beautiful reminders of humanity

3.

“Your health is of the utmost importance Will, you cannot be keeping things like this from me.” Frustration leaking into his tone, Hannibal leaned against the kitchen counter. Will was sitting across from him on a barstool, nursing a glass of whiskey. Will was annoyed, he knew he shouldn't be annoyed but he was.

He knew Hannibal was just concerned, but it felt overwhelming, and he couldn’t help but wonder how genuine the concern was. The past couple of weeks he found himself falling back into old thinking patterns, reminiscing about the past.

He knew the Hannibal in front of him was completely different then the Hannibal he had first met, but he couldn’t help but to compare his abundance of concern now to the great lack of care he had before.

He grimaced, “Well I don’t need you freaking out. I can take care of myself, always have.”

“For the most part, yes, you can. But you aren’t doing a good show it right now, Encephalitis is life threatening if left untreated, you are aware of that. You cannot just ignore it.”

Hannibal’s usual calm façade was slowly slipping. “With everything you've been through, you’re honestly willing to die by a treatable disease? You’re not stupid, Will.”

Taking another drink of his whiskey, he rolled his eyes. The alcohol was making his thoughts fuzzy, but goddamnit was he too sober for this.

“I wasn’t going to let it go on forever Hannibal, you’re right, I’m not that fucking stupid. You’re just overreacting and being dramatic, like always.” He raised his glass to take another drink only to have it roughly pulled from his grasp.

Looking up, he glared at the man across from him. “What the fuck Hannibal?”

Hannibal's calm was practically nonexistent at this point, and he slammed the glass down on the other side of the counter before looking back at Will. “Are you so insistent on being self destructive? You’re acting like a child Will, refusing help.”

Will let out a loud, overexaggerated sigh. His voice was rough when he spoke, the tone of it slowly rising. “Well what am I supposed to do? It’s not like I can just walk into a hospital and ask them to help me treat a rare disease that I’m known for having had before. Maybe I’ve just been trying to figure out what to do, I’m not completely incompetent you know.”

Hannibal’s clenched fists rested on the counter. “You could ask for help! We could get the right supplies and treat you, without needing to go to the hospital. You know that, you are just being unnecessarily difficult.”

Will stood, the stool pushed behind him as he glared at Hannibal. “Yeah well maybe I don’t want your help, you don’t exactly have the best track record of making good medical decisions for me.”

Hannibal’s next words came out in a raised voice, not exactly a yell, but they seemed to take up all the air from the room. “I am not going to stay here and watch you kill yourself. I’d thought better of you Will, but if that’s how you chose to act I am not going to stay here for it.”

And Will flinched.