Chapter Text
He craves change.
He doesn’t realize that’s what he wanted when he gave in to Jack’s hounding him back on a case.
Or maybe that’s a lie too, like the one he created with Molly and Walter. His true shame is in understanding why Hannibal gave Dolarhyde his address.
Will knows it’s because he would never find the courage to leave them. He couldn’t admit it to himself how much he wanted to be with Hannibal. To admit it out loud to her? Impossible.
Hannibal gives the needed push to get her to leave first. The home invasion is just a cover, all to protect Will from the web of lies he’d created for himself.
Hannibal doesn’t need a cover. Maybe once, a long time ago, he had. But times have changed too.
Now, he has no filter. He is direct about his desire for Will. Brazen about it, in fact.
Will does not have that luxury. There are conventions in place. Appearances. He is still, stunningly, working for the FBI.
Hannibal blatantly asks Will not to go home. To stay in Baltimore and remain with him. He has left it, again, for Will to decide to join him. His stomach churns at the thought.
How would it look if he didn’t?
Before the home invasion, every night, like a good husband, he calls Molly when he returns to the motel and tells her about his day. She doesn’t know how it took everything to set aside his thoughts of how incredible it was to see Hannibal, how the cheap bed creaked as he fantasized about Hannibal’s hands stroking him. How on edge Hannibal makes him, in every single way. He can feel his blood pumping through his veins long after he leaves the glass cell.
He wishes Molly would focus on soothing his fractured mind. But she’s wrapped up in their simple life. His fantasy is like a mistress waiting in the wings of their marriage. Where everyone is able to pretend, but Hannibal, threatening to make his entrance into the zoo.
+++
Will stands before Jack, resplendent after receiving his first feast after three years.
Three years in captivity. A jail he created of his own making – to remain separated from his husband.
No one can say he didn’t try. No one can say Jack found him a broken man. Will had been determined to survive Hannibal after he surrendered. He ate. He slept. He remarried.
Maybe he tried too hard to pretend that Hannibal was dead to him.
Bedelia is proof that survival is possible, with dazzling results. As much as he hated her, Will would give her that. Her speaking engagements alone bring in six figures. Her consultations and TV appearances have made her rich and famous, but the sight of her pity tour, as he calls it, makes him sick. The distinction being Will made a conscious effort not to benefit from his association with Hannibal. What they had was private.
And yet even Hannibal tosses privacy in the wind when he stands across from Will. He knows Alana is listening. Watching.
Still, he struts toward Will, like a peacock completing his courting ritual, spreading his extravagant plumage for all to see. His usual gorgeous mane of hair shorn horribly. His colorful ensemble gone. If Will could toss the professional shackles aside, he would have told him, breathless, how beautiful he looks. How he doesn’t need any adornment. He must know that a peacock’s natural predator is a mongoose.
Will cannot take his eyes off of him. Even if he had wanted to, he doesn’t think he could have done it.
He is lost in Hannibal’s presence. It takes all of his concentration not to throw himself at the glass and scream about what a mistake he’s made.
Despite all the magnetism radiating from Hannibal, he plainly hands over to Will all the power in their twisted, obsessive dynamic. Will’s presence is a gift, his parting torture. Will can at least pretend he doesn’t need to drink him in. Hannibal, however, looks how Will feels.
In hindsight, they can only blame themselves for being unfulfilled. The whispers about them being lovers are lies. They never touched. Another mistake. They should have explored every aspect of their intimacy while they had a chance. And now they are left raw and vulnerable in the face of some release. Left starving for the other.
Over the years apart, Will’s imagination makes up for it.
When his head hits his pillow at night, Will lets himself linger in the memories they formed together. Dreaming of what could have been -- his lips on his lips, his arms wrapped in his arms, his thrusts taking his breath away -- and when he awakens, Will has to bite back the sigh of his name.
Nighttime isn’t the worse. During the day, making sure he is alone, out of earshot, he will let it slip out, his secret sigh. It calms him. Life After Hannibal is precarious. There was everything and then there is nothing. And that is when he’s being honest with himself.
As he heads into the familiar halls of the BAU, Will hopes that Jack doesn’t notice how he’d dressed for Hannibal. All in black. A bulky, overlong shirt to hide any reaction his body may have to the sight of the man. His hair swept off his forehead in soft waves so Hannibal could see his scars, knowing without hesitation that every time he looks in the mirror he is reminded of their time together. “See me,” he is practically begging of Hannibal, since morality has his voice in a grip.
Despite the glass wall, the intimacy that has always been between them knows no bounds. That’s what frightens Will now. Not all the horrible things that Hannibal has done to him, to Beverly, to their daughter and others. It is the ache that has settled in the scar tissue along his stomach that threatens to tear into his face and rip through the vice he has around his tongue.
Now, Will longs for a deeper intimacy. A war is raging between his mind and his body, and he fears his body may win under this flame that is attacking his forts.
He fears his heart may betray everything to get what it wants. Especially seeing for himself that Hannibal doesn’t hate him for his loss of freedom.
If anything, his devotion seems deeper. The years forgotten. They could start again, as if nothing ever happened.
Jack remembers everything though. Will stands before him, back in the belly of the BAU, and the memories rush back to him. How could they not? He knows Will called Hannibal to warn him. He knows Will went to Italy for Hannibal. He knows why Will went to see him.
If anyone knows of his true feelings towards Hannibal, it’s Jack.
If he can fool Jack about the flush in his cheeks after seeing Hannibal, then Will is truly a wolf among men. He will not lie if Jack asks. Jack is his friend too. He almost died in Hannibal’s pantry that fateful night.
When Will was coming up in the police ranks, he used to hear the jokes about the women who would visit the killers in jail. Who would marry Charles Mason and his ilk? And why? Letters and panties and marriage proposals abound for these predators. But they are just men, after all. Needing, craving, consuming.
Will wonders what they will say about him?
Hannibal is the king of the monsters. And Will is his fool orbiting around a great and forbidden sun.
Hannibal had sensed how desperately Will needed to see him. How irresistible a caged animal is to look at.
The moment Will held his gaze across the glass he knew he’d have to set Hannibal free. Anyone could see Hannibal was at his breaking point. How much longer could he last like this? Especially if Will left him once again.
Jack is staring at him, waiting for a response. Will catches himself.
“Hannibal is my husband,” he wants to say. “He gave me a child and took her away. And still, I love him.”
But Jack doesn’t ask what Hannibal is to him now. Apparently, he doesn’t care what Will needs or what his own agenda is to help him slay this Dragon. He only cares about the case and any insights Hannibal gave him. And so that’s the dance. He gives Jack what he wants, and hopefully, Jack will play along when the orchestra starts for Hannibal’s escape.
+++
He has never felt such intimacy until he finally holds Hannibal in his arms. It pains him to think about it. Penetrating his veins. Taking hold of every curve and valley of his being. That’s why he had kept him at arm’s length for so long. He would have been consumed by Hannibal’s touch.
“…Hold him well,” Bedelia had admonished.
Tears spring to his eyes whenever he thinks about it. If anyone were to accuse him of wanting to kill Hannibal, he would say it was an act of love. Of mercy.
The world would not leave them alone. Would not allow them to be together so why stay. Why remain, if he couldn’t have the man.
Of all people, it is Hannibal who has changed. The monster lurks, without question. But he can taste the man that he could have been, that he could still become.
Their past shatters into a million pieces in the roiling Atlantic.
They are cleansed.
They are still clinging together when they surface and take the first breath of their rebirth together.
Will never lets go even when a wave threatens to rip Hannibal from his embrace. Hannibal floats against him and leans his head into the crook of Will’s neck. He trusts that Will can decide whether to finish the job… or not.
The tide sweeps them into the grooves of the rocks, gaining only scratches from their jagged edges. The boulders are exposed in the low tide. Will navigates them easily to shore.
They are one as they sink into the beach of the cove, fumbling and gasping their way around this new heartland. Will can’t hear the voices anymore that tell him this is wrong and he should stop. He finds Hannibal’s mouth and steals his lips into his own.
They are shaking, even though the sun is rising and the heat warms their skin. Their injuries and the cold are inserting themselves into their new reality. Life can be so cruel in its timing.
The intensity in Hannibal’s eyes is usually directed only for him, but the world is fading around Will. Hannibal is frantic and savage as he stares up at the sky. Will tries to jerk himself out of the pull of the shadows, alarmed. If they are indeed alive, he never meant for it to end in this way.
He reaches for him again to bring Hannibal close, but he grabs nothing but air. He feels death is sweeping down on him. A bird catches his eye, and seems to mock his descent into darkness.
His last thought is his visit to Castle Lecter.
Will knew that if Hannibal were to die, he would want to be buried beside his sister. He tracked down and reached out to Hannibal’s uncle over the years. Robertus had ignored his letters at first, and then their meetings became a source of comfort and connection. Will had promised to call him before the vultures could get Hannibal’s body.
Hannibal recognizes the insignia on the helicopter and watches with dread as the sand halos around them. He crushes his body over Will’s as the copter hovers over them, realizing too late that Will has passed out and is sending him home.