up.
Gripping the cane in his left hand, Hannibal limped out of his study and into the hallway, then finding himself at his front door.
Hannibal opened the door and took a step back to allow the man into his home.
He smiled warmly, tilting his head slightly forward and down in a greeting nod to his dear friend.
“Will.”
“Hannibal.”