beautiful reminders of humanity

1.

The first couple months after the fall had been rough, physically, having to go into hiding while their bodies were on mend. Hannibal's wounds, gruesome as they were, healed relatively quickly and without much fuss. Will on the other hand, had almost died. He had taken a stab to the shoulder, which shouldn’t have been the problem that it was, except that it got infected. He was stuck on the brink of death for quite a long time, and then spent the month after he was stabilized in and out of consciousness, high on painkillers. Hannibal had always been good at working and functioning under pressure, which was good because if he hadn’t been they probably would have died. The first time Will had come to full consciousness, however, Hannibal was a wreck. He’d cried then. Not a soft trickle of a few tears, but gut-wrenching sobs full of shaking shoulders and an ocean full of tears. Will cherished that memory, as he did with every memory of Hannibal crying. They made him human, seem more touchable. The first time he had cried in front of Will, they had been standing on the cliff right before they fell, and the next time was when Will had first woken up. He cried when Will spoke for the first time too, so long after the fall. The first time they made love, Will’s neck was wet with his tears. When Will said “I love you” the first time.

Will never took Hannibal as someone who cried very often, and he never had been. That was until the fall, until Will. The fall had been a rebirth for both of them, it didn’t only symbolize Will’s becoming. And then Will had gotten sick and Hannibal had almost lost him, and Hannibal was again reminded how precious life really is, and how easy it would be to lose him. They both made it through, but all the walls and forts between them had crumbled, and they were left exposed to each other. There wasn’t any reasoning or any point in trying to put them back up, because by then their souls were permanently intertwined. Will could read him no matter what anyways, so things like silence and shouting were equally expressive. Hannibal still didn’t cry a lot by any means, but he did cry (genuinely, cry) now on occasion, whereas he hadn’t really ever before.