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The decline of Will Graham has been more than just a professional interest for Hannibal. This is both a safety measure and a push for Will to see who he really is–who they both really are. Hannibal saw it that first day in Jack’s office, he hoped Will might have too, and maybe he did but he’s not going to give in without a fight, and god does Hannibal love a good fight. Maybe the cost of this is substantial, but everything good comes with risk, and Hannibal has no problem imposing risk upon people. Especially those he thinks are good for it.
From headaches to lost time to hallucinations, each new symptom has put him closer to setting Will up for his crimes, separating Hannibal from them by another degree, but also setting up so that Will can start to uncover his eyes from the heavy veil he’s draped over his face.
Whether this comes easy to him, that will be for Will’s own mind to decide, but Hannibal has chosen not to give him the gentle guiding hand that Will might wish for in this. Will, for all Hannibal has learned about his life, has never known it, and why should he know it now? Gentle would surely hurt his plans to save himself from impending arrest, gentle is as good as dead.
Will, on the other hand, is a rough sort of security that tiptoes the lines of his own gentleness. He is soil. He’s dirt, sand, clay, loam, and he needs Hannibal’s strong capable hands to mold him into what he should be. To strip away the parts of him that are unneeded, packed on from years of trying, trying, trying to be something society could stomach. He knows that underneath all of that is a man with similar interests to him, who needs life breathed into his lungs, and shown the way. God is not soft, he is forceful and demanding, and was Hannibal not created in his own image?
He also knows that because that man is in there, waiting for molding, that he’s worth the hassle. Whatever the outcome may be, he knows that Will is going to see what they both are, and he won’t pay for his own crimes.
Now, they’re sitting in his office. The conversation has been tip-toeing around Will’s supposed mental illness for the better part of an hour. He doesn’t want to talk about it and Hannibal finds that today he’s not so adamant about pressing the issue. Gentle he is not, but caring he finds he might be.
Something about the way Will needs him, how he seeks him out even as he suffers, when his mind is blank and he loses hours, has him growing fonder much sooner than he would like to. Even now, as he talks about his case instead of his declining mental state, Will seems to cling to every bit of Hannibal he can. He’s his paddle, especially in these hard times.
The clock ticks, a thrumming between them in the brief intermission of their words. He should pour him a glass of wine, offer him some sage advice on how to go about the next few days, or conflate a metaphor about god and Will’s eternal suffering at Jack Crawford’s hands, as is typical for them, but Will stands quickly when his watch beeps that it’s time to go.
Wound up, much more than usual, Hannibal finds himself curious as to what Will must have experienced today. Worse than his typical plight, something he can’t quite shake? Something he feels the need to keep from Hannibal, drawing a metaphorical line in the sand that he’s determined to cross the moment Will stops shaking like a kicked dog.
Will scrubs over his face, upset with his lack of progress on the case, with the possibility that he is just mentally unwell, and whatever happened in his mind that has him as pale as the day is long. He’s over it for the week, he’s upset with himself and everyone around him. Between conversations about Will’s latest case, Hannibal has tried to do a more in depth dive into his family life–which was a lot of back and forth about Louisiana and Mississippi, and his occasional summers in South Carolina.
What happened to his mother? She died. Why? Mental illness. How did that affect his father? He started drinking more than just at night. Why? Mental illness. How did this all affect Will? He became extremely religious, praying every night for a sign from god. What did he get? Mental illness. Or, the accusation of it, at least.
Will grabs his satchel and his jacket, hands shaking and face drawn tight. “I’ll see you next week.”
“Yes, of course.” Hannibal stands with him, mirroring his jostled movements with grace, and guiding him to the door with the ghost of a hand on his back. “Remember you can always call if you need anything, Will. I’m here for you.”
“I know,” he steps away from Hannibal, shouldering his jacket in one quick motion. His shaking hands take hold of the end of his jacket. “I’m fine.”
One of his newest symptoms is a lack of motor control. It comes and goes, like everything else that has come with Will’s encephalitis, but Hannibal hasn’t seen it before this moment. Will has complained, of course, that his hands aren’t doing what he wants them to (Hannibal says it’s because he’s getting older, because of the hard work he did as a teenager, because of genetics). It’s how Hannibal knows it’s time, it’s getting bad enough now, he just needs to wait for the perfect moment.
After a few seconds of this struggle, Hannibal can sense Will has silently started to panic. Whether from the embarrassment that it’s taking so long or the fact that he can’t get the insertion pin into the starter box at all, his hands somehow becoming useless, Hannibal steps in.
Deftly, he clasps the jacket together, zips it up slowly, and stops just before it reaches the top. Briefly, he holds his hand there, thumbing the tab, his knuckles brushing against Will’s chest, the wild racing of his heart present even through his layers.
Will swallows, “thank you.”
They’re close, probably closer than is good for either of them. Hannibal can smell the sweetness of his fever, the acrid undertones of his unvoiced fear, and when he looks into Will’s fever-glazed eyes, he sees a sudden conflict. A clearness of his surroundings that wasn’t there a few moments before met with something he’s fighting against.
Before him is a trembling man, wracked with a disease that only Hannibal knows about, suffering at his hand and by his will – he is Adam, but Hannibal finds that he might believe he’s Job.
The conflict in his eyes seems to disappear all at once and Will moves forward, kissing him gently. His chapped lips and facial hair are a sharp contrast against Hannibal’s skin, but Will kisses him tenderly, and after a few shocking seconds, Hannibal presses his hand flat to Will’s chest, letting the warmth of the moment take over him, and kisses him back without thought of the consequences.
When his other hand smooths over his shoulder, something comes over Will and he snatches away from him. The sudden realization of what he’s done falls heavy across his face and something akin to embarrassment takes over, the scent of it stronger than his fever, stronger than his fear.
“Oh my god, I’m–“ He’s opening the door behind him, grasping for it in a desperate attempt to flee from the scene. Running like his eyes have been open and he quickly needs to hide his naked form. “I’m sorry.”
Blinking, Hannibal waits a few moments, watching him catch hold of the door and wrench it open. “Will, it’s… quite alright.”
“That was inappropriate… I’ll,” he swallows as he forces himself out the door and away from Hannibal’s stunned face, “I’ll see you next week.”
The door slams, causing books to shake and a pen from Hannibal’s desk to roll off and clink against the ground. Will’s heavy footsteps can be heard as he makes his escape, and a part of Hannibal wishes he would turn back even though he knows he won’t.
He walks across his office to his desk once Will’s footsteps have disappeared, bending over to pick up the pen that fell and placing it back on his desk. He smooths his hands over his suit once, taking a silent, but strangled breath as he tries to consider what his next course of action should be.
It requires wine, or at least, he tells himself that it does. A glass of too-strong wine is poured for himself and he settles down at his desk. Contemplation was never supposed to make its way into his plan for Will this deep in, not like this, but despite the wine on his tongue, he can still taste Will’s lips against his. He can feel the scratch of his beard against his face.
That unsettles him, how easily his plan can feel uprooted by a mere kiss alone. Now he’s thinking, now he wonders. This is why there is no room for gentleness in his plans.
Tipping his head back, he quickly finishes the glass of wine in his hand. He needs more to get an adequate buzz, but anything to numb his senses is a blessing at this moment. The plan is in full swing, to change it now, to tell Will of his encephalitis–he’s falling apart before him, into his hands, everything is set in place waiting for the perfect moment. It would all be too much to undo, but what would he give to feel those lips against his again?