Chapter Text
☆Will☆
The waves were cold.
Will remembered blood and Hannibal and falling. He hadn’t been conscious for a while. He wasn’t sure how far they’d traveled when they found the beach.
Everything was fuzzy. His head was pounding. Hannibal was still clutching his shirt as they dragged themselves out of the water– he hadn’t let go of him since they fell. Will leaned against him to stay standing, he was soaked and freezing, and so tired. The sun was just rising, peaking through the leaves in the trees, it was the last thing he saw as he and Hannibal collapsed on the rocks.
He was falling. Hannibal held him close as they spun, plummeting down and down. The waves below were suddenly replaced by a void growing wider by the second. The trees began to disappear until all that was left was him and Hannibal, falling to their deaths. Will gasped, clinging to him like a lifeline. Hannibal grabbed his face calmly, looking completely content. “Breathe, Will, you are becoming.” Wings shot out from his back and antlers began sprouting from his skull, Hannibal’s eyes shifted to black. Suddenly everything seemed to still– they weren’t falling anymore. Will grabbed the hand on his face– taloned, he realized– and met his dark eyes.
◇ Hannibal ◇
Will had been drifting in and out of consciousness. Hannibal took inventory of his wounds– thankfully not as bad as he’d suspected, but he’d lost a concerning amount of blood. His wounds would need stitches, he noted. He was exhausted, breathing heavily as he stumbled through trees, holding Will tightly in his arms to remind himself he was still breathing. He knew where they were, just a little farther and they’d meet the road. He couldn’t take Will back to the house, it was likely a crime scene by now. Will shifted in his arms and Hannibal looked down to check on him. To his surprise, Will’s eyes met his. “It’s… beautiful.” He whispered. His eyes were unfocused. He was dreaming. He realized. He was dreaming about the fall. He couldn’t help the small smile that formed on his face. “I…” He spoke again, and Hannibal glanced at him again– his eyes were closed again. “love… You.” Hannibal’s eyes widened. What? He stumbled, almost dropping him. He opened his mouth to ask Will who he was talking to but he was gone again. Still, the words echoed in Hannibal’s head like a bell as he covered the distance to the road, as he set Will against a tree. Hannibal stumbled out into the center of the road. The car that was driving up, swerved to avoid him, breaks squealing and he made quick work of the driver. He dragged them to the side of the road and grabbed Will. He laid him down in the back seat. He was sleeping calmer than Hannibal knew he could, given his history of nightmares. He used the phone he’d found in the driver’s pocket, dialing the number he had taken it upon himself to memorise after he was found out by the police the first time. Iago answered after three rings. “H-Hannibal?” He whispered hesitantly after a beat of silence. “Yes.” He said, earning a relieved sigh from the man at the other end of the call. “I saw the story on the news, I knew it couldn’t be true, that you couldn’t be dead.” His tone became more serious then and he asked, “What do you need?”
“I need a plane.” He answered, and added, “Tonight.” Iago sighed. “It’s short notice, my friend... I’ll see what I can do. Should I call this number with the details?”
“No.” Hannibal said simply, “I will call you.” He hung up the phone and tossed it out the window. He glanced up at the mirror to check on Will– still sleeping. His words from earlier repeated in his head. I love you. Who had he been talking to? He got a sour taste in his mouth at the thought it could be his wife. What did he see in her? Perhaps the better question was, what didn’t she see in him? Knowing Will, he wouldn’t have shown her the darker side of him– he hated that side. Hannibal wondered how much they’d changed him– he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed when Francis had failed to kill them. Not as much as he’d changed him, clearly. It was not a surprise, though, in order to change someone you need to know them, their darkest parts included. Will’s temporary fantasy of normalcy wouldn’t have lasted, his wife and her child would be better without him, they never deserved him to begin with. Will was where he was meant to be now. Hannibal had always understood him, he was the only one who could understand him in his entirety.
☆ Will ☆
Will woke up to the smell of chicken soup. His body ached. Opening his eyes, he found Hannibal at his bedside. He suddenly had deja vu. “Good morning, Will.” He said, “you were out for a while.” Will’s mouth was dry as he asked him how long it had been. Hannibal lifted the bowl of soup in front of him. “Almost half the day. I went to go meet with a friend,” he said, lifting a spoon to his lips. Will was too tired to protest. It tasted incredible. “Oh?” He said. Hannibal nodded, “she was under the impression you’d be joining us for dinner. I gave her your regrets.” It clicked, then, what friend he was talking about. “Bedelia?” Hannibal raised a brow, “on a first name basis?”
“We’ve talked.”
“About what?” Will met his eyes, “curious, doctor?”
“Very much.” Was Hannibal’s reply. Will studied him for a moment. “We talked about you.” For a minute Hannibal just looked at him… And then he went back to feeding him like a toddler. “Were her insights useful?”
“She said you were in love with me.” He said bluntly, meeting his eyes briefly. “And she said we can’t live without each other. I can feed myself, by the way.” He added as an afterthought. Hannibal handed him the bowl but didn’t move away. “And what do you say?” Will hesitated, “I’ve said it before that I don’t think either of us could survive separation. I think, in some morbid way, we are the best thing to happen to each other... And the worst.” Hannibal got up and Will watched him walk around the bed and cross the room to the dresser in the corner. “There must be a balance of the best and worst, the righteous and the evil, don’t you think? You cannot have marvelous beauty without marvelous tragedy, and are Shakespeare’s comedies not regarded as works of genius?” He pulled a yellow envelope from a drawer and strode back over to him.
“Hannibal, what is this?” He said, looking up from the passports to meet his eyes. “It’s a chance, Will. I never got the chance to show you and Abigail Florence. Let me show you now. They think we are dead. This is our chance to be free. Come with me, Will.” Will thought about everything he’d be leaving behind– Molly, Walter, his dogs– and he was surprised at how easy it was for him to choose.
He knew that he’d truly made his choice when he’d gotten in that police cruiser, when he’d helped Hannibal kill Dolarhyde and enjoyed it, when he’d thrown them both off the cliff back at the house. Deep down, he knew that he’d made up his mind even before all of that; that some part of him was hoping for this outcome when he pitched the idea of using Hannibal as bait to Jack. Hannibal knew it too– or suspected at least, based on the way he was watching him with carefully hidden satisfaction– like he knew he’d won. “Where will we go?” Will asked, aware that it would be taken as agreement, “We can’t go back to Italy so soon.” A grin split Hannibal’s face then. “Is that a yes?” Will nodded stiffly and Hannibal continued, “I hoped we could visit Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, or the Sydney Opera House in Australia. Of course, I would love to show you France.”
“The least cold one, first, please.” After spending his night– and most of the morning– freezing, Will was ready for some warmth. “Australia it is, then.” Hannibal said, still smiling. “I know a great wine shop in Sydney.”