Chapter Text
“With all of my knowledge and intrusion, I could never entirely predict you.”
Will allowed himself to be stilled. He allowed himself to be held, if only momentarily. If only to prevent himself from doing something he would regret.
"You will not regret it." Came whispering from the recesses of his mind.
“I can feed the caterpillar, and I can whisper through the chrysalis, but what hatches follows its own nature and is beyond me.”
The smile on Hannibal’s face was built of adoration and reverence. He could feel Hannibal quietly worshipping and recording every detail of this moment for his Memory Palace. Will briefly resented the intimate knowledge that he had of Hannibal, the ability he had to see through that carefully crafted person suit as though it were merely cellophane. He could not blind himself now, though. Will tried not to let himself slip into the glaring fracture in Hannibal’s mask, but it was inescapable. An event horizon of eyes seeking connection and a sickening glimmer of hope for something beyond their tense cat and mouse game. His stomach turned but he was not able to to decipher if the sensation was from butterflies or bile.
When he finally dragged his gaze up to Hannibal’s, the millisecond of time between Hannibal looking at his lips to meeting his eyes sent another wave of nauseous excitement through him. He felt his face and teeth begin to lose feeling as though they were falling asleep, something that only happened during the height of his panic attacks. His arms too were feeling the mad rush of adrenaline as though he was staring face down with death. Finally, he understood that he was.
Over the event horizon and into the black hole he went. Hannibal’s yearning to be seen, truly and wholly, was overwhelming. He saw a true match in Will but could not risk the devastation of rejection on any level, so he withheld his desire for kinship as desperately as he could. Will felt the slipping grip of Hannibal’s wrought iron will power, but couldn't do anything to stop it. He felt the warring priorities of maintaining walls so high no one could dream of climbing them and the deep need to bring Will through the gates anyway. He would risk it all for that chance. Somewhere in the midst of this desire and fear, the soulless weight of the Ripper that lived behind Hannibal’s mask reminded Will that rejection was not a possibility, no matter what the more vulnerable sides of Hannibal might fear. In all things, the Ripper was final.
Will tried to retreat away from the tsunami of understanding that was beginning to drown him, but his “gift” was feeding freely and gluttonously. It drank in the desire to be understood and mimicked that feeling back until he was beginning to be caught in a cycle of want that didn’t even belong to him. From the deepest trenches of his fear, the cruel whisper of Garret Jacob Hobbs asked him again and again and again: “See?”
He did see. He saw it all.
And then his head was tilted ever so slightly up and he saw nothing. For a moment, he saw nothing but Hannibal’s closed eyes. They were much closer than they had been before he fell into them. He had been mercifully returned to himself but he did not know why or how.
For that blessed second, he saw nothing. But then, he felt everything .
Hannibal was kissing him. Hannibal was closer because he was kissing Will and Will thanked the God he did not even remotely believe in that Hannibal had closed his eyes. He was sure this would have caused a seizure, encephalitis or not.
Everything crashed around Will at once. He considered the possibility that the explosions in his ears and chest were not his own, but he had enough practice pulling himself apart from those he empathized with that he knew this was his own mind crumbling in on itself.
Will’s mind erupted into a screaming match of panicked thoughts. “ What is he doing?” “What am I doing?” “I am going to shoot him.” “Grab the gun.” “I am not going to shoot him.” “Grab the gun anyway.” “You want this.” “I do not want this.” “Pull away for Christ’s sake.” “Do not move, he will kill you before you even finish the thought.” “What is he doing?” “What are we doing?” “What is happening?” “Why are you pretending you are surprised?”
Will felt his heart stop and start and stop again. His hands broke out in a sweat and his stomach dropped while a blush creeped up his neck. For every physical feeling he had ten more emotions tearing him apart inside. Embarrassment at being kissed out of the blue by his own goddamned therapist in front of a man who just crawled out of a fucking horse. Reluctant joy at finally knowing what exactly Hannibal wanted from him, and knowing that he wasn’t just a plaything to Hannibal. At least, not the entire time they had been together. A cruel sense of pride in knowing he was just given the upperhand and a fatal weapon with which he could strike Hannibal down. With that came the confusion. Would he want to strike him down? Would he want to give up the chase that he had rebuilt his entire life for? Sure he wanted to punish Hannibal and get his pound of flesh for all the pain he had endured at his hands, but was that it? Could he really say there was nothing else there?
No, he couldn’t. There was more. He knew there was more.
There was the comfort in knowing that Hannibal was the only person in Will’s entire life who did actually care for his well-being. At least for any suffering that he did not personally get to inflict. There was the undeniable, skin-crawling connection they shared. He had spent months reminding himself that any positive feelings he may have toward his “friend” was entirely a reflection of Hannibal’s feelings toward Will. How could he possibly harbor anything but hatred for the Chesapeake Ripper? The man who killed his- who killed Abigail. Who brainwashed him and worsened his encephalitis out of curiosity. The man who made him chicken soup and did not cower from Will’s growing darkness. He could not extricate one from the other. On the few occasions when he did allow the idea to cross his mind that perhaps he would not want to see Dr. Lecter in a glass prison for the rest of his days, nor in a coffin, Will had to wash down the disgust at himself with whisky. What a pathetic creature he must be to cling to the affections of this monster. What a pathetic creature he must be to indeed feel affection for the monster himself.
Before this moment he couldn’t even admit to himself while blackout drunk that the most terrifying feeling of them all was the small, cancerous mass of “Want”. He couldn’t stomach it before, but it was choking him now. Every other feeling was starting to dye with the rose color of it. He tried to grip on to any other feeling to ground him back to reality, but reality was quickly rearranging itself in front of him and taking any reasonable choice with it.
And then it was over. Hannibal released his lips and straightened up a bit, making sure to re-assert their height difference. Notably, he did not let go of Will’s head.
Will stared forward silently, lips barely parted.
After exactly 25 seconds, (Hannibal counted), Will slowly and gently removed himself from Hannibal’s grasp. Hannibal allowed it, stepping back and stitching his person suit together. He breathed deeply, doing what he could to memorize Will’s scent before he was forced to murdered him. This was going to hurt Hannibal, but he was going to ensure Will felt every ounce of that hurt along with him.
“Give me the gun.” Will said, putting his hand out, palm up.
Hannibal stopped his internal lamenting and raised an eyebrow. “If I recall, you said you would prefer to kill me with your own hands. Am I mistaken?”
Will raised his eyes to meet Hannibal's, and Hannibal saw nothing but cold clarity in them.
“It’s not for you.”
Hannibal took a beat to consider, then handed the gun to Will and stepped away from him. He made sure to be place himself behind Will so that he could react appropriately should Will surprise him once more.
Will did not take a beat to consider. He raised the gun, drew back the hammer, and fired directly at Peter’s social worker.
Silence grew in the aftermath of the deafening shot. Time passed, though Will did not care to keep track of it. He had lowered the gun after shooting, but he did not holster it or re-engage the safety. He stood and he thought.
After enough time had passed that he was sure he could move without firing again out of pure anger, he turned to face Hannibal.
“I did that for myself.” He said, his voice thick with anger.
Hannibal breathed in, preparing himself to lunge at the next opportunity.
“I did it so I wouldn’t do it to you.” Will stated. “And also because he deserved it. But mostly I did it so I wouldn’t shoot you. You are a lot of things, Hannibal, but discourteous is not one of them.”
For the fifth time that evening, Hannibal was genuinely surprised.
“Forgive me, I don’t find it ‘gentleman-like’ to kiss someone with absolutely no prelude or warning. On top of taking away my firearm and my revenge, might I add.”
Hannibal tried to open his mouth, but he did not get far.
“No, Hannibal. For once in your life, keep your clever bullshit to yourself. What you are going to do now is finish staging this scene since I know you are more than capable of doing it. I am going to talk to Peter and let him know that I shot his social worker in self defense and that you were witness. Once I am done with that, I will call Jack and get the team out here to deal with this.” Will stopped and sighed. He re-engaged the safety and holstered his weapon. He brought his eyes back up to Hannibal’s.
“The second we are cleared from the scene, you are taking me back to Wolf Trap so that I can take care of the dogs. And after all of that is done…” Will paused. He looked long and hard at Hannibal, seeming to work out something in his mind.
“After all of that, we are going to have a long conversation about where we go from here. No games, no outright lies or sins of omission. To prevent you from doing something that I will make you regret, I will tell you now that.. What you just did was not unwelcome. But I need whisky and some goddamn honesty before there are any other decisions made. And don’t expect me to be happy about it. Got it?”
Hannibal blinked once and then blinked again. He quickly glanced at the ground to ensure Will hadn’t actually shot him a few moments ago and that everything he was hearing wasn’t a hallucination.
“Hannibal, I need an answer.” Will did his best to keep his voice and hands steady.
Hannibal accepted that reality was indeed stranger than fiction and cleared his throat. “Of course. I will only need a moment.”