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The stars, the river, each blade of glass that is his angel is screaming. It echoes through the cosmos and bounces back, louder and louder, until the sound of his pain is enough to shatter Hannibal’s soul (and he’s sure, distantly, that it has—he’s sure a little shard of his soul has broken away trying to absorb Will’s pain from him), but he stays by Will’s side and waits. Waits, watches, debases himself to praying to a force higher than him that Will can find peace soon.
An idea takes him, then. A therapeutic technique he had refined while playing the life of Hannibal Lecter. He was drawn to therapeutic work the last hundred years or so, to figure out how to best comfort his angel when they finally met. He gets low and close, in Will’s line of sight, and gently traces his fingers in little spirals on Will’s skin.
“Sssh, sssshh, Will. Will. Look at my eyes. Listen to my voice. Just a moment, Will. Hm? Will.”
The repetition of his name attracts Will’s attention, and while he doesn’t stop screaming, it’s more than Hannibal could have ever asked for.
“You’re relaxing, now. Your body is heavy and sleepy, Will. You could fall asleep at any moment. You are safe and in that safety you find comfort in the sheets, lay back and feel them on your skin, feel how sleepy you are.”
His angel has stopped screaming, only letting out little whines and sobs. Hannibal could cry. He will, after Will goes back to sleep.
“So tired and so peaceful. You’re on the verge of sleep, body slowly sinking into it. Feel as your body goes down, down, down into its embrace as I count down. Ten. Your eyes close, your mind is calm and blank. Nine, your breathing slows, you’re sinking…one, you sink fully, giving into sleep’s siren call. Go to sleep now, Will.”
Hannibal doesn’t move a muscle as he watches his angel drift off until he’s sure, absolutely sure, he won’t disturb Will’s hard-fought rest. Even then, it’s only to move his head to better see Will’s sleeping frame. His angel, his angel. He is radiant in his rest, bringing beauty poets have gone mad trying to describe into this world with every breath. And he is here (thank you cosmos above, he is finally here) with Hannibal, and it is more than he could ever dreamed of or hoped for in his eons spent wandering the earth to lay eyes upon his love again.
And yet, he is in such pain. Will wakes more oftrn than not with a shriek that devolves into screaming fits, the lingering tatters of mortal consciousness at war with his immortal being. A human's soul is confined in flesh and bone. It cannot spread across the cosmos, it cannot be the clear water and the ripples across its surface and the sea grass under its waves and the flow of its currents and the light bathing it all in kisses, it cannot be more than one thing at a time, but here, Will is everything. His mind breaks experiencing everything that he is at once.
For Hannibal, it is enough. It is enough to have his angel again. He doesn't know or care how many times he has to calm Will from a nightmare or break in consciousness. Hannibal would have Will in any form. If bringing Will back to Hannibal but having him suffer every day of it in a way Hannibal cannot help was supposed to be a punishment from God, it failed. Hannibal having Will at all is enough.
Does Will hate him, though? For the terrors and screaming fits? For the mornings he can't understand where or what he is and if he is anything at all? He's asked Will two hundred times since they've come here. Will has promised that he doesn't regret this, that he wants this every single time. Hannibal will ask another two hundred times before the year's end. For all of Will's reassurances, it's never enough to chase away Hannibal's deepest fear. Nothing will ever be enough.
In showing Will eternity, Hannibal has brought Will eternal suffering.
Hannibal pads over to Will, still asleep with his face tucked underneath the blanket, and sits down next to him. He pulls the blanket back from Will's face with a hand to allow him to breathe better, an unnecessary, sentimental gesture from their mortal lives. His fingers reteat when they're grabbed by Will's still asleep arm. It's as if heaven and earth both say stay with me.
And he will. Hannibal has forever to stay with Will.