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Beyond 🔥
Sometimes wounds are not seen because they don't bleed. Because they have not left scars on our body, not physical ones at least. There are times when the pain we feel is so deep that the only way for our body to get rid of it is to get sick.
Will's encephalitis was nothing more than his own self screaming at him that something was going on. His heart, tired of loneliness, was asking him to listen to it for once. And Hannibal knew it. He was seeing it in those blue eyes that, tired, barely blinked.
- It's not what you want to do, Will. Not like this. Do you remember our conversation?
Words. Will shakes his head to clear his head without dropping the gun. How many words had germinated in his mind, Hannibal's handiwork, and covered almost everything?
- You're not going to convince me. I know who I am. I know what I want.
- Are you sure about that? - Hannibal smiles, knowing he's the winner. You said if you were going to end my life, you'd do it with your own hands. Do I deserve any less? This is so... impersonal.
- The encephalitis...
- Curable, of course. Omitted out of curiosity. And this is as far as it's taken us.
Beads of sweat soak the profiler's forehead. His curls, stuck together, give him an air of vulnerability that Hannibal finds more than exciting.
- This is going to end now, Hannibal.
For in all the chaos of Will Hannibal had found his own peace. A companion, an equal who was discovering that he was. The cup sat on the edge of the table in a balance as thin as the first layers of ice. One wrong gesture and it would fall, one inappropriate word and it would shatter.
- Put the gun down, Will. Let's talk. One day you said you didn't find me interesting enough to be friends with. And now? Do you find me interesting now that you know the truth?
Will is tired. It's been too many months. He'd lost and found himself - or so he thought - so many times that who he was got mixed up with who he wanted to be. And that dissociation, well, that dissociation was swallowing his sanity.
- I'm going fucking crazy. I don't know anything...
- You're lying. You know, but you're afraid. Come with me - Hannibal approaches very slowly -. This is not your home, not your world, not the place you should be - he rests his hand on the end of the gun, feeling Will's trembling through it. You feel lost now, Will, but you're not. You're more anchored to the world than you've ever been, darling.
Will presses the trigger lightly. Does he want to finish what Hannibal started, or does he want to take his hand and see what's beyond the noise, the people, the world he knows?
- Hannibal...
- Come with me. Go through that door. I promise I'll be on the other side as you walk through, discovering everything.
Confidently, he lowers the gun as he intertwines his fingers with Will's. He's never touched him before, not like this. It feels too good.
- What about Jack? Alana?
- They've always been a way to get to you. They've served their purpose. Now... the world is as much yours as you wish.
The gun clamped between the two of them, and Will's breath in Hannibal's mouth. He had spent too much time in his ice kingdom, alone, and it was time it was shared.
- I will run away with you. And let it be what it must be.
Hannibal's smile couldn't have been more sincere. He loved Will almost as much as he loved himself.
- No, my dear. Whatever we want it to be.
Hard, firm, devouring lips. Kissing, biting, inviting hands to continue the work. Hannibal knows that with time on his side, and Will, nothing he sets out to do is impossible.
