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He pushes the door open tiredly, tossing his keys onto the table, not even blinking as the lights rise to reveal Hannibal sitting in the chair to his left, a shining knife curled in his grasp, Winston curled at his feet.
The coat goes next, and then his bag, on the hook, on the floor, a frustrated shake of his head and then a low laugh with a crooked smile. “Did you come here to kill me, Doctor Lecter?” His shoes he toes off, fingers running through his hair before the silence stretches too long for his liking and he looks over at Hannibal, eyebrows raised. The knife shifts in the other’s grasp but he answers with a shake of his head and Will sighs again. Exhaling as though Hannibal were merely difficult, as though he weren’t a trained killer with a dangerous weapon in his hand.
“Well.” He manages to grit out, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m pretty damn exhausted, so if it’s alright by you, I’m going to sleep. If you want to kill me, or whatever it is you came here to do or not, enjoy yourself.”
Hannibal just looks at him, there’s something glimmering in his eyes, something just below the surface, but Will refuses to search out the ache of it. “Or you can just sit there, I guess, and stare mutely if that’s better for you.”
He strips down and pulls back the covers, doesn't think about how much wilder Hannibal looks, how disheveled the normally immaculate hair is, how much mud is caked onto the bottom of his pants...How much it bothers him to see those things at all.
It’s when he’s laid down that the other finally speaks. “You are not going to call them?” There’s a hesitance, a strange vulnerability to it, and Will laughs, laughs, because his life has been flipped upside down and he doesn't know what to do anymore. Doesn't know which side is up or which way to go.
“Hannibal.” He says it for the the first time directed towards the other, tasting the word on his tongue, and saying it again, because he’s started counting the minutes they have left together and his whole being twists that he cares, hates himself for it. “Hannibal. I am tired, your fault.” As though that’s the only thing he has to blame the other for. “And I am going to bed. I don’t want police cars swarming my house, I don’t want a fight to the death, I want to shut my eyes. If you want to run, then run, if you want to sit there, sit there. If you’re not here to kill me, I don't know what the hell you want.”
He shuts his eyes and when he opens them Hannibal is still staring at him, still with that look and he groans, letting his head fall back with a thump, that hate twists deeper. “Fine.” He mutters. “Fine. But you leave that over there, I’m not letting knives near my pillow. If that’s how you like to do things, I don’t care.” He’s berating Hannibal for all these nonsensical things, as though they matter, but he can’t seem to stop, the words are choking him, forcing their way from his throat even as they cut it like daggers. “I don’t care.” He repeats for good measure.
He feels the gaze sizing him up, then the other rises, the knife falling on his counter with a clatter as Hannibal comes towards him, his fingers working deftly at the suit, at his tie, and then he crawls into Will’s bed for the first and last time and Will allows it. Allows his onetime friend turned enemy turned something else altogether to lay down next to him half naked. The other’s body seems suspended for a moment, hesitating and then he curls closer, the heat of him stable, radiating.
Up close, he can see how tired Hannibal is, the same exhaustion that comes curling off Will, two fold on him. He tenses for a minute as Will shifts wordlessly, brings their bodies together. Hannibal’s skin on his own feels like skin and nothing more, deceptively, deceptively human. The sudden urge to crush and bruise it fills him, but he stems the tide.
“Will you come with me?” The voice breaks through, casts him somewhere else entirely, his lips curling, a huff of dark laughter coming out of him. But for some reason when he opens his mouth, the words have fled, his throat constricting tightly, and he shakes his head.
Hannibal’s lips thin and his eyes close. “I thought not, but even so, you will forgive my hoping.”
Will nods, still mute, and Hannibal seems to debate a moment, as they lie together, the struggle working itself across the deep lines in his face, over his still closed lids. When he opens his eyes again, Will’s empathy sucks him right in, a childish voice echoing in his brain, little glimmers of humanity that he’s never seen in the other rising to the surface. He knows they’re nothing but echos, broken pieces of a child that Hannibal holds somewhere deep in his heart, crushed to nothing but a fine dusting, a constellation of a life broken. And he, Will realizes with a hard swallow, he will likely never know by what. He leans forward, his fingers stroking through Hannibal’s hair, reaching out and touching the faint remains of a child crying, of what might have been and won’t ever be now, feels the pain of the pieces, the joy, the human emotion that never returned. Hannibal is showing him the parts of him despises, the only little shards that are left, is making the effort for Will, and he sees enough to know it would be pointless to ask for more.
The illusion brightens for a moment under his touch and then fades with another blink, and only the coldness of stone remains behind, sharp and beautiful, but empty, warmed only by whatever version of affection the other has for him. The thought strikes him fiercely. After that, it doesn't matter if it’s he who leans in first or if it’s Hannibal, but suddenly their lips are meeting, the searing kiss shooting straight through him, and he lets himself have it, lets it consume him, memorizes the feeling and the touch before he pulls away, breaks the spell, breaks some other things, but is determined not to break himself any more than he has already, than he can handle.
“Good night.” He whispers hoarsely and shuts off the light, closing his eyes. Hannibal doesn't protest the lost, only rests his head on Will’s chest as his breathing slows. This man, this monster, this murderer of so many that Will had let into his life and now into his bed, that he will miss without understanding, that he will hate and grieve and love, maybe forever. He gives himself this moment without guilt, because there will be no other time for him to have it.
His arm finds Hannibal’s waist and pulls him closer. Eventually, without his express consent, sleep finds him.
In the morning, the other is gone, he is no less unsurprised than when he found him in the chair to begin with, not even the knife remains, only the cooling heat on his pillow and the table set for one, breakfast sprawling across it, speak to the remains of the other’s ghost. He blinks away the ache and rises to his feet, says his silent goodbyes and picks up the phone, dials Jack’s number.
“He was here.” His mouth forms and he hangs up.
Whatever happens now scarcely matters, one way or another it’s come to an end.
He sits, he eats, he goes on.