Chapter Text
He woke within the process of being embalmed.
The gradual return to consciousness did not occur, nor had the haze dissipated gently from his mind in order to reveal reality in front of him. Instead, he awoke violently, forcefully ripped awake into a state of pure confusion and terror that made no sense whatsoever. Without any prior warning and with no indication leading up to it, he was abruptly conscious.
The initial sensations came flooding back into his awareness at once. He felt the chill of the air against his skin, sensed foreign sensations brushing against his flesh, smells filling the air that were unfamiliar to him. He heard voices whispering in the distance that he could not understand, and sensed foreign touch against his skin, hands touching him, handling him, without understanding where he was or why.
All of those sensations melded together into a sensory overload that made no sense to him, that overwhelmed his senses in a manner that had been completely unexpected. Before he understood anything about what was going on around him, he forced himself into a state of consciousness enough that he managed to get up and walk out of the room in which he lay.
At the time, he had not known where he was going or even how he was managing to keep walking in a straight line. Walking had simply become easier than standing. He moved in a trance-like manner that required little input from his conscious self, his feet carrying him automatically towards whatever his subconscious desired him to find. His mind was fractured and broken, shifting aimlessly and erratically from one moment to the next, filled with disjointed thoughts that made very little sense.
He knew that he had been ill. He remembered suffering from painful headaches that made thinking difficult, and that gradually his thoughts had begun becoming unclear to him. That was not unusual; however, he began noticing that he felt different. Something was wrong with him, something he had increasingly tried to push out of his own awareness.
And then there had been Hannibal…
Why that particular thought should stick in his mind above any others, he could not say. Perhaps deep within his subconscious, somewhere far away in the recesses of his mind, he remembered that Hannibal’s house had been somewhere safe for him. Someplace where he did not need to provide any sort of rationalization for himself.
When he arrived, he was extremely tired, yet oddly detached from that exhaustion, as though he had separated himself from the fatigue. Regardless, his legs kept moving in a way that seemed to be detached from his control, moving independently from him without any apparent sign of exhaustion. He stopped just short of the oak door that led into the home and gazed at it for several moments before reaching out to knock on it.
Hannibal had heard the sound echo through the house.
At first, he dismissed it. But the second knock came, along with the sound of an impossibly distant voice calling out his name.
"Hello, Hannibal."
He froze.
His mind raced instantly towards finding an answer to what should not exist. What could have possibly made that sound?
Hannibal had mourned for Will’s death. He had watched Will grow ill, had seen him deteriorate, and deliberately withheld information from him due to his fears. It had seemed that there had been plenty of time, but he realized now how very wrong he had been.
Perhaps he was losing his mind, allowing himself to hallucinate due to the grief.
"Hello?"
Silent hesitation ensued before Hannibal slowly began descending the stairs.
He moved cautiously towards the entrance of his home, placing his hand upon the door handle, and slowly turned the knob before pushing the door inward.
Will stood there, watching him with wide-eyed confusion.
Hannibal could hardly believe what he was seeing.
It made no sense. It had been impossible.
He stood frozen in disbelief as he examined Will.
It could not be possible, yet somehow it was.
Will had been dead.
Somehow, he was not anymore. Or rather, perhaps he never truly was…
Hannibal’s eyes locked onto Will’s face.
He opened his mouth, though nothing emerged for several heartbeats. Finally, he whispered Will’s name.
Will still stared at him with confusion.
Hannibal did not understand what stood before him, yet for the first time since Will had died, there was someone standing in front of him once more.
Hannibal had not stirred an inch.
Even now, as he stared at Will standing before him, there remained a hand pressed against the door handle, a hand still clutching at the knob as he tried desperately to find any kind of sense in the image before him.
Hannibal had seen death. He knew dead bodies intimately. He understood death in ways no one ever wanted to. He had mourned Will. He had accepted, with a great deal of reluctance and grief, that there would be nothing to bring him back.
And yet, Will stood before him.
He was not dead.
There was no other term that would describe his current state.
Will seemed pale and oddly distant. There was something strange in his expression, and he carried an unfamiliar scent. One that Hannibal recognized immediately, despite the chill of the evening air.
Embalming fluid.
The knowledge altered the look in Hannibal’s eyes, causing his gaze to study Will anew.
His clothes.
His unnaturally pale complexion.
His eerie lack of emotion.
All of which pointed away from hallucinations.
“Will…” he repeated.
Will blinked.
“Are you all right?”
Again, confusion marred his expression. He looked down at himself as though hoping that somehow, he would understand his condition better, then he looked to Hannibal again.
“I don’t know…”
His voice was quiet.
Different from how it usually sounded, yet no less strained in a way that indicated weakness.
For a brief instant, Hannibal stared at him.
Then he stepped aside.
“Come inside.”
Will paused.
He cast a glance past Hannibal at the house behind him. For some reason, the familiarity settled a portion of him, though he seemed to struggle to find an explanation. Then he stepped past Hannibal, and the older man shut the door behind him.
Neither spoke for some moments.
Will remained near the entryway, surveying his surroundings with an odd mixture of hesitation and uncertainty. Hannibal observed him silently, fighting desperately to reconcile the impossibility of his existence.
“You died,” he said eventually.
Will turned toward him.
“I know.”
Furrowing his brows, Hannibal watched him carefully.
“How?”
“I don’t know…”
He looked down at his hands again.
“I remember being ill…”
He trailed off.
“I remember being tired, then waking up somewhere cold…”
Once again, he trailed off, and this time, he glanced back toward Hannibal.
“…there were people around me.”
Who, Hannibal wondered.
“People?”
“I think they were mortuary workers…”
Again, he sounded uncertain, almost as though he weren’t sure if he understood the words coming out of his mouth.
“I don’t remember every detail. But I know that they were doing something to me…”
Once again, Hannibal had already guessed correctly.
He could smell it.
Will’s gaze drifted down toward the floor.
“I left…”
“You walked out?”
“I think so…”
Silence stretched between them.
“I don’t remember leaving,” Will continued. Without waiting for permission, Hannibal stepped toward him. He did not move away, though he followed Hannibal curiously as the other approached, watching him closely when Hannibal placed his fingers against the side of his face.
Too cold.
Hannibal’s expression barely flickered, though it betrayed a strange twisting beneath the surface.
Will remained motionless under the touch, his gaze fixed steadily on Hannibal.
“You are cold…”
“Yes.”
“Your heart…”
“What about it?”
Without releasing him, Hannibal slid one finger up toward the side of his neck.
He did not stop until he located the carotid artery…
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Hannibal’s façade finally crumbled.
Will noticed instantly.
“What?”
He released him, though Will did not pull away from the contact.
“There is no pulse,” Hannibal told him quietly.
Silence settled between them for a brief interval.
Finally, Will looked down at his chest.
“Oh…”
That appeared to be his entire explanation.
Studying him intently, Hannibal added, “You are remarkably calm…”
“I don’t think I have come to terms with this,” Will confessed.
More typical of Will’s behavior. It helped Hannibal fight back the nearly inevitable smile.
Almost.
His eyes returned to Will’s face once again.
“You have died,” he said.
Silence answered him.
Will’s eyes widened fractionally.
“Am I dead?”
Hannibal did not respond right away.
He could lie.
He could reassure Will that there had been a mistake. Some explanation for what had happened.
Hannibal had deceived him before.
He had protected him, believing that he had preserved him…
And he had died.
“Yes,” he told him eventually.
For a brief moment, Will said nothing. Then, with the same strange detachment, “But I’m here…”
“Yes…”
“And I can think…”
“Yes…”
“And I can walk…”
“Yes…”
His eyes drifted downward.
“So I guess I’m not quite dead, then…”
“No,” Hannibal replied calmly. “I don’t believe you are…”
This was the first glimpse of relief that Will displayed.
His gaze lifted.
“…do you have a mirror?”
"Mirror?"
Hannibal arched an eyebrow at his question, curious despite himself.
"Yes…"
It was a quiet exchange, and after staring blankly at Hannibal for a few moments, Will added quietly, "I want to see myself. How I look. Now that I’m…dead."
And Hannibal knew.
He guided him to the nearest mirror with a graceful motion, silently waiting.
Will paused in front of it, still.
Time stretched endlessly in the silence, until his eyes met his reflection, almost unrecognizable to him.
Almost.
He seemed far too pale, with eyes unnaturally dark compared to what Will remembered. There was a cold quality about the set of his features, reminiscent of someone sick with fever. Someone resurrected by memory, and left unfinished.
A ghost.
Involuntarily, Will lifted his hand towards his reflection in the glass.
The reflection repeated the gesture, mirroring Will perfectly.
With trembling fingers, he reached out to touch his face, feeling his flesh beneath those unfamiliar eyes. His lips twisted in a sort of helpless smile when he turned his head to meet Hannibal’s gaze again.
"I look like the dead."
Hannibal’s eyes locked onto his face, searching for understanding.
"Yes."
It made him sound detached, almost clinical – but Hannibal had learned by now to accept the strangeness of Will’s words. Will thought on this information briefly, and sighed with that same strange disassociation as before.
“It seems reasonable, I guess.”
This was the reaction Hannibal had expected. Fear. Terror. Anger, confusion.
None of those things.
Instead, Will simply stared blankly into the glass before him, trying to decide how to deal with discovering his own funeral plans already laid out in perfect detail.
Hannibal observed him in silence, watching as Will leaned against the mirror, looking down at himself and the strange form that seemed to have taken possession of his flesh and blood. Something alien.
Something unnatural.
Neither of them could fully comprehend what they were seeing in the mirror. Will’s reflection was unmistakably his own, yet there was something profoundly unnatural about the figure staring back at them, something that could not be attributed to illness or exhaustion. He had the unmistakable appearance of someone who had already died and been prepared for burial, and yet he was standing there, conscious and capable of thought, as though death itself had somehow failed to keep him.
He had received his gift back.
Whatever had been done to Will, he suspected it was impossible for either of them to ever resume their former existence.