Chapter Text
When it's Will's turn, they switch places unceremoniously. Hannibal struggles to wrap a towel around himself and stand at the same time, and Will uses himself as support, tugging him out of the tub and onto the toilet seat. The movement sends shocks of pain through both of them. They spend a moment recovering by holding onto one another's forearms.
Grunting, he sits down where Hannibal just had. His legs had begun to tremble, and his spine had begun to ache from holding himself up for those few moments he spent standing.
The water is still spraying, and he braces for it to set his skin alight as it pours down his front. It stings, but it doesn't incapacitate him. There are no bandages to remove; only a handful of wounds still have sutures, and the rest of it is internal. Water beats against the bruise on his ribs, and he's grateful for the especially heavy dose he gave himself in preparation, for there's little pain.
Now, Hannibal is the watchdog. He turns the water to just beneath lukewarm. It's not cold enough to make Will shiver but not warm enough to be any kind of comfortable.
Will bows and lets the water sodden his scalp, lost in its soothing prickles. Crusted blood dislodges and sifts down his body. He already feels cleaner. When he reaches for the shampoo, he forces himself to use his right hand, and Hannibal meets him halfway, setting the bottle into his palm. He almost drops it.
Murmuring a 'thank you,' he squeezes a quarter's worth onto his fingers; his arm shakes with the effort – it shakes anyway. He holds the open cap under his nose and drinks in the scent: sandalwood and a hint of frankincense that he can now detect up close. It eradicates any other odor present in the room. He internally praises Hannibal's sense of smell and his taste in soap. The bottle sways in his hand.
"Has your tremor improved?" Hannibal asks after a pause.
In lieu of answering verbally, Will sets the bottle down and holds up the troubled hand to him as it wobbles back and forth. Hannibal hums; thoughts flit over his eyes as his head curves to the side. His lips purse, openly pondering, but he doesn't speak. Will mentally sets it aside and struggles to work the soap through his curls with only one truly operable hand.
"It could be contributed by general weakness." Hannibal busies himself; he unfolds a pair of boxers they'd set aside beforehand and sinks into them one leg at a time. "Anemia, hunger."
"Hunger's probably it." Will doesn't know why he mourns the concealment; if anything, Hannibal's dressing should have made him more comfortable. The boxers are simple: maroon with a black waistband that loosely hugs his hips. Will guesses it would have fit better had they not lost so much weight. He murmurs, "I just hope that we'll be able to graduate to real food soon."
While unfolding a second pair, slimmer and plaid-patterned, Hannibal says, "Starvation is difficult to recover from; we must treat our stomachs with patience."
"You can't blame me for getting sick of having the same soup for three meals a day." Alongside his quip, Will rinses, scrubbing as the water floods his hair, getting a significant feeling that only the left side of his head is actually being cleaned.
Hannibal hums, charmed, "No, I cannot."
Will lets himself smile; his stitches pull. Water drips over his mouth and nose, and he jerks his head out of the spray. For a moment, he is back in the ocean. He cannot breathe. Water pours down the back of his throat. It fills his lungs. His ribs ache. Where is Hannibal? Is he lost to the surf? Shaking away the vision and grumbling, he wipes off his face. He can breathe – he is not under the waves.
"Would you like some assistance, Will?" asks Hannibal, setting the underwear aside and dipping forward with his question. He is trying to be gentle in his approach.
Will quirks an eyebrow, glancing at him suspiciously over his palm.
"I could wash the right half of your hair," he says, "Or all of it."
"I'm fine, Hannibal." He flattens his mouth in his best attempt at a reassuring smile (the stitches don't tug; this might be his new smile.)
As if the decision had already been made, Hannibal begins to shift on his hips, pushing himself forward to stand. "I don't want you to overexert yourself – possibly faint. A fall onto the porcelain might be fatal."
Will quips, "You can catch me."
"Will."
Will relents with a sigh – turns to tuck his knees into the pocket between Hannibal's thighs as he comes over and plants himself on the lip. They fit together like puzzle pieces.
Diligently, Hannibal starts scrubbing shampoo into his hair. Will holds onto his hips, gripping the waistband so he can work without worrying about staying upright.
Hannibal creates a dam over his forehead to shield his face when he's ducked under the spray. They go through the second half of the shampoo bottle, and occasionally, they switch roles; Hannibal now holds him upright while he washes his hair. Hannibal doesn't actually need to, but the hands securely on either side of his ribs – with less pressure on the right side – comfort him so.
Hannibal asks, "How are you feeling?" so quietly that Will can barely hear it through the spray of the shower.
Will doesn't answer. His scrubbing stops for a moment, a glob of foam slides down his forearm, and he gives Hannibal a look that says, 'What do you think?'.
"I would like for you to answer me earnestly." Hannibal picks up where he left off, working the soap through his right temple.
"...I feel bad," he deadpans. "Physically. Mentally. I feel like I died and came back to life, but I have yet to realize that my heart's beating again."
Lips pursing, Hannibal presses two fingers to his carotid. "Your heartbeat is very strong," he says; his accent is thick with fondness. "I feel similar. Except rather, I have yet to process that, in a sense, we did die; my heart has stopped beating, but I am more alive now than I ever have been."
To mirror him, Will feels Hannibal's heartbeat through his chest. It's steady and present even when hidden behind a layer of muscle and bone. Will murmurs, "You have something in there; maybe not a heart, but something's pumping your blood."
Hannibal smiles again. It's the second time Will's seen him smile. He wants to draw it.
"Dolarhyde was always fond of the concept of transformation – rebirth," Will says more to himself than to Hannibal, snorting out, "He'd get a kick out of this."
Hannibal grips Will by the chin as he dips him to the side and rinses his hair for him. Amused, he says, "I think he would instead be rather disgruntled. He was the one who became the catalyst for our transformation when he intended on making us the catalysts for his."
"He didn't deserve it," Will murmurs; his words are malformed from Hannibal's hold around his jaw. The hand keeps him solidly in place but does not crush him; his cheek does complain, stinging, but he doesn't think to wince.
Hannibal pitches him upright – takes a moment to indulgently caress his chin before moving on to apply the creme rinse. For a moment, he leaves Will suspended to hold himself up on his own. "Does not every songbird deserve to stretch their wings and sing their song?" he asks thoughtfully as he works the conditioner between his palms.
Will ducks to meet him; hands capture his hair and massage the product through with such deft skill that it threatens to entrance him. He speaks up after a moment, mumbling, "Not if what leaves their beaks is incessant, discordant tweeting. Dolarhyde wasn't singing; he was making a statement that had rhythm."
"While I do not approve of his methods for transformation, I am grateful to Mr. Dolarhyde," Hannibal begins – Will's eyes flash up to him, a question etched into his expression. "If it weren't for his determination to break us from our cages to stop our song, we would have never taken flight."
Will snorts out, "Off a cliff?"
"When songbirds leave the nest, are their moments before flight not terrifying and tumultuous?" Hannibal pinches his hairline, pulling his head up to wash along it; a smile dresses his face as he speaks, his eyes flicking to his work, then to Will's gaze, and back, "The waves were our ashes, and we, together, are the Phoenix."
Will, growing warm, doesn't feel the need to respond, and Hannibal doesn't press him.
He rests on Hannibal's shoulder as he's scrubbed down with the washcloth. His bruises had bloomed mostly around his chest and stomach but are barely visible now, just flecks of discoloration. Still, Hannibal avoids them when he can. The towel follows the length of his spine, up, then down, then in broad circles across his entire back.
His hair is still thick with conditioner, and the scent consumes him with every inhale, but with his face pressed into Hannibal's shoulder, he can breathe him in, too. His nose isn't as sharp as Hannibal's – he can't pick through each scent like the pages of a book, but Hannibal is distinct. It is comfort and warmth distilled in the perspiration of his skin. A musk that is more sensation than scent. Will's hands wander and interlace around Hannibal's middle. He tells himself that it's to help him stay upright.
The scent of soap, of Hannibal, the gentle touch of towel to his still-battered skin; he is so immersed that he doesn't realize Hannibal has stopped washing him.
Water beats down on the right side of his body, sprinkling onto him like rain, and Hannibal has wrapped himself around him. He is cradling Will's nape, and the towel has been set aside in favor of bracing his other arm around his back. Warmth is stark and jarring even when his fever is a roiling heat underneath his skin. He can still feel soap rivering down his body, the warmth from Hannibal's embrace arguing with the cold of the spray.
Rousing, he retreats and sits up, and Hannibal quips, "I thought you had fallen asleep."
"Or fainted?" Will finds the washcloth and takes it – starts drowsily wiping down his chest; his mind has not stopped wading in the scent of vanilla and sandalwood and frankincense and Hannibal.
Hannibal's hand still lingers just behind his ear, his fingers curling around his nape. Then, he traps his head between his palms, feeling his brow. He huffs in surprise.
Hannibal says lowly, analytically, "You're burning up still." Concern brings an edge to his voice that threatens to cut across Will's face.
Will makes a nondescript, dismissive sound. He scrubs old blood from the creases in his armpit. His shoulder strains – the nerves are alight, but he feels next to nothing; a soft spasm of electricity works up his neck. Hannibal's hand appears over his.
"Let me," his gesture says as his fingers pinch the towel. Will lets him.
At first, Hannibal cleans his shoulder with a touch so light he barely feels it. Despite his urge to draw away when Hannibal starts down his stomach and thighs, he finds exhaustion rearing its head behind him, breathing down his neck, overshadowing him; he lets Hannibal wash him in his entirety, rinse him, and wrap him in a thick towel.
"How long have you had this fever, Will?" Hannibal asks when he settles again, having needed to get up for the towel; his breathing is labored from effort.
Will shrugs. He pulls the towel tight around himself. It's hard to hear the question through the cloud beginning to form over his mind. The fabric warms quickly from his body heat, and the prickles of it irritate his sensitive, feverish skin.
Hannibal unravels the boxers he'd picked for him, speaking curiously, with gentleness, "Have you been neglecting your own health in favor of tending to mine?"
Blinking, working against heavy eyelids, Will explains, "We got infections at the same time; your fever stopped, and mine just... didn't. It hasn't let up since then."
"You should know the danger of a prolonged fever, Will," he says.
With the huff of a laugh that held no humor, he snarks, "Oh, I know it intimately."
Hannibal takes his time responding; he slips one leg of the boxers up Will's calf, then the other, dressing him like a doll; Will lets him. He says mindfully, "Once again, you are pushing yourself too far. Your body has yet to shut down on you, but I fear your brain will be what goes first."
"If I stop now, I'll crash, and I'll burn." Will stands and lets the towel hang loose as Hannibal pulls the waistband up his thighs and eventually around his hips. Hannibal pointedly looks away while he works, as he is inches away from Will's stomach – though he speaks, his words are breathy from the extension of his throat:
"You are already burning, Will. While I do admire your tenacity, you, of all people, should know that the higher you climb, the farther you fall." Hannibal pats his hips, silently telling him to sit. Will stays upright for just a moment longer; he studies the way Hannibal's eyes curve upward to meet his gaze; his head is pitched back, and his chin hovers just before his belly button, desperate not to touch for fear of being impolite. He understands Hannibal's penchant for sketching what he finds striking.
"I already survived one fall," Will murmurs, finally sitting. His spine aches. It will take him some time to get reacquainted with the concept of clothes, he thinks. The boxers, while loose, graze his skin uncomfortably and hug his thighs in all of the wrong places, adding to the rough prickles from the towel, and he has to resist the urge to tear it all off.
"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Hannibal intertwines his fingers over his lap. He looks like how he did in their therapy sessions when he was about to say something important. Will tenses. "You have done much to care for me, and I am grateful, for without your help, I would not have survived my injuries; I will return the favor," Hannibal says with importance.
Stunned, Will shakes his head, immediately, tiredly refuting, "Hannibal, no --"
"This is not a negotiation, Will." Hannibal stands. He lumbers to the faucet to turn off the water (having switched it from the showerhead upon drying Will) and sifts through their first aid kit for pads of gauze. "All things considered, I am the most stable out of the two of us; I am more than capable of caring for you."
He collects three, then returns before Will with a soft grunt. Will doesn't need to lift a finger; Hannibal pries the towel off from around his shoulders, sealing the gauze atop the wound underneath his collarbone. There's no real need for it, but with the sutures gone, it's become easy to irritate. Will knows that despite the sweetness of the gesture, Hannibal is attempting to distract him. He says firmly, "You can't walk."
"I walked just now." The words leave Hannibal at such a speed he perhaps surprised himself. But he continues as he applies a second pad to a nick on Will's sternum, "I am not helpless, Will. I find the implication insulting. I am much more resilient – and adaptable – than you believe me to be."
"I wasn't insinuating you were weak, Hannibal. You have half a hip after popping it out of the socket and almost breaking your back; your body is torn to shreds. I don't want you to sabotage yourself to take care of me," Will says.
Giving him a look that is surprisingly animated, Hannibal speaks severely, "Like you have been sabotaging yourself to take care of me?"
Will huffs and reaches for something else; "You can't sentence me to bedrest – I'm not a child, Hannibal," he grumbles.
Hannibal's mouth quirks; his words are calm, but there is an underline of mirrored irritation. "You are certainly acting like one."
"At least let me help you with your bandages. I can do that without passing out. I've done it before."
"No." He pinches Will's jaw and turns him, closely examining the cut on his cheek. As if to prove his point about childishness, Will tries to yank out of his grasp, to which he grasps tighter.
Hannibal takes a moment to decadently sweep his eyes over Will's face like he is a painting made from a personal commission. There is focus and concern for his cheek, but by the fond look in his eyes, it's clear Hannibal is taking in whatever he can before he gets to work. He sets the third pad of gauze down beside him. Then, he detaches from Will's face and stands again; his limp is heavier than before, and he props himself on the edge of the sink, nearly knocking the bone into the trash.
"I would like to start by helping you brush your teeth," he begins, plucking a toothbrush and the small tube of toothpaste just beside it. Will's blood runs cold; his cheek stings anew at just the mention. But before he can do anything to avoid his fate, Hannibal sits back down, making Will slot in between his thighs once more. "If you'd like to re-dose before I begin, show me where you keep the medication, and I will get it for you."
"...Please don't," he breathes.
"I know it hurts, but it will only get worse if we don't clean it." Hannibal, while his tone is sympathetic, proceeds with a doctor's efficiency, applying a pea-sized dollop of toothpaste onto the brush and wetting it under the bathtub faucet. Lightly, he asks, "Would you like more painkillers?"
Will becomes acutely aware of the sour taste infesting his mouth when he theorizes what the addition of stark mint might be like. His face contorts in anxiety as the brush approaches his lips. "...No. I'll overdose." He tries to speak with humor.
With not a word more, Hannibal pries Will's mouth open, a thumb to his lower lip, and begins to brush. He starts on the left side. Mint washes over Will's tongue. It saturates his dry mouth with a freshness that only makes the bitter infection nauseate him more. Despite the gentleness Hannibal uses, his tender gums start to bleed. "Hannibal" and "Gentle" sound like an oxymoron.
It's pathetic how easily Will submits to it, almost completely limp in Hannibal's grasp, using his palm as a pillow as he encroaches on the lower right side with a feather-light touch. The pain only sets in when the back of the brush grazes the wound from the inside, and Will grunts.
"I know," Hannibal murmurs with every flinch, gasp, and attempt to draw away. "I must," is what goes unsaid, but it's spoken in how he continues to clean the plaque from the bone and lightly pulls on the corner of Will's mouth to reach his molars.
Will cannot help the groans of pain that leave him as his cheek stretches to accommodate the toothbrush, irritating the flesh and the gums at the same time, both sides wounded and fragile. Hannibal has only begun to clean the upper right half, and he is using even less pressure, if that's even possible. He is just dusting off surface debris, refusing to grind into the plaque. Even then, it irritates the flesh. The taste of blood is more prominent than mint now.
Something shifts with the brush's upstroke. Will feels something loose in his gums.
Humming for Hannibal to stop, he reaches to paw at it with his fingers. The moment he comes to grip one of his back molars, it cracks and tears from the flesh. With a soft gasp, Will lets the tooth fall into his palm.
"...Hm," Hannibal murmurs, plucking it from him and mulling it over. One root is broken off; the tooth is worn down and coated with blood. Will huffs and pulls away when he attempts to reveal the injury, pulling his lip back – it stings as the stab wound furrows. Slightly disgruntled, Hannibal says, "The stabbing might have severed it from the gum lining. I see no signs of cavity or deeper infection, but it is plausible that your teeth have been weakened from lack of care. You should expect what's left of the root to fall out in time as well."
Blood drips into Will's lower teeth. A new ache settles deep in his gums; he feels the area with his tongue and immediately regrets it – the flesh is sensitive, sets electricity through his skull, and he grunts in response. Maybe he did need more medication.
Hannibal sets the tooth beside his hip bone and continues to brush despite Will's protests.
Will is handed a glass of salt water after his teeth are as clean as they can be; the taste of infection is still there, but it's overshadowed by iron-y crimson and mint. He cannot find it in himself to rinse his mouth.
The water, warm, cloudy with the table salt Hannibal had left to grab, sits expectantly in his palms; it should be a comforting sensation after not being able to drink warm water for weeks. Hannibal insists like a mother hen – he tips the thing up when Will brings it to his lips – salt washes over his tongue, and suddenly, he is in the water again.
He is thrashing against the surf, screaming, and he cannot find Hannibal. There is no bundle of fabric between his white knuckles. The symphony of the waves carves through his ears, and he cannot hear – he cannot see. All he can comprehend is the salt rushing up his nose and into his lungs, and he is in the water again.
Will coughs out the water, stammering, "I can't." Blood tints the stain at his feet a dull, diluted pink. He holds the glass in the air like it will attack him if it gets too close.
Hannibal doesn't press. He takes it and murmurs an apology – rubs his back contritely as the episode passes.
"The infection has rendered your cut unable to heal; now clean, it appears as though you were freshly stabbed. And will behave as such," Hannibal explains as he feeds new sutures through the irritated stitch pattern left behind. Removing the old sutures had been a very tentative, slow process. Will's groans of pain echo through the room.
"So it's a start-over?" Will speaks while trying not to move too much of his mouth. The sting is fresh. Hannibal had cleaned the cut as well as he could with their limited supplies and Will's ever-limiting tolerance for pain.
"It is allowing a process to start that was never able to in the first place." Hannibal snips the last stitch; then he wipes his cheek down a final time.
Hannibal helps him into bed. By now, his body has slowed down enough that his joints are stiff when he stands, and his mind lags behind his head while he wobbles to the mattress, Hannibal's hand on his back as he limps heavily behind him; Hannibal's head is held high despite it.
Will is told about a new set of rules. He is barely awake enough to process it; a blanket replaces his towel as he sprawls across the mattress. He is lying on his stomach even when the bruise over his ribs protests against the pressure.
He is not allowed to get up from bed. Not without Hannibal there to help him walk. He is to rest and to do only that; Hannibal will take care of the rest. It's a terrible allotment, but the hug of the mattress is irresistible.
On the first day he's bedridden, he sleeps for twenty hours. After that, when Hannibal confesses that morning that he feared Will might not have woken up, he asks to be woken every four hours. Begrudgingly, Hannibal relents.
"You have been giving me morphine," Hannibal says as he presents Will with a palmful of pills and a glass of crisp, cold water from the kitchen sink. Hannibal had insisted on putting him on a strict regimen of antibiotics (what antibiotics they could get from the bathroom cabinets) and fever-reducing medication.
Will mumbles, "Am I in trouble?" as he downs what he can of the water first, then takes the pills.
"No," says Hannibal. "I was surprised. I will be switching our medication."
"No. You need it more." Fervently, Will shakes his head.
They bicker about it every time Will is given his next dose – the medication has already been switched; Hannibal is straining more because of it, refuting the fact he is slowly getting better at walking. He still limps like he's holding hundreds of pounds on his right shoulder, but he can make it to the kitchen and back without collapsing under himself. Will's heart pounds with guilt when he watches Hannibal struggle to hike himself onto his feet every time he leaves the bed.
He begins using the leg of a stool as a makeshift cane. Will had tried not to be amused when he mournfully announced that he had to dismantle one of their stools, ashamed that their situation was dire enough to warrant needing such a thing to help him walk.
Will had asked him why he couldn't have ordered one, and Hannibal said that he couldn't risk exposing their address, for their safe haven was getting more delicate by the day.
By the evening of the twentieth day, Hannibal has figured out how to turn on their TV. The first channel he puts on is the local news station. Will gets the feeling he'd left the TV be not out of an incompetency surrounding technology but because he didn't feel the need for it until now.
Will curls inward to watch the screen, not bothering to sit up, too comfortable in the mass of warmth he'd made for himself over the past week. Hannibal sits beside his head – pets his hair. He'd made a habit out of it.
Jack Crawford is on the news.
The headline, encased in a potent red bar that rolls just beneath his stomach as he stands at a podium in front of the Baltimore Police Department, reads:
"TOOTH FAIRY" FOUND MURDERED AFTER FAUX-ESCAPE PLAN BY MSP GONE AWRY. CHESAPEAKE RIPPER AND EX-FBI PROFILER WILL GRAHAM ASSUMED DEAD.
A crowd swarms Jack; he has visibly aged from stress, even in the past few weeks it took for the news to really circulate. He is taming the questions spattered at him from a dozen news reporters, all greedily pointing their microphones toward his podium.
"We believe it was a murder-suicide, yes," Jack says, lightly exasperated; Will and Hannibal didn't hear the original question, having switched to the channel right as he spoke.
A woman brings a heavily foamed microphone to her mouth, asking, "Whose suicide, Sir?" and then forces it to Mr. Crawford's face.
Will had never seen Jack crack under pressure before, but here he is; cracks form over his brow as he explains, "We believe that Will Graham, after he killed Francis Dolarhyde with Hannibal Lecter, coerced Dr. Lecter to the edge of the cliff and proceeded to commit suicide, bringing him down as well."
"Why would Will Graham kill alongside Hannibal Lecter?" another reporter asks.
Jack explains, "It may have been the fight for survival that overcame his sense of morality. Based on the crime scene, it was kill or be killed. I believe that Mr. Graham felt inconceivable guilt over his actions and chose to put an end to the terror while he could; it's just unfortunate that he chose to put an end to himself in the process."
"Are they just missing? How can you be sure they're dead?"
"Their blood was on the rocks, along with shreds of clothing and a discarded shoe belonging to Dr. Lecter; it's assumed that their bodies were taken out to sea – we have yet to recover them."
"I won't believe it until I see their bodies," a distant reporter snarks; they startle when their voice picks up on the many microphones around them.
Jack replies in earnest. "The bodies will wash up anywhere between a few weeks to a few months from now. Our search scope has widened to the wider Atlantic area, and we will keep looking for evidence of them on shore."
A frantic gentleman forces his way to the front of the crowd, waving his microphone to nearly hit the lip of the podium as he worriedly queries, "Can America rest? Every family across the U.S. is petrified – can we be assured in any way?"
"You can rest assured; you and the rest of America. If, somehow, they survived the suicide attempt, they would have succumbed to their injuries within hours. The water of the Chesapeake Shore would have caused hypothermia if they weren't injured enough to drown on their own." Jack gestures vaguely, assuringly, as he speaks, then he points to someone muddled who'd been raising their hand just beneath the camera capturing the broadcast. "Yes – right here, yes."
"How do you feel knowing that an innocent man had to die to bring the Chesapeake Ripper to his end? Will Graham was under your direct supervision; you oversaw the operation." A woman with red hair fights through the crowd to ask her question; her curls bounce as she overtakes another news reporter's microphone; she and Jack share some indescribable look before he speaks, mournful and pensive:
"There has been too much blood spilled. The blood is on my hands. I understand all too well, Ma'am, what it means to lose innocent men for the sake of apprehending a dangerous one. What fate befell Will Graham was extremely unfortunate but necessary. An innocent man might have been killed, but due to his sacrifice, the most dangerous man to ever exist is also dead."
She hums curtly and responds with words that feel more like a strike of lightning than a question, "You have a history of losing innocent men and women, Mr. Crawford; what will become of you after this incident?"
Another crack splits Jack's jaw as he stands with his mouth slack, and out falls a pathetic "I...".
A suit takes him by the elbows and guides him from the podium; they speak while the crowd erupts. "Mr. Crawford is no longer accepting questions at this time. Thank you all for your participation."
The screen fades to black.
There is another headline; with it, a photo of Will's face is displayed in black and white. He's with his dogs, with Molly, with Walter – neither of them is visible, as the photo has zoomed in on his restrained smile, but he remembers the day they tried to go out for family photos in the local park. They had to go home early because it got too windy; that was the only good photo they captured.
R.I.P. WILL GRAHAM. 3/8/1975 - 12/22/2017. A GOOD FRIEND, FATHER, AND HERO.
There is no such dedication to Hannibal Lecter. A good friend, father, and hero. Will swallows a swell of emotion he can't place while Hannibal turns off the TV.
"What did you think of that broadcast, Will?" he asks, crossing his wrists over his lap.
Will props himself on an elbow. The afterimage of his smile (his 'only for photos' smile that bears too much teeth to look casual) is painted on the inside of his eyelids. "I don't think Mr. Crawford believes anything that's coming out of his mouth."
Hannibal nods to compliment his agreement. "Neither do I."
"Some blood and a shoe means we're dead. A+ detective work from Baltimore's finest," he says with a light scoff.
"Let them believe what they may." Hannibal sounds amused. With his chin pitched upward, he turns to glance at Will, saying pointedly, "They're widening their search to the greater shore."
"Just about to nip our tails." Will finishes his thought for him.
"Do you believe you are fit to travel, Will?"
He bites his lip – takes his time responding. "No, but I'll manage."
On habit, Hannibal feels his forehead; the hand glides into his hair as Will lets himself fall back onto the mattress. His fever hasn't completely dissipated, but he isn't as temperamental as he used to be.
"Tomorrow morning," Hannibal says definitively. Will has no choice but to agree.
They do leave that next morning.
Hannibal uses what he can from the kitchen to make them a real breakfast – he says something about it being unwise to travel on an empty stomach right after he scolds Will about walking to the kitchen on his own. Will disregards his concern openly; he bickers back that Hannibal shouldn't be walking at all. Hannibal tosses it aside with an irritated pop of his shoulder.
Will, having the decency to change into a fresh pair of boxers, tucks the hip bone into a pocket. The pair belongs to Hannibal – too loose. The waistband threatens to fall off his hips. He keeps a hand on the bone all morning, feeling the sharpness through the fabric as he pretends he's not holding onto his waistband to keep the garment from falling.
Hannibal is making a scramble with powdered eggs. Watching the process makes Will want to gag. All of the ingredients would be more fit in a bomb shelter than in a kitchen belonging to Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal's nose is permanently crinkled in distaste as he unloads a can of kidney beans into it and tries to freshen it up with the dried herbs he scrounges from their tiny pantry.
"Did you have this house prepackaged or something?" Will asks. He sits on the island on one of their two stools (the third has been thrown into the backyard; Hannibal can't bear to look at it) and waits expectantly. Hannibal can make anything smell and look delicious despite its origins. His stomach is growling.
Hannibal chuckles – throws his response over his shoulder as he fiddles with the scramble, "It was lying in wait, yes, but the supplies are relatively new. Chiyoh caught word by letter of Jack's escape plan for me and brought over what she could."
Will quips, "She could have gotten fresher ingredients."
"It's best to have non-perishable foods for stays where you cannot get fresh ingredients," Hannibal says; he hands Will a glass of water when he leaves the pan to cook.
"...This house doesn't really say 'Hannibal' to me." Will sips on it, lightly swishing the water around his mouth as he glances around the room. "Looks more like a cabin than anything else."
"I chose this property with you in mind, yes."
Will pauses with the glass to his lip, tries not to sound taken aback as he asks, "How far in advance?"
"Three years," Hannibal says, a little incredulous about the timeline himself based on his tone; he sips from his own glass. Maybe he's pretending it's some sort of alcohol.
Tentatively, Will murmurs, "You hoped to whisk me away into the sunset after saving me from Muskrat Farm?"
"...As juvenile as the thought is when I examine it now, yes."
"A property in Baltimore is an interesting choice."
"I chose from a list." Hannibal wipes off his hands on a towel and folds it – stirs the scramble around, then leaves it again. "I thought you would like the familiarity."
"Familiar like a ghost coming back to a graveyard." The glass sweats in his palms; he's tempted to press it to his cheek to soak in the cold.
"Or the exiled soldier coming back to his country's battlefields expecting salvation and not the point of a bayonet," Hannibal speaks with light humor as he wrestles the scramble onto a plate. "The two most dangerous men in America find rebirth in their beginnings."
Will says, tilting his head in consideration, "Well, according to America, we're dead."
"And you are a hero that will be spoken of for generations. Many falsehoods lie on the tongues of the dead. Here, eat." He sets the dish before him; it's a pathetic plating, a beige-yellow scramble dumped in a pile with only a sprig of thyme as a garnish. Will finds the attempt at presentation endearing.
He expects it to taste much worse than it does. It's mostly the texture of instant eggs that throws him off. Hannibal can make anything delicious. By the time Hannibal serves himself, he's halfway done. He purposefully waits until Hannibal joins him at the second stool.
They eat in the quiet. It's a comfortable quiet – buzzing with tentative, anticipatory energy.
Will struggles to get the scramble onto his fork, even when he tries with both hands. He's far past enough the initial injury to find it amusing. Hannibal makes a halfhearted offer to feed him, to which he breathes a laugh. It has gotten easier to breathe. Will's ribs are still tight and stubborn, but he doesn't have to fight them anymore. And the fork he brings to his mouth is being held stable by the man he loves, sitting just beside him. Their knees knock together.
It's difficult to chew around his missing tooth, but he tries. He can't imagine it's much easier for Hannibal to eat, either, with the diet of soup and broth making the muscles of his jaw complacent. Whatever struggle he has, he doesn't show, as is how he treats much of his struggle, as he cleans off his plate and lumbers to the sink.
Hannibal insists on tidying the house before they leave. Weeks-old blood still paints the lip of the tub – the great swath from when Will tumbled into his side that first night is still there, threatening in its own right, like a murder had transpired and not what either of them would call it: a rebirth. Something might have died that night, a bird crippled in the meek winter brush or a critter who'd met the wrong end of a speeding car, but Hannibal and Will, creatures among men, certainly did not.
Will refuses to clean it. Instead, while Hannibal rummages for the keys to their truck and attempts to get it working, Will uses what time he has outside of his supervision to pull together clothes, medical supplies, and medication for them. He finds Hannibal's stash of pill bottles, gives the bottles that he assumes he'd been dosed with a cursory glance, finds nothing awry with the names, and stuffs them into the suitcase they decided would carry all of their medical supplies.
The truck is unassuming – about ten years old by the looks of it, the paint a sunbleached reddish-brown, and the upholstery is beginning to peel. The license plate looks accurate; recently replaced. Will insists on lugging the suitcase into the backseat, promptly remembers that he's wearing an obscenely minimal amount of clothing, and decides to let Hannibal get their clothes together first.
Will is dressed like a doll. He's put in thin, breathable khakis, a barely-pulled-together button-down, wrapped in a light blanket, and buckled into the passenger seat. Despite greedily drinking what he could of the freedom he had, his muscles decide to voice thorough complaints, and he nearly buckles while Hannibal tugs his khakis over his hips. He doesn't mind the delicate treatment.
Hannibal dresses himself in something similar – something light and airy despite the winter cold. He deposits the stool leg in the backyard with the rest of the wooden corpse.
Hannibal takes it upon himself to pack the truck. After the suitcase and clothes, he tucks a safe just underneath Will's seat; it's probably full of hush money and fake identity documents that they'll need to cross whatever borders they'll reach. Then, he gets into the front seat, putting a pillow underneath himself.
Will watches the home disappear as they back out of the gravel driveway like a dog gnawing on the last chunk of its bone. His eyes track it through the trees even when it disappears in the corner of their back mirror.
Maybe he would have liked to stay.
In different circumstances, they could have made it their home. Dress it up. Fill every shelf with knickknacks. Get a handful of dogs. Wake up every day with a cup of pretentiously brewed coffee and a kiss good morning.
"And so, Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden," Hannibal says distantly, more to himself than to Will.
"And face all of the tragedy and sin that comes with entering the real world," Will picks up after him, yanking his head over to watch his face dance with the early morning light. It feels like years since Will has seen the sun in its entirety. He chooses to process it in microdoses over Hannibal's eyes. Humming, he says, "I don't think Adam and Eve had much of a choice. They were condemned – kicked out of Heaven to experience their own self-prophecized version of Hell: Earth."
"Tragedy and sin sit alongside epiphany and pleasure in the pantheon of human experience. Alongside boredom, alongside apathy. It is unfair to emphasize tragedy when it all can be experienced." Hannibal speaks succinctly, self-satisfied. "You cannot die without at first being alive."
"...Cannot fall without having risen first." Will's eyes flick over Hannibal's to find a gloss of pride well in them.
Hannibal smiles. Suddenly, Will finds it easier to breathe.
"Who's Adam, and who's Eve?" His question earns a low chuckle from Hannibal; they debate about it but don't ever reach any real conclusion.
Will keeps his eyes caught on Hannibal's, either watching the side of his face or tracking them in their rearview mirror. He doesn't bother to watch the road – they're avoiding the city, going the long way to meet the highway and go north; that's what Hannibal tells him when he halfheartedly asks where they're going. His mind swims when he tries to poke at his internal compass, so he gives a vague nod and keeps watching the twitches in Hannibal's face as he follows the near-dirt roads.
They drive, and drive, and drive, and drive.
It's a week before they feel secure enough to stay the night in a hotel; before that, they do their best to maintain themselves with what meager supplies they have in the truck. They relieve themselves on the side of the road – Hannibal wrestles with his dignity in those instances – and bathe in local rivers when the sun is almost down. The gas stations don't ask questions when a grubby-looking man with a pad of gauze taped to his face comes in asking for a refill of gas and some food for the road. Especially not when the clerk's handed an extra $50 for a 'good job maintaining the store'.
To sleep, Hannibal parks off the backroads, and they pile into the backseat like a carelessly dumped pile of laundry. The heat from their breath and skin is usually enough to keep them shielded from the winter nights. Hannibal makes himself the mattress, letting Will sprawl however he likes, but eventually, they settle into a routine – Will uses Hannibal's heartbeat, his chest a pillow, to soothe him to sleep, tucking a knee between his and trying to avoid putting all of his weight on Hannibal's still-tender abdomen.
That first night, Will lies on his chest, and something small stabs into his cheek from Hannibal's breast pocket. Hannibal, humming with surprise, plucks out the object. It's Will's molar.
"You kept it?" Will asks – his voice is lighter than a whisper.
A look of sheepishness is unfamiliar on Hannibal's face. His face quirks like he is just as surprised to see the tooth pinched in his fingers as Will is. He says, "I did," while rotating it between the pads of his forefinger and thumb just before Will's gaze. "I saw you kept my pelvic bone, and I thought it only fair."
Will speaks distantly. "...I have a piece of you; you have a piece of me."
"So it would seem." Hannibal's thoughts flit over his eyes, and he smiles. Content, he tucks the tooth into his jeans pocket. Will knows that Hannibal knows exactly what he's doing.
Will's hand drifts to his own pocket, where the bone lies hidden beneath the fabric. He sets his head back down. Hannibal's heart thump, thump, thumps into his ear. He asks gingerly, "Do you still have my name?"
"Of course. And you have mine." Hannibal's hands interweave around his middle, securing him like a seatbelt. He is pointedly avoiding Will's bruises.
They untangle the next morning with little grace, with Will toppling onto the floor of the truck and Hannibal's stiff joints barely allowing him the trek from the back door to the front seat. They wrestle into their seats... and keep driving.
Their trip goes by with relative ease for the second day – it takes a long while to get onto the highway in earnest.
Will has developed motion sickness. He discovers this when he vomits into his own lap upon Hannibal's too-quick turn onto the highway. They drive with the windows rolled down and his soiled clothes deposited on the side of the road. He's grateful that Hannibal had packed most of their wardrobe.
From then on, he's been put on a tentative diet of water and saltines. Despite his new-found lack of fever, Will feels sick all over again. He shivers even when it's not cold; everything he eats threatens to expel at the slightest jerk of the wheel – Hannibal makes it a point to drive just beneath the speed limit and make frequent stops to stretch and allow him a moment to soothe his stomach. Although he says he drives slowly to catch all the scenery, Will never believes him.
One morning, Will wakes to the sight of roiling waves crashing into the shore just beyond them, and he flinches with enough force to pop a rib out of place. It cracks in its displacement, and Will gasps, then cries out.
Hannibal had to spend the evening pulled over, coaxing Will to let him put it back. Re-setting a rib that had previously been cocooned in fresh scar tissue was agony for both of them.
Maybe Hannibal had thought the view of the ocean would be peaceful. He no longer drives on shoreside roads.
The arrangement in the backseat is comfortable until it isn't. Their bones ache and bruise from lying pressed onto one another, gravity ushering them to weigh on one another's wounds. It begins to stifle their schedule. They sleep in tentative three-hour intervals and cannot find the energy to get up in the morning. They wake in increasingly more pain.
Will insists they pull over on the fifth day and sleep in a motel. He takes it upon himself to walk inside and purchase the room; the building sits just outside the main lobby and stretches comfortably on the outskirts of the town they stop at. Their room is at the very end, just as he requests, hidden in the treeline. Hannibal limps inside alongside him, handling their suitcase but nothing else.
They take thorough showers, eat something hot at the tiny restaurant attached to the motel, and sleep for most of the night and the next day. Despite their previous complaints about sleeping on top of one another, they entangle anyway. Will finds he cannot sleep without hearing Hannibal's heartbeat beneath his ear.
Will spots a snippet of the news on one of the lobby TVs as he signs out of the room the next morning; he freezes upon seeing his own face staring back at him. A black-and-white photo showing off his 'only-for-photos' smile.
R.I.P. WILL GRAHAM. 3/8/1975 - 12/22/2017.
Three photos snap across the screen in succession. Will and Hannibal's embrace atop the cliff, the first tip with Will's arm around his neck, and then, the empty cliff. Dolarhyde's camera must have tipped to capture the entire ordeal. They're off-frame, with mostly only their lower halves being shown, but Will can recall every second. No one would be able to tell that their embrace was an embrace.
EX-FBI PROFILER WILL GRAHAM MISSING; ASSUMED DEAD; BRINGS THE CHESAPEAKE RIPPER'S REIGN OF TERROR TO AN END IN HEROIC SACRIFICE.
To the public, he symbolizes the sacrifice for the greater good. The hero who dies upon killing the villain. The lamb. This must be what the wolf feels like upon entering the herd.
Will climbs into the driver's seat. He doesn't know what kind of energy fills his shaking limbs as he decides that it's his turn to drive without any input from Hannibal. Hannibal doesn't seem to mind; he lugs the suitcase into the backseat.
"Where are we going?" Will asks as the car jumps to life. Hannibal barely has time to close to door before he turns onto the road.
"Just follow the highway, go Northeast," says Hannibal. With soft grunts, he drapes Will's blanket over his lap.
"Is this some sort of secret plan that I can't know about for some reason?" Will glances over at him incredulously.
"Not necessarily. I believe it would be an easier journey for you if you're blind to the next steps."
"I don't like being blind," he breathes.
"Trust me."
"I don't know if I can yet."
"You trusted me to save your life. You can trust me with this." Hannibal continues after he bears Will's rather loud sigh, "The goal is to get to Newfoundland by entering Canada through Michigan and crossing Quebec."
"And that's all I'm allowed to know?"
"Yes." Hannibal hums; he opens a small Bible. A Bible he took from the motel. He scribbles in the margins with a pencil (the origin of which Will's not sure about).
Will murmurs sharply, "Hannibal."
"Currently, it is not possible for me to purchase a journal. I cannot be seen by the public. We must make do with what we have." Hannibal brushes eraser dust off the page with a pleased smile.
Again, Will sighs – bites his cheek in irritation, but says nothing more.
Hannibal spends most of his time in the passenger seat journaling. When Will occasionally glances over, he recognizes some bits and pieces of French, but it's mostly an amalgamation of Eastern European languages. Hannibal might have known he was going to try to snoop.
Sometimes, when they're settled in a new hotel bed, Hannibal reads off the entries in English; a lot of it is snippets of the day. What they did that day, how Will is feeling, what supplies they'll need. Will wakes up many a time to his own sleeping face staring back at him, born from graphite. Hannibal's signature is at the bottom – not a date and a proclamation about his heroism. He flips through on his own time as Hannibal showers.
Hannibal fishes the book out of his hands and smiles, silently saying good morning, and settles beside him in nothing but a towel and the smell of fresh, generic soap. He doesn't need bandages anymore – not really. He just has to be careful not to irritate the newborn scar tissue.
Will is so used to their nakedness that he doesn't blink when Hannibal dresses before him. Falling into the routine, he gets them ready to leave. When Hannibal tugs on his pants for the day and shoots Will a soft, grateful smile as he zips up their suitcase, Will, for the first time, feels the need to kiss him.
Though their lips had never once met, it felt as though they had kissed thousands of times.
The soft touch on Will's shoulder as Hannibal makes sure the blanket cradles him but doesn't cover his face is a kiss goodnight. The passing of a warm cup from hand to hand as Will mumbles something about getting a shitty coffee from the gas station across the street is a kiss good morning. The ways their bodies tangle, chest pressed to chest or chest to back, as the nights grow cold and all they have for warmth is each other's skin is a kiss. The touch of hands that work soap through their hair when they do not have the strength to lift their arms is a kiss. The fingertips that drift slowly across the skin in gentle exploration during the hours of the night when neither of them can sleep is a kiss. Each kiss is a prayer of safety, of health.
Their first kiss is at a sketchy motel outside of a town Will doesn't bother to ask the name of. It's dangerous enough that Hannibal requests a chair be put under the doorknob. What perhaps accentuates the point is that they pick the lock to get into their room.
They spill into bed, exhausted. Will's stomach had gotten the best of him for the first time in days, and he spent an hour on the side of the highway purging until a blood vessel in his eye popped. Hannibal has come to understand that constant travel is wearing them both down. It has gotten harder for him to walk now than when he took his first steps in the cabin after surgery. They decide to stay a few days here despite the danger. Wolves among wolves, as Hannibal would say.
Will has enough energy to help Hannibal into his nightshirt. (Hannibal does not need help to get into his nightshirt.) They roll onto their sides when Will finishes the last button. Hannibal does not lift a finger to stop him when he pulls a sheet over them despite previously having insisted on it being his job. He does, however, wrangle it over Will's shoulder, delicately tucking it into the pocket of his neck but keeping it off his face. A kiss goodnight. His hand lingers on Will's cheek, practically hovering; Will has yet to get his stitches removed – the cut is still fussy. That will be a task for another day, for Will is almost asleep, and his respite must not be disturbed. Will's hands wander first around Hannibal's ribcage, then reach to capture the back of his shoulders; their chests do not touch, but the phantom sensation is calming enough.
It should not surprise Will when Hannibal presses a kiss onto his half-open, almost drooling mouth. His breath is minty from the motel's toothpaste, and Will's is not. He blinks awake in shock, only to be met with a remorseless, sleep-dazed smile.
"Goodnight," Hannibal mouths.
For a moment, Will wonders if his fever has returned. He wonders if any of this is real. He wonders if they are still in that bathtub, scrambling to keep one another from bleeding out in a drug-induced haze. Then, Hannibal kisses him again.
Aghast, he kisses back. Hannibal's lips are soft and plush from the shower he took before bed. He can't imagine his are pleasant, but he is spurred on from the soft, decadent hum Hannibal lets out when he departs, then presses in again. Hannibal is not just kissing him – he is tasting him; as one does with fine wine, he savors every touch of lip and tongue and teeth. Will suddenly worries about the sour aftertaste left in his mouth, but whatever complaints Hannibal might have, he doesn't voice, too enthralled in trapping Will's lower lip between his teeth and feasting on his responding hum of pleasure.
They kiss every night. It becomes a habit.
Will still dreams of seawater. He dreams of finding Hannibal in bed, drenched in crimson, with no way to stop the bleeding. His hand still shakes as he brings gas station coffee to his lips. It is still hard to breathe. Hannibal still limps and heaves with every lift of his leg. It will be months – maybe years – before they fully heal. But whenever one stumbles, they have the hands of the other to bring them upright again.
After a tentative trip to a local department store, they make necklaces out of their pieces of each other. They're worn hidden under clothing but never taken off. Will feels the bone laid just over his sternum and presses it into the skin until the edges threaten to cut. His fingertips follow the curve.
Hannibal's hand appears to overtake his, and their fingers intertwine. Hannibal is feeling his own necklace; he'd put the tooth in a small jar for an easier attachment to the leather cord he picked out. It clinks around in the glass.
They drive, and drive, and drive. They give fake names and cards to the border workers, holding hands underneath the blanket strewn over their laps. Their faux identities share a last name.
Will presses two fingers to Hannibal's wrist, calling upon the steady beat in his veins to calm his own fluttering heart. Hannibal covers his palm, soaking in the warmth of it as they're allowed entrance. Will focuses on it.
They fell from Heaven into their self-prophecized version of Hell – endured the flood, fought to survive even when they would be destined to do so, forever running on the edge of life and death, gaining and losing blood, and stitched back on their wings. They're missing feathers and crooked in some places, but they'll do the job. Two men of Icarus dive into the unknown instead of into the sun. The pain of hitting snags in their flight will spur them on because at least they are feeling something. They have felt pain, then joy; tragedy, then epiphany; sin, then pleasure. Life, then death. Death, then life.
They are alive.
Will tells himself that. He is alive. Hannibal is alive. They are alive.