"Between words, my existence through yours. And in stories, the attempt to give form to what I feel."
🔥 The melody between your hands belongs to me 🔥.
The harpsichord had become his hands on the body of the young profiler, the one he didn't know yet. The notes he drew from it, disparate, in those moans that echoed in his mind that he had not yet heard.
Hannibal sat every afternoon, especially those he had spent with Will in his office, and created. There were days, like today, when it was desire that guided his fast-moving hands because that was how he felt about him: a torrent under his skin that struggled to become part of the world. Others, on the other hand, it was his heart that forced him to go slow, for that too is a facet of love, that of being patient and waiting.
In his mental palace, all the moments that have happened and also those that were only dreams. Because when Hannibal created with the harpsichord he gave wings to an imagination that more than imagination was hope. Maybe, who knows. So many possibilities in just two paths.
- Do you like opera?
He wanted to share his world with Will, the part of him that was acceptable to outsiders. Little by little, he thought, in Will lay the potential.
- Are you proposing a date, Dr. Lecter?
Will was an open book. He thought and spoke, felt and expressed. Hannibal loved that ease of being him in spite of everything else.
- I am proposing a few hours away from this practice, in a space of enjoyment and human evolution.
Because Hannibal was trying too hard to create the perfect melody. Will deserved no less. And, every evening, those hands that had taken so many lives fought with what he felt, trying to give form to what his heart held.
- Why don't you invite me to dinner at your house?
Hannibal doubted if the conversation had taken place or if it was one of the many dreams in his Mental Palace. And, with everything already prepared and ready to serve, he waited for the young man he had fallen in love with and with whom he wanted to share everything to knock on his door while his hands continued to move, now more accurate, over the keys of a harpsichord that had become an extension of himself.
- Do yo compose?
Will runs his fingers over the harpsichord and Hannibal stifles a groan that his eyes and body do not hesitate to express.
- Why did you come, Will?
- Why shouldn't I?
Hannibal picks up the sheet of paper bearing Will's name. On it, I think of you so much that it hurts.
- Because you're aware of what I feel. You have a strange and magnificent gift, Will. What I don't know is whether you're using it to suit himself.
Will smiles and Hannibal catches the smile in his own. He sits down in front of the harpsichord and motions for the psychiatrist to do the same. The closeness, at times, burns. It feels distant. Dubitative.
- I want you to play and be you, Hannibal. The melody between your hands belongs to me.
Clever boy. Twice seven words and Hannibal places the paper in front of him while Will doesn't take his precious eyes off his hands.
- It's not finished. I never know how to finish any of them. It's...difficult, being you.
Will rests his hand on Hannibal's, who looks up at him in surprise.
- Would this help?
And kisses him. And Hannibal's mind palace fills with all the music that hasn't yet been born but lives in his heart because since Will is in his life, he's come to know he has one and he wants to please him. He's so hungry for it.
- It would help to have you under my body, to feel you and make it real. It would help to shape it through me, through you, and see what comes of it.
And Will, who longs to see what the melody that bears his name becomes, delivers everything Hannibal dreamed of.
