Chapter Text
In the dark, hidden hollows of his mind, Will knew that this was how his life would end. He had not known the intricacies of how everything would happen, how every piece would fall so perfectly into place, but he had always known, from the moment that he met Hannibal Lecter, that their paths would mingle and mix, and perhaps they might diverge, but at last, they would find themselves in this moment, here, with every second and day and trial of their past lost to the sea, and nothing remaining but black blood and warmth and breath. He had entertained the idea of myriad paths, of myths and fantasies and fairytales, but this, here, this was reality, and they fell until they landed in the water, water in their throats feeling more like burning embers.
With water and blood on their skin and in their lungs, they climbed, together, up the rocky beach and into the wooden house that, inexplicably, Hannibal had known would exist in that very spot. They cleaned themselves up, and then they helped each other clean up, stitches and gauze and morphine clearing away the events of the day, the night, and the years before this moment.
And then, they slipped into sleep in the same bed - for the house had only one, carried on the clouds of morphine-induced slumber into a world apart from their reality and yet connected, somehow, by strands of consciousness. Will did not dream. He has not dreamed in what feels like years, and he does not remember ever having had a happy dream, or even a peaceful one. Too many times has the darkness of the day seeped into the stillness of the night. When he woke, he supposed that Hannibal had dreamed, or, more likely, had experienced a nightmare, for the blankets were a mess on Hannibal's side of the bed.
They passed several days in the house, recovering from their injuries, both physical and psychological, and together, they healed, just as they, together, had been broken.
After the time of their convalescence had passed, Hannibal showed Will a small boat that he had stored away, long before this day, at a dock near to the house. They loaded their medical supplies and the remaining food into the boat, and Will guided the boat into the sea, steering them away from their previous setting, shared with all the world, and into a new place that would soon become their own.
Eventually, they reached another rocky beach, and Will decided that this beach, which seemed to lead into a small seaside town, would be an adequate place to stop for a few days and gather more supplies. They may have defeated the Dragon, but they were still very far from immortal creatures, and they still needed to eat just as any other humans did. Will sometimes found himself losing sight of this unavoidable fact, lost in his shared reality with Hannibal. Hannibal, he noticed, seemed to have lost sight of so much, his eyes consuming Will with every look, and his eyes merely glancing past everything else. Will was not yet sure what the significance of this was, what the sign signified, and ever since their fall into the sea, he had begun to lose his conception of language into the rules of disorder by which Hannibal lived, and he had found that he could willingly accept such orderly chaos in all of its perfection. He did not know what to make of this yet either. And somehow, he was okay with such uncertainty.
He guided the boat into the dock, and together, they walked up the sloping sand and rocks and into the town. Their hands brushed together every so often as they walked, Hannibal leaning closer and Will leaning farther away, and then closer, and he found it ironic that intimacy had felt so natural as they fell, and after they fell, the two of them patching each other up at the bathroom sink, and now, he felt fear at the idea of allowing his hand to touch Hannibal's.
Once they entered the town, they searched out a grocery store, and together, they walked up and down the aisles, tossing food into their cart. They paid with some of the bills that Hannibal had long ago hid in the wooden house, and then they walked through the town, the sea blowing salt on their faces and in their hair.
Will felt Hannibal looking at him as they crossed the street, looking at him rather than at anything else in the world, and something that felt awfully warm was welling up in his chest, and he closed his eyes.
After a time that felt more like years than hours, Hannibal suggested that they head back to the boat, and so they did, each carrying bags from the grocery store. They put everything in its pre-assigned place, and then they retired to the cabin of the boat.
Will was about to take off his sweater in preparation for sleep when Hannibal spoke, breaking a silence that he had not quite even realized was in effect.
"Will."
Will turned to face Hannibal. "Yes, Hannibal?"
And Hannibal closed his eyes at that, something calm graceful settling into his features. "We have not yet talked of the events that occurred at the cliff. Would you like to discuss that evening?"
The room was suddenly too hot, too warm, and so Will sat on the bed - there was only one bed on this boat, just as in the house - and tugged his sweater off. "What's there to discuss?" He asked, tossing the sweater to the floor and watching Hannibal's gaze, eyes open again now and alert, follow the movement. "We killed Dolarhyde. We fell. We survived."
"Yes, that is true," Hannibal replied. "But I think there may be more to all of this than that, don't you?" Their eyes met for a second, and then Will broke their mirrored gaze by moving to lean against the wall.
"There's always more to every story, to everything that has happened to us and to every other person. I've found that, sometimes, it's safer not to go searching for clues and answers in the darkness," Will said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've had enough of searching in the darkness, Hannibal."
"The darkness we would be searching through now," Hannibal replied, crossing across the room to sit at the foot of the bed, "would be radically different from the darkness you have previously spent too many hours lost in. We have shared a moment of blood together, and years of history, and our darkness is a shared one, shared between you and I, not between two unknowns brought together only out of Jack Crawford's desire to be the hero of the FBI. Our darkness is the ocean, Will, and we know what happened that night. All that is left to construct is intent and purpose, and desired outcome. The facts of the situation stand truthful; only the emotions are less than clear."
Will sighed then, shoulders raising and lowering with his breath. "I told you what I wanted."
"Or perhaps, you told me the absence of what you wanted?"
Will recalled his words from that house on the eroding bluff, spoken in whispers over shared wine and shared glances. I don't know if I can save myself. Maybe that's just fine. And then Hannibal's words, intoning something that had lain unspoken and unformed between them for so many months - No greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend.
"I didn't know what I wanted," Will said. "I had accepted whatever outcome would occur, except for one in which you and I did not meet the same fate, whatever that fate was to be." His voice trailed off into a whisper, and he felt like he simultaneously wanted to turn away from Hannibal and to meet the other man's gaze. Instead, he just folded his hands in his lap and turned his eyes to look down at them, those hands that had willingly joined in murder with the Chesapeake Ripper.
He heard Hannibal sigh, and it was a sigh that sounded more like the release of a breath held too long than an expression of exasperation or boredom, and Will had long known that between the two of them lay something fragile, and he had long known that Hannibal had not spoken it into being out of respect, or perhaps worry of absence of reciprocity, or perhaps something else entirely. Will had long known that he held Hannibal in that dark part of his heart, hidden and sacred, and he was no stranger to unspoken attraction, but he was also a stranger to these feelings, and life had grown both simpler and more complicated with Hannibal's presence, and Will was content for a while to hold onto the knowledge of Hannibal's feelings, and his own reciprocity, and to keep this knowledge from Hannibal, and to let Hannibal try to figure him and his feelings out, like the mathematical equations in his diary book.
Now, though, now he was lost in a desire to say everything, to put voice to every unspoken thought and feeling, but he fought against it. It was more like them, anyway, to let Hannibal work through the space between them, to map out the trails and discover the conduits that connected Point A to Point B.
"And thus the important aspect to you, Will, was that we were together, not that we lived?" Hannibal asked.
Will nodded slowly. "I was fine with not living. I assumed you were, too. What was important was killing the Dragon and meeting the same fate together, and I think you figured out from the moment that I asked you to be the FBI's bait that you were meant to escape, not to be imprisoned again. And whatever happened on that bluff was going to happen."
"Murphy's Law - whatever can happen, will happen. Alternatively, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I prefer the first interpretation," Hannibal said. "It allows room for hope, whereas the second seems to be barren of it. Did you have hope on the bluff, Will?"
"I had determination," Will replied. "I was going to do what was necessary, no matter what. And I was determined to be at peace with the eventual outcome." He paused, stretching out his fingers. "I suppose I hoped that what I wanted would come to be, that we would meet the same fate, but hope feels like an uncertain concept that cannot be influenced by human action, and I didn't sense a higher being on that bluff. Whatever was going to happen was up to us."
Hannibal moved closer on the bed, shifting to lean against the other wall, their bodies forming an L-shape, their legs nearly touching but only just separated by inches and indecision.
"Indeed, it was," Hannibal said. "And I am pleased with the outcome. We defeated the Dragon, and we both fell into the sea, and we both survived. Are you pleased with the outcome, Will?"
Will nodded.
"This is, then, the best of all possible worlds," Hannibal whispered after a moment of silence had passed between them, his voice almost wavering with something that Will might call disbelief, if he thought that Hannibal could experience such an emotion.
And then Hannibal was moving, and Will watched him as he shifted closer and closer, and then he was suddenly, unbearably close, their shoulders brushing against each other, their backs against the wall. Hannibal looked at him, and Will looked at Hannibal, and then there was an arm circling around Will's shoulders, and he allowed it to guide him closer to Hannibal, so that his cheek lay against Hannibal's chest.
He could hear Hannibal's heartbeat race beneath his ear, just as it had on the bluff. Here, they were not covered in blood as they had been then, and here, they were free, just as they had been then.
They passed many more days and nights on the boat and in the cabin, and each night, they fell asleep with their bodies touching and the breath mingling in the night air. Some nights, they fell asleep with their foreheads leant together, and it was on those nights that they both felt most complete, in a manner in accordance with the definitions of complete to which they each ascribed.
Will guided the boat ever northward, passing through cold and barren waters absent of any souls but their own, or perhaps there were no souls at all upon the sea, for Hannibal had certainly lacked a soul for decades, and Will had felt his own soul gradually detaching from his body for years.
They eventually reached a place where there was more ice than water, and Will guided the boat into a dock, rubbing his hands against the wheel in an attempt to bring some warmth back into his fingers. Hannibal emerged from the cabin, coat buttoned up and hands deep in pockets. Without a word, they both disembarked from the boat, shoes slipping on the iced-over dock as they slowly made their way back to land.
After walking for only a few short minutes, Hannibal spotted what appeared to be an abandoned house - the boarded-up windows, at least, seemed to indicate the lack of inhabitants - and they altered their course to head in the direction of the house. They had no more food, unless Will could catch some fish, and they desperately needed warm clothes, and hopefully, this house would give them what they needed.
They reached the house, and Will looked back at the path that their footsteps had made in the snow, evanescent proof of their existence in this world, in this snowy forest by the sea. He used the strength of his shoulder - Hannibal was still healing from the gunshot, and the worst of Will's injuries were mostly located on his face - to force open the door. They stumbled out of the falling snow and into the house, boots leaving footprints edged with white in the doorway.
In the kitchen, Hannibal found cans of soup and vegetables, and the stove, somehow, still turned on. In the bathroom, Will found pain medication and bandages, and he brought these items back into the kitchen, setting them on the counter. Once they ate, they would work on the difficult task of repairing their bodies, patching over scars and history and memory.
After they had eaten, and after they had wrapped bandages around hurting parts, they wandered through the house and into the first bedroom they found, collapsing on the bed with their coats still on. They did not question the providence of this abandoned house in the woods. Sometimes, good things did happen to bad people, and they curled together under a heap of blankets.
In this house, they passed days that felt simultaneously like years and like minutes, and they rationed the food to make it last as long as possible, and Will found a fishing rod in a closet, and he brought back fish for them to eat alongside soup and vegetables, and somehow, Hannibal managed to turn canned food and questionable fish into delicacies on Will's tongue.
On the evening of a day that had felt particularly cold, perhaps colder than the previous days, Will and Hannibal pressed their bodies close together under the blankets, their breath mingling and their hands interwoven. And then, Hannibal was speaking, and Will pushed through the grey clouds in his brain to listen.
"Did you mean it truthfully when you called our mingled blood and the body of the Dragon beautiful, Will?"
Will closed his eyes. "Yes." He let out a breath. "Did you mean it truthfully when you said that that was what you wanted for me, for both of us?"
"Yes."
Will nodded, forehead brushing against Hannibal's. "I'd like to feel that again," he said. "That reckless abandon of reality. The blood on my hands, and the knife, and skin."
He felt more than saw Hannibal's face stretch into a smile. "And I as well, Will."
And thus more days passed, and they discussed the future more than they discussed the past, and the day that they had killed the Dragon together started to seem more like a beginning than a conclusion.
And in Will’s dreams, he saw the possibilities, the events that could have occurred, that may have occurred in another world, stretch out in front of him in myriad paths. His mind was full of could-have-beens and may-have-beens, and he knew that he favored the path that he had, in reality, stumbled down after that first meeting in Jack’s office, but he also enjoyed the idea of entertaining the paths that he had never seen the ends of, or even more than the beginning.
One of the paths was one in which his animosity had led Hannibal to succumb to the eventual act that ended the life of so many who had been rude to him. Another was one in which he had somehow saved Abigail, and he and Abigail had escaped to some distant land, where even Hannibal, with his seemingly supernatural abilities, could not track them down.
Some of the paths were more like fairytales or myths than perversions of reality. In one, he was an angel, carried further and further into hell by the Devil himself, cast in the form and shape of Hannibal and accompanied by fearsome and fierce hellhounds. In another, he wandered through a field until a snake bit his ankle, and then he was taken down into the Underworld and found himself alongside Hannibal, the two of them enjoying blood and meat and -
And that was when Will usually woke up, breaths coming quick in his chest and head feeling suddenly too heavy for his neck. He had long since known the truth of Hannibal Lecter, his existence and his desires and every aspect of his being that he had been willing to share (and some, perhaps, that he had preferred to remain secret). And yet, he felt something unnatural in his mind when he thought on the truth of Hannibal, and his own part in that truth, and how, together, they had spilled so much blood, including that of each other. He had accepted it, he had desired it, and yet - perhaps the unnatural feeling was akin to feeling perfectly comfortable and at home with himself and with his situation. He had not felt so like this before.
One very early morning after waking up after spending his dreams in a fairytale, Will found the other half of the bed cold, and he felt worry spread from his lungs down into his toes. He reached to grab the gun that he had hidden beneath the mattress, feeling its weight in his hand before cocking it. He walked out of the bedroom, thankful for the socks on his feet and their ability to mask the sound of his footsteps, and he headed towards the kitchen, led by instinct.
When Will entered the kitchen, he had to stifle the laughter that suddenly rose in his throat. Hannibal was hunched over the counter, impeccably decorating a gingerbread house, adorning it with candies and white icing. And then he looked up and saw Will’s gun.
“Will, if you truly hate the foods of the season so intensely, allow me to wash my hands before you demolish the holiday spirit,” Hannibal said, mouth intimating grave severity and eyes betraying sneaking joy.
Will grinned and set the gun on the table, running his hands through his hair. “Well, you weren’t in bed when I woke up before the usual time, and I heard noises in the kitchen. I couldn’t just let you get killed, you know, after everything we’ve been through.”
Something soft appeared in Hannibal’s expression at that, and he cast his eyes back down to the gingerbread house. “Thank you, Will. If there had been a threat to my life, please believe that I am indeed capable of handling such an emergency.”
“Not in your state,” Will said. “You took a bullet to the stomach, and you expect me to leave you to fend for yourself?”
Will walked over towards the counter, taking in the sight of the gingerbread house and Hannibal’s hands, covered in flour and sugar. “Where did you get the ingredients for this, anyway?”
“I must request that you allow me to retain some secrets, dear Will.”
Will laughed. “You’ll tell me eventually, I’m sure. Is there an occasion for so much sugar?” Hannibal was so attuned to his body and to the bodies of others, and he knew that he would not simply create a gingerbread house just because he felt like it.
“It’s Christmas Day,” Hannibal said. “A day of much celebration - our first Christmas together, Will.”
Will smiled and reached out to grasp one of Hannibal’s hands in his own, the flour mingled between their palms. “Merry Christmas, Hannibal.”
And Will joined in decorating the gingerbread house, and as they laughed, he thought of the days that were yet to come, the years that he would spend with Hannibal at his side, and the many paths that they could have gone down, and the one truth path that they walked down, hand-in-hand and hearts beating in perfect tandem.
It truly was beautiful.