" And we keep on dancing, and we keep on skirting stones because we both decide every day to look the same way."
🔥 The old scent 🔥
A goodbye that never existed because it didn't need to. Hannibal knew it would come back. That horrible smell that flooded everything as Will's wonderful eyes look at him through the glass that separates them. He was lost and he knew it long ago and, in that labyrinth that was Will, the hope never fades of finding themselves together.
Hannibal knows that few things he has hated more than that glass.
- I need your help.
Ah, Will, I needed so many things then too. To know what it feels like to have your curls on my fingers, the taste of morning coffee by your side.
- Come on, Will, that's not why you came back.
Stop lying, his amber eyes plead. Has what brought us together disappeared during this time? Hannibal bites his lip lightly, and Will watches him do it in a split second.
- I'm married, Hannibal.
- In the eyes of God or in the eyes of humanity itself?
- In my eyes and yours, which are the ones that really count.
As close as he can get to that crystal he hates so much, and his gaze strays to the ring Will wears. He doesn't know who she is but he hates her too. You don't know if Will is happy but you don't care.
- You don't love her.
- What do you know about love? You're a monster.
He wants to hit him, push him against the nearest wall and show him that his absence has only served to fan the flame.
- Monsters love too, mylimasis.
- Don't call me that.
- I won't if you tell me why you've come back.
Please, Will, I'm still sane because of dreams. For my mind palace full of you, for each and every moment together. Hannibal had discovered that there are worse chains than the visible ones, and those are the ones the heart carries when love is unrequited.
- I need...
- ...my help, yes. You've already said that. I'll ask again. Why are you here, Will?
Will's hand that doesn't have the ring on the glass, and Hannibal suppresses a smile. If he could, he'd have him on his knees making him understand that of course a monster could love. That he'd been doing it for years and that in all this time the rage was hitting him because Will hadn't noticed.
- I missed the old scent.
- Me?
- You are the essence, Hannibal. Hell isn't the same without you.
Kiss me, he asks wordlessly. Make me understand that my memory was the reason for that stupid ring that should be mine.
- I want...there's too much I couldn't say.
- Say it now. I promise you'll get the truth you want so much.
Their breath covers the glass, somewhat less transparent, a metaphor perhaps for two hearts groping to be one.
- I should have kissed you in the sessions. I should have been more insistent on each rejected date. I should have...I shouldn't have relegated what I felt, Will, and stuck the knife in you that night.
- I'm here because I want to fix the cup. Kintsugi. Tell me, how many times have I begged you to make me yours?
Hannibal smiles like before he was locked up. Sincere, happy, returning to that essence that united them both.
- A thousand and ninety-five nights, if I count while I was sleeping. Thousands more if we add the waking.
- Here, he says, placing it on the tray that communicates them, do with it what you want.
The ring.
- I'm here because I've decided to be free by your side.
