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It's a lazy day for them. The autumn sun is low on the horizon and the whole world seems so quiet and calm. Soft light shines through the windows of their home and strangely it feels like all is right in the world. Currently Will is standing in front of the open fridge in their kitchen. There it is, right next to a pair of kidneys, his testosterone. Will takes it out of the fridge and sets it on the kitchen table. He checks twice if he has got everything. Testosterone, needles, swabs, sharps bin, he's all set up. It's been decades since his first injection, it's not really exciting anymore the way it used to be, it's just routine at this point. Back then there was this buzz to it, this feeling of finally having it, that joy of finally becoming oneself.
Suddenly Will is startled out of his thoughts by a smooth voice.
“Would you like my assistance?”, Hannibal says leaning in the kitchen doorway.
“I can do it myself”, Will says calmly. Then, a bit more cynical than intended: “I am my own man you know.”
“I did not mean to imply—”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry. It's just a sensitive topic. It's ‘the way I was created’ and all that bullshit”, Will says with a pained grimace. God, how he hates that “argument”.
“You make it sound like a passive act”, Hannibal simply says with a small smile.
“How so?”, Will asks, his brows knitting together in confusion. He leans back against the kitchen table.
“I think we are created by ourselves. I believe that despite all outside influence, we shape ourselves. Life carves into us but we choose whether we round out the edges, we choose what we become. We are our own creators and in this aspect we are near omnipotent”, Hannibal answers in his typical nonchalant manner as he comes closer.
“Omnipotent…a bit of hubris, no?”, Will says with a small smile. He loves their conversations and he is curious where this one is leading.
“In the garden Eve was told she could eat the forbidden fruit to gain knowledge of right and wrong and thus become as God. Are you as God, Will? We are made in His image, so why not finish His work then?... Is that hubris?”, Hannibal asks him. Will has a feeling that no matter how he answers Hannibal has already decided whether he is as God.
“Am I as God? Well, I suppose I know that this is right. Maybe I'm more of a Prometheus, well auto-Prometheus”, Will says after thoughtfully considering for a moment.
“You shape yourself from the clay and today I’d like to be here to assist you in that task. If you'd allow me,” Hannibal says with an unidentifiable emotion in his voice. He wants this, wants to help Will in his becoming. It's an honour, it's a delicacy Hannibal wants to taste. He has to think about the beautiful scars stretching across Will's chest. What Hannibal wouldn't have given to place them there himself, to be the one to perform that service for Will.
“By injecting me with testosterone”, Will deadpans. It's almost funny how invested Hannibal is in something that is so normal for Will, he thinks.
“Yes, by injecting you with testosterone. I am the outside influence I spoke about”, Hannibal replies with a small smile.
“You carve into me?”, Will asks with a bit of a grin. The image of a blade tearing through flesh, Hannibal carving Will out of his own body. Well, he had tried that before, hadn't he?
“Only if you would want me to”, Hannibal says solemnly. You can hear in his voice that he treats the idea of cutting Will up like it's worship, because really it is; all red, hot, wet and holy. Tear apart and put back together, destroy and create. When he thinks of it, Hannibal is stricken with a tender aggression, the need to wreak destruction so that something new may grow from the fertile ashes.
Will answers with a small snort. A long pause.
“But yeah, you can help me with my injection”, Will says softly. How could he say no when Hannibal is acting like that. Will has to admit, he likes him like this. It is strangely vulnerable, in a way. Hannibal has never been ashamed of his desires of course, but still.
“Here?”, Hannibal asks with a look that could be interpreted as slightly disapproving.
“Yes, it'll be easier”, Will explains. He turns on the light, then he wipes down the kitchen table with some surface disinfectant. The bathroom is too small for the both of them to properly manoeuvre in there so the kitchen table will have to do.
“Where would you usually inject?”, Hannibal asks and manages to make even such an innocuous question sound like he is assessing the best spot to sink his teeth into his prey.
“Thigh”, Will answers as he takes off his trousers and sits down on the table. He watches as Hannibal washes his hands. The atmosphere feels strange. It is very…intimate.
Hannibal makes his way over to the table and for a few seconds they just look at each other. There's tension in the air, it's almost electric.
“I will start by disinfecting the injection site”, Hannibal says in a quiet professional tone as he takes one of the alcohol swabs and gets to work. He is calm and concentrated, in his element.
“You don't have to say all that stuff. I know how it goes. It's hardly my first time at the rodeo”, Will chuckles. He can't help but think it's almost…cute, insofar as somebody like Hannibal could be considered cute, of course.
“I care about manners, Will. That includes my bedside manner”, Hannibal says firmly. He continues in that professional, authoritative tone with: “I will now prepare the syringe.”
His fingers are just itching to sink the needle into Will's flesh and Hannibal is convinced that Will probably knows this.
Hannibal takes the cap off the testosterone vial and cleans the stopper with one of the swabs. He takes out the syringe and pulls off the cover, then draws air into it.
Carefully Hannibal then inserts the needle into the vial and pushes the air into it. Afterwards he turns the vial upside down and draws in the testosterone.
Will can't help but be almost hypnotised by how calmly and meticulously Hannibal handles the syringe; like he was made for it, handling it with the greatest of precision. Every movement is that of an apex predator, a sophisticated beast, anything sharp could be a lethal weapon in Hannibal's hands. The thought gives Will goosebumps.
Hannibal taps out some air bubbles, then pulls out of the vial and switches the needle. He's ready to inject Will and perhaps even impatient. Once again they just look at each other for a second. The air is thick with unspoken thoughts and desires.
“Now you may feel a small pinch”, Hannibal says and Will swears there's a soft smile on his lips. He quickly pushes the needle into Will's thigh muscle at a 90-degree angle. There's a strange expression on Hannibal's face as he does, like he is ready to hunt Will down. Once the needle is in, Hannibal's eyes turn to Will's face to gauge his reaction.
Will feels a small pain. Nothing like what they'd usually do. But it still has a lot of the same appeal of trusting Hannibal with a sharp object and with his own body. Waiting patiently like meat under a butcher's blade, still and quiet, ready to take it. Offering up both body and soul, wholly exposed and at the mercy of the other’s actions. But still in control, always in control, because he is allowing it.
Will feels the way the needle makes its way past the layers of skin, cold and metallic. It enters him and Hannibal follows suit, he injects himself into Will, infiltrates his tissues. Hannibal would not hurt Will, not anymore, not unless Will told him to.
Will feels the slightly painful pressure of the testosterone spreading in his muscle tissue. It's a familiar, comforting feeling.
Will is getting injected with truth itself. The truth about who he is, who he has become. The truth of what he paints on this canvas of flesh he inhabits. The truth of how Will is carved like a statue from marble, slowly taking shape, sculpted from his own flesh.
Metamorphic, ontogenic, becoming. From the chrysalis to the imago, he is holometabolous and gleaming golden. It hurts but that's just the growing pains. It is hot and bloody but that is how it is supposed to be. Hannibal is right, his creation, his becoming, is not a passive act, not at all. It is under his own control, it always has been. Will is in control, he is capable, he is fierce and he is dangerous. And that's just how Hannibal likes him, Will knows.
Hannibal adores this, he loves watching Will take shape. It fills him with pride, satisfaction and a strange, warm feeling he might dare to call love. The ceiling light is Will's halo and Will is his divine design, he is his. Hannibal is forever imprinted into his soul, forever a part of Will, deep inside. Every line of Will's body, every quirk of his mind has been touched by Hannibal, has been made in his image. Will is perfection, he is a masterpiece. Hannibal is allowed to witness Will's becoming and he cherishes it. He gets to not just watch but usher Will along, helping him on his search to find himself. It is a feeling of immense power just as much as it is one that is so very soft. It is simply sublime.
The tension between them is nothing short of unbearable as Hannibal withdraws the needle and presses a swab to the injection site.
“Please press down”, he says quietly and lets Will take over as he disposes of the syringe. He wishes Will wouldn't do that though, he wishes he could watch a small bead of blood form on his skin, presented as if on a silver platter, ready to be swallowed. He would swipe it up with his thumb and bring it to his lips then he would make sure to keep eye contact with Will as he swallowed it down.
Will keeps pressing down on the small wound for a bit and watches Hannibal clean up. Did Hannibal enjoy that? It very much seemed like it. Well, it wouldn't be the strangest thing they have enjoyed together, Will supposes. And it wouldn't be the strangest thing Hannibal has talked him through, either.
“Sometimes I wish I didn't need to do this, all of this, just to be myself”, Will sighs, still sitting on the kitchen table. And it's true, it's routine at this point but sometimes it still feels like a painful reminder.
“Does the joy not lie in the process? Is there not a unique pleasure in becoming?”, Hannibal asks as he comes close to Will again.
“Well, maybe it’s tiring me out sometimes. Maybe that makes it difficult to enjoy ”, Will admits. He is decades into his transition but sometimes he still wishes to have been born a cis man. It would be so much easier, no growing pains. No becoming, just being.
“You are perpetually becoming, Will. That is a great gift. You have the opportunity to finish God's work. I peeked through the chrysalis and I saw what you were and what you may be. It is beautiful, no matter how difficult you may find it”, Hannibal says and gently lets his hand settle on Will's bare thigh.
“You’ve done more than just peek, Hannibal. You made me, shaped me. You formed me into something I had not yet become”, Will says. A part of him still resents Hannibal for that, for taking away his choice, for never asking permission. But he can't say he doesn't like the result of Hannibal's manipulation. Hannibal had started the process but ultimately Will became all on his own. Violence had always been in his nature, he'd always been a beast at heart.
“Like clay in my hands”, Hannibal swallows thickly. Clearly the thought appeals to him a lot. Maybe because it is true. Hannibal had set Will onto the path to himself. Hannibal had gotten his hands dirty and they're still stained with Will Graham, a mark that will never fade. Will's becoming was self-creation but it was also certainly facilitated by Hannibal. They were simply finishing God's work.
“That would make you the Prometheus between the two of us. And now you bring the fire from the mountain and smelt me in it so that you can turn me into something new”, Will says. He imagines himself melting in the flame, becoming soft and malleable, ready to take a new shape, proof of how much he has come to trust Hannibal.
“Something new that is still you. You will not become unrecognisable but what you will become I cannot say”, Hannibal says it like a promise. His lids are heavy, his eyes are fixed on Will's face and God looks back at him.
“You could recognise me any which way, no matter what I become. You could know me even if I didn't know myself”, Will answers as he gazes into Hannibal's eyes. Eyes that could always see him, even when nobody else could. Eyes that seem cold but contain within them whole worlds of thought and emotion, if one knows how to look at them just right. Eyes that look like they desperately want to eat Will up, begging for even the smallest taste.
“But you do know yourself?”, Hannibal asks and there is the warm glow of hope on his face. His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip. If cutting Will up is worship, then putting him together is even more so.
“At this moment, yes, I know myself, I know what I have become. I know right from wrong and I know what I want”, Will says with a confident smile and lays his hand on top of Hannibal's. Hannibal is tense, almost ready to pounce.
“What do you want?”, Hannibal sounds almost out of breath as he asks that question, desperate even. His eyes are dark and deep, ready to swallow up everything and anything Will is going to give him.
Will takes Hannibal's chin in his hand and for a second decides to just admire the sharp and unique shapes of his lover’s face. He looks so unlike himself, eyes half closed, lips parted slightly, all soft and expectant, although that hint of predatory instinct always remains. That readiness to draw blood and enjoy it. What a sight.
Carefully Will leans in and captures Hannibal's mouth in a kiss. It's passionate and warm. It seems to go on for a little eternity. An eternity on a cliffside above stormy waters, a place of becoming, a place of truth. Of giving into it all, of diving into the experience and letting yourself almost drown in it. They fit together perfectly, of course they do, made in each other's image. There is no line of separation between them, they are one, bleeding into each other.
They exchange more than just spit, revelation lies on their tongues. The truth about the self seized from another man's lips is so smooth and sweet.
Hannibal buries his hand in Will's dark hair, pulls him in closer yet, trying to prolong this state of fusion as much as possible. He aches to take Will into himself and never let him out again. Will is so beautiful, he wants to make him and brutally destroy him and re-make him over and over. He wants to help Will finish God's work for the rest of his life.
Will can't help the small smile he feels tugging at his lips between kisses and he also can't help the sound he makes when Hannibal catches his lower lip between his teeth.
Eventually their mouths separate again, which Hannibal feels is an outrageously rude thing he has to endure, torture even. He can't stand it, being apart. It is simply downright wrong that they are not one and the same. Will belongs inside of him. That old hunger gnaws at his stomach, he can feel the tension in his jaws, ready to bite down and never let go.
And Will knows. Not only does he know, but he enjoys it. He loves provoking Hannibal, curious what will happen, how much of an animal he really is.
“This”, Will finally says with a smile, ”I want to have become this.”