Chapter Text
Hannibal's visit fractures Will's routine and the kind of life he leads, one he has survived with. Despite everything, he has missed him; the images in his memories don't do him justice. It's also the anger that envelops him in the face of the alpha's arrogance in finally showing up, trying to explain the inexplicable.
It's the feelings that pull Will out of his numbness.
It's not that he has turned the page, but he feels like he's walking towards an epilogue. The daily pain that accompanies him, that overwhelms him when he sees children, when the loneliness is unbearable, becomes warm and stops burning him.
It's one of the parts of love that Will feels and that shames him, that reminds him of Alana's incredulous face, unable to comprehend how he could still love Hannibal so much.
It's also inexplicable.
Because while Will doesn't understand how he still loves Hannibal (or understands it all too well: his art, his intelligence, his emptiness, and his monstrous humanity), he also can't forgive him as he has done before, for so many other wrongs. It's the breaking of his trust, of his omega side, that prevents him from doing so and asking the alpha to come back into his life.
But Will needs him. In such a sick way, it comforts him to know that Hannibal wants to return to him. Because he does believe that the monster loves him; seeing him kneeling before him, his profile dissolving into the unknown, terrified by the feelings, can only verify his love. However, trusting in his promise is not a risk Will is ready to take because he couldn't survive another mistake.
Will plays with his dogs, fixes broken things, and fishes. He feels the weight that sank him for so long lifting: his adaptability shining once again.
He decides to call the alpha again, leaving a message.
Will settles into his armchair, a glass of whiskey on the table and a cozy fire that makes him feel in that dreamlike space that allows honesty.
He reveals more things, tells Hannibal about how he found out about the pregnancy, about the panic he felt at the beginning and his desires, later, to stay by his side. Will explains the awakening from the coma, the feeling of emptiness, the maternal and psychological pain he experienced, which led him to decide not to travel to Europe but to try to heal, leaving everything behind.
A new message becomes another.
It's not until the fourth, where Will confesses the moment he realized he felt more than simple sympathy towards Hannibal, when the encephalitis still ignited his mind, and how much it hurt him to believe that he was just a toy, that he receives a response back in his own inbox: Hannibal's voice is almost terse, without grand declarations and allegories.
"Will," he begins, and Will closes his eyes and curls up with his dogs in his bed, thinking of Hannibal by his side, in a reality where there's still a space that can be rebuilt, "it's such a strange sensation that you provoke in me. It's an inconvenient compassion that has disarmed my life, even my mental palace. There's no word I can give you to show you the existence of my empathy; I can only assure you that not even my culinary passions satisfy me. You have taken hold of me," his tone is low but hoarse, "and in understanding this sensation, I also suffer from understanding how irreparable this is, my actions."
And Hannibal repeats his name in a sigh.
Will sends him another message, this time talking about his love for dogs, telling Hannibal that he had one just coming out of adolescence when he finally stayed in one place after a life of moving around. He talks about his first heat, of nerves and fear and feelings of insecurity, of not being enough, feeling so broken and failed. Will talks about how he adapted, believing his loneliness was so inevitable that he courted it until he lived in the woods, away from everything.
Hannibal responds with a long message full of direct words, without his flowery language. About a terrible winter. Of the loss that only sharpened the monstrous fate he had been dragging since his early childhood. Of the joy in the hunt, in the superiority he found in Italy when he first created such magnificent art. Of mediocre courtships with omegas to strengthen his image, of disdain towards bonds and relationships, of how he could live off playing with others.
These indirect conversations are an intimacy that Will missed, as sick as it sounds. It's the sum of those afternoons in Hannibal's office when he was still his anchor and Will trusted him. But also of the days of complex and dark confessions when Will sought evidence in every word.
And more, because it is, for the first time, naked love, without metaphors or considerations. Will tells it to the voicemail, almost without embarrassment, because loving Hannibal is already natural, inevitable, he has tried so hard to avoid it.
He whispers, "You broke my heart, and I'm still here, loving you. I see myself as a fucking case study because of the level I'm at and I can't escape from, it would be a damn good bibliographic reference.”, he breathes and continues, “Maybe I would get over you, with effort, if I hadn't seen you again, if I had found closure between us."
"Saying you're my beloved is not an epithet," Hannibal asserts, as if reciting Dante, "it shapes a reality that I don't want to exist only in my mind. I consider it a quantum miracle that I never would have imagined possible. Will you believe in my regrets? It's fatal for me, too, to know that every action led me to this, to this understanding. It's a vicious evolution for which I made you suffer and now and like this, only wanting...," a pause consumes the alpha for a few seconds, "... wanting to give you the world and listen to you, I can't grant you anything."
The silence chokes them both.
Alongside the messages, Will also sees Hannibal in the town, and sometimes he feels him lurking around his cabin. He doesn't ask him for his address, fearful of what he would do with that information. And the animal in him feels safe knowing that the alpha is there, close to him.
He's still in limbo but no longer of hopelessness and pain. It's a limbo of guilt for feeling this way, realizing that although he hasn't forgotten anything, he's forgiving him, that he wants to be with Hannibal, feel his kisses and experience his love, without torture or games.
The deaths of Beverly, Abigail, his little one, stop him. But he's so tired. Would it be an aberration to take the step? Will doesn't want to keep suffering, of that he's sure.
So he makes another call, needing to receive something he doesn't know if he can or deserves to have.
"If you loved me, you would stop," Will says finally, wanting to change everything, to open a door, "We would run away perhaps, start anew. I would let you teach me about art and hedonism, and you would accompany me fishing. We would build our nest like all those times I imagined it."
The voicemail cuts off, and for a moment Will thinks it's the end. That he asked for too much, until he hears the tone connecting live and Hannibal's hopeful voice, "I could for you, Will. I would, I'm not a vulgar pathology."
Will’s hands tremble as he listens, this small contact, so far and yet so close. Faced with the truth that he can only reflect. "I wouldn't ask you to, I wouldn't want to tie you down, Hannibal. But knowing it, comforts me," he bites his lip, feeling the tears in his eyes. He continues, "I don't think I can offer you a family, that's out of the question right now, it would kill me to have to face that possibility."
"It's your law, your decision. Will, allow me to prove to you that I won't fail you again. Please," he begs, and Will can see Hannibal on his knees in his imagination, begging him for this chance, so different from all the times he has been at the alpha’s mercy.
Will has never known the moment he decides an action. He's always a slave to them, part of his disorder is the unpredictability that drags him into not stopping to think about arguments, reasoning, and common sense.
It's like that now. When Will answers, his stomach tight and his heart beating so hard, the words come easily, "Come now, alpha. Come now and let's see how our story continues."
Will hangs up, feeling complete in this beautiful moment, accepting and fighting and seeing a way out. It's a shared metamorphosis.
And, minutes later, Will feels so alive when he hears the knock on the door.