Chapter Text
The first thing he notices is that it's cold.
The second thing he notices is the pain. Like nothing he's ever felt before, not the burning heat of the encephalitis, not the stab wound in his shoulder, not the dog that bit him on the Greenville docks. Piercing and suddenly exposed, the knife skips through his abdomen in three agonizing tears. He can feel his insides straining to get out. Hannibal pulls him into an embrace, the only thing between them, Will's hands trying to hold himself together where Hannibal has gutted him. Like Will had gutted him. It's hard to focus on what Hannibal is whispering and how his hands are petting through his dripping hair, but he latches on to the acute stinging in order to focus on what Hannibal is saying.
"Time has reversed. The teacup I've shattered has come together. A place has been made once more in the world for Abigail. A place was made for all of us. Together. I wanted to surprise you." He pauses, breathing in their mutual pain. "And you... wanted to surprise me."
The words bleed together, compound on each other. Will starts to tremble and it judders his thoughts. He's still processing the afterimage of Abigail, pale and beautiful and frightened.
The realization solidifies in a horrifying visage of crimson; that quiet night of communion, burning the doctor's notes and moving the home that is Hannibal. The scent of Freddie's overpowering perfume had been difficult to wash away. Clearly, he hadn't scrubbed hard enough. Hadn't rubbed his skin quite raw enough to shed the layer of skin that held its particles.
"I let you in. I let you know me. I let you see me." accused Hannibal. That he did, it was the reason for their broken pieces feeling so blessedly whole when they were together. He has to make him understand.
"You wanted to be seen." Will gasps out. The effort it took to form those simple words nearly threw him into full-blown shock.
Hannibal acknowledges this with a sharp inhale of frustration.
"By you. A rare gift I've given you. But you didn't want it." No, no, no that isn't right, why can't he see? He'd called ahead, he had warned him, he had made up his mind, even without knowing that a broken Alana awaited him on the steps and a very much alive Abigail awaited him in the kitchen. Unable to stand with the anguish and the blood loss, Will sinks to the ground, out of Hannibal's arms, and falls heavily against the cabinets, using them to prop his head up. Shoes slipping through his own puddle of blood expanding on the floor he sobs out, "I did.", the tears that threaten to fall are ones of acute desperation. He has to push through the agony, the black around the edges of his vision seeping in, " I... I called you, warned you."
Hannibal pauses, panting softly from both physical and emotional exertion. Mouth twitching slightly over his teeth, he licks his bloody upper lip.
"You, like Judas, ask for forgiveness after the fact." Hannibal pinches his thumb and forefinger into the furrow of his brow. "If you were standing where I am now, would you look so easy on me? Lay down your knife and offer the promise of comfort and care?"
Abigail interjects the charged conversation, "Please, he let you know they were coming, he let us know they were coming! You can't abandon what you've asked for." She comes no closer to the two of them, she knows how volatile this exchange has been and could be.
"Abandonment requires expectation." Will flinches as his words are thrown back in his face, but he knows Hannibal better than that.
"We cautiously want the world from each other," his breath rattles, "and deny it when we get it."
Hannibal's breathing slows minutely as he processes what Will is saying. He had been unconsciously looming further over Will as their honesty poured between them and he straightens. The linoleum knife he had been holding in his white-knuckled grasp shifts and catches the light. Will's eyes don't waver from Hannibal's.
Will desperately reaches out one final time, one more warning to rebuild that shattered trust. Summoning the last of his strength before he passes out, he gasps out, "Called ERT on the... way in...12 min...utes, please, Hannibal."
The last thing he registers is the minuscule softening of the doctor's mouth at the use of his first name.