smallredboy

Title: a girl absent— from life and of life
Fandom: Hannibal (TV)
Rating: R
Length: 2k words
Content notes: Grooming, sexual abuse, adoptive incest and discussions of father/daughter incest.
Author notes: Bro I just am sad about Abigail all of the time. Also for the square "Coercion" in my genprompt_bingo card.
Summary: Five moments mark Abigail's relationship with Hannibal.

i.

It starts, as a lot of things do, with simple touch.

Hannibal is the touchy kind of dad, that's what Abigail gets, just like he was. He has no problem letting his affections be known in the privacy of his own home and in the privacy of the little place he keeps her at, that grand house by the bluffs, bigger than anywhere she has lived in before. For a while she was settled on the basement, but watching a woman be strangled by her new dad had proved to taint the place a fair amount.

So the house it was.

Hannibal is loving. Hannibal dotes on her. He brings her food that has no effort on masking it; it is human meat and Hannibal wants her to know it is, wants her to know what she's partaking in. Just like her father did, a voice in the back of her head keeps telling her. But she ignores it, because she has to ignore it, at this point. She can't do much but accept what she is and what she has partaked in to survive.

She wouldn't do this if she didn't always have the threat of death loom over her, of her brutal murder, of her entrails being fed to some unsuspecting guest. She likes to think that she wouldn't do this if she didn't have to.

She does not know if it is true, especially with Hannibal's words. He is kind, working hard to make her comfortable, a nice squeeze on the shoulder whenever she helps to cook and she does an okay job. He is generous, letting her stay in the bedroom that seems like it was used recently. He is nice, smiling at her and talking to her, touching her back gently, like a father would, like a father could, like a father should.

She doesn't understand why she sees his smile as nothing but teeth. Of course, she does understand— the silent threat of her death hanging over them— but there is something more about it. Something more sinister, hungry for her. She is not sure in what way it might be.

ii.

It starts with a conversation.

"Why do you think he wanted to kill me?" she asks one day during dinner.

Hannibal's face sours. They try not to talk about him. About her biological father. He is not your father, he said one day, his voice raising ever so slightly in a way it had never before and never since then. I am your father. He had apologized afterward, but it had made her scared, of the quiet anger rattling him. She had never seen Hannibal angry. She didn't want to see him angry again— she felt like it would end with him slitting her throat.

"I know it isn't because of anything I did," she adds quickly. "I got that. I just don't understand… why. Like, what were his motivations. For wanting to kill me."

"I do not think we will ever know for sure," Hannibal says, in a tone that was utterly evasive.

"But what are your theories?" she presses on.

Hannibal looks down at his meal. "This is too heavy a conversation for the dinner table, Abigail."

"We are eating people," she says. He frowns. "I can take it."

Hannibal draws in a sigh. He takes a sip of his wine and he looks away, at some point in one of the windows that show off the eroding bluffs. "I believe he wanted to kill you because of his own desires toward you."

Her eyes widen. "Are you saying he—"

"Will said he loved the girls he killed," Hannibal continues, his face schooled back into the same old neutrality. There is a twitch in the corner of his mouth. "But that he wouldn't touch them in any way. That he wouldn't disrespect them that way."

"My dad was good!" she exclaims. "He— he killed girls, I helped him kill those girls by being the lure, but he would never— he was never creepy!" She stands up.

"Abigail!" Hannibal exclaims, standing up as well. "Abigail, I told you it was too heavy for dinner. Sit down."

"He was never weird around me! He loved — he loved me! He didn't —" Tears are starting to fill her eyes, blurring her vision.

"Abigail," he says once again, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Calm down, Abigail. Shh. I am sorry for upsetting you."

"He didn't —" she chokes out before Hannibal pulls her into a hug, pressing her against his chest. She sobs into it.

He keeps shushing her, smoothing out her hair. "I know, I know. Maybe he didn't have those feelings for you. It is what I always have believed, though. Calm down, Abigail. He is dead. He cannot hurt you any more."

His lips are by her remaining ear.

"He is not your father anymore," he whispers, low and deep into her brain.

iii.

It starts with a bath.

"I'd prefer to be alone," Abigail says.

"I am your father now, Abigail," Hannibal says. Will would be added into the equation later, he told her, once he was out of prison. She couldn't help but resent him for framing him for his murders— they could be a family now, the three of them, but instead Will is in prison waiting for his trial to be interrupted, one way or another. "There is nothing strange about bathing with your father now, is there?"

She shrinks on herself a little, fiddles with her shirt. "I suppose there isn't."

He does nothing weird. That's what she would like to think, at least, among the nice rosy aroma of the bath bomb Hannibal put in, the way the bath is way too big for just her, so he fits perfectly in there, rubbing expensive lotions into her skin, making her pretty.

"You are such a great daughter, Abigail," Hannibal tells her. "I am so proud of you."

He isn't too proud of her. If she killed someone just for the joy of it he'd be prouder; if she brought a body to the kitchen he'd be prouder. He wants her to join the family business, and she refuses. And her life might hang on a shaky thread, but he respects that, at the very least.

"Thank you," she says, voice tight as he massages her shoulders.

All touch is innocent. All touch is nice. All touch is well meaning and fatherly.

Her stomach is all up in knots, but she knows it is because of what Hannibal told her about his suspicions. It made sense, although she could still not recall a single incident with her father that made her uncomfortable (that didn't involve murder). Perhaps he was right. But her father was dead now. She had seen his corpse, made it bleed some more. Her father was dead and she had a new dad.

A new cannibalistic murderer of a dad. But Hannibal was better than him, even if just because he never threatened her life verbally, even if just because he was a good cook and taught her how to play the harpsichord.

iv.

It starts with a lesson.

The harpsichord is like a piano. The harpsichord has a very distinctive sound, one that Abigail plays quick and easy, learning the notes with stunning speed. Hannibal is proud of her; not as proud as he might be if she indulged in other things, but he is proud nonetheless.

"You did such a good job, Abigail," Hannibal says behind her, and he kisses her.

Her eyes widen. "Dad—" she chokes out, face full of a well-known terror. Ever since Hannibal got that idea into her brain she has been having terrible nightmares.

His eyes widen right back, and he looks regretful. "Abigail, I am so sorry."

"Don't touch me—" she exclaims as she gets up, walking away from him, panting.

"In Lithuania it is common for parents to kiss their children," he says, arms raised, like he is asking not to attack him. She would if she wasn't a coward. "I got carried away in old memories of my mother pecking me on the lips. I am sorry, Abigail."

"How do I know?" she asks, voice strained with tears. "How am I supposed to believe that? You've been here for — decades! You know it's weird in most — in most families here, you know that I'd freak out because you kept saying those things to me —!"

"I'm sorry," he repeats, like that will fix anything. Like that will fix anything at all. "I did not mean to hurt you."

His eyes do not hold any regret in them.

"Oh, you did," she says. A bitter laugh leaves her mouth. "All of this was build-up toward — this, right? Make me afraid of him, threaten my life, keep being angry whenever I call him my father, touch me and bathe with me and fucking — all until you break and kiss me! Just so you can touch me!"

Hannibal's eyes do not change. He blinks once, twice. He licks his lips. "Yes," he says simply.

"Did you do this to Will, too?" she asks.

"No." He tilts his head. "I did not manipulate him for him to be okay with this part, necessarily. Did not need to. Rohypnol and light therapy tends to do the trick."

"You bastard," she chokes out. Her head hurts, blood roaring against her ears.

"You know what happens if you kick too much of a fuss, Abigail," Hannibal continues. "I really do not want to kill you. You are fun as it is. I have put too much time into you."

"Like a goddamn school project," she says through tears, a lump steady in her throat.

"Perhaps like that," he says. "I will carry you to the main bedroom, now."

Once upon a time, when his mask was on, he would ask her if she'd be okay with being carried. Now he does not ask, because he is not hiding his true intentions from her. He just picks her up sweetly, like he did when he was cutting off her ear. His hand ghosts over the scar. A reminder of it.

If you somehow escape, it says, you will still always be marked by his design.

v.

It ends with his fingers inside her.

She looks up at the ceiling, at the shapes on it, at the dust collecting in the corners. She tries to not think about what is happening to her. She tries to not think about the way her body reacts, the way he moves in such a way that tells her he has done this a thousand times before. She wouldn't know to say how many were like this and how many were not.

She is limp. She lets him in.

She sees his eyes again when she dares to look down. She sees the empty gaze of a predator, ready to swoop in on its prey.

And he does swoop in, fingers inside her, mouth against her neck, muttering praises she does not want to digest.

She looks back up at the ceiling, becomes fixated on one point in it.

("I didn't know what else to do, so I just did what he told me," Abigail chokes out, a few weeks later, bruises over her thighs. She wonders if they will be able to tell if it was from that, if she dies here as penance for Will's betrayal.

"Abigail," he says. There's recognition in his eyes, a sadness so deep it seems to swallow him whole. "Where is he?"

"We couldn't leave without you," Hannibal tells Will moments later, and her heart hurts, thinking about what that fantasy really meant. Having them both under him, under his rule, under his fist. The mere thought makes her sick with nausea.

"Come here, Abigail."

She obeys.

She knows what's coming.

"No, no, no, no—" Will begs, pressing his hand against his wound..

Don't go after him, is what she mouths to Will, desperate for him to understand, for him to listen to her, for him to not follow him. He must remember, right — he must remember what happened, what Hannibal did to him.

He slits her throat, and she falls onto the kitchen floor.)