"Who said listening to the heart is easy, never really loved. Who wasn't afraid to give it away, confused emotions. Love will always mean risk."
🔥 Kintsugi 🔥
Cracks over the face, hands and heart. Cracks filled with gold, bringing back together the essence of being that was broken long ago. The two men glowed now, but the glow was still faint. Too recent was that night. Too many emotions.
Can a human soul be broken?
Hannibal had found that out when he'd plunged the knife into Will. Will doubted he even had a soul himself.
- Another chance?
- Do we deserve it? - Will replies.
Yes, Hannibal thinks. Because we didn't get to enjoy it, darling. I could never know what it felt like to feel your lips on mine. What it would have been like to have you by my side.
- Kintsugi, Will. I pray over what was shattered. I pray to erase the pieces and to emphasize them in turn, shining, remembering that scars tell historser we must not forget.
- I have too many scars already, I didn't want to have any more.
Hannibal approaches him, determined, the whole world beneath his feet and the future again being possible at his side.
- We can go on. We can... - he falls silent for a few seconds, his heart pushing him to continue - we can make it. I remember that night, Will, I remember the look in your eyes. Had you been there first you would have run away with us.
Us. Abigail. The blood gushing from her neck and Hannibal being the cause of the disgrace. Perhaps gold can salvage the pieces of the visible but Will knows that those who are not palpable would never be one again.
- Maybe - Will looks down - I wanted to do it, Hannibal. I wanted to...
- I know, mylimasis - Hannibal rests his hand on Will's face - I know I deserve all the hate you hold.
- I don't hate you. I was afraid, I couldn't win that time.
The gold on Will's face, brighter now as it comes in contact with the falling tears, his eyes full of words that Hannibal reads perfectly.
- Can you forgive me?
Will nods. He hasn't forgotten what happened, fishing with Abigail every night. He hasn't forgotten that he loved her as the father he took from her and that, in the pain that bound them both, he had found a place where he could speak without fear of judgement. For Abigail, who waited for him, wanting to start a family. For Hannibal, who had loved him from the beginning and was the author of much of the stories in his body. For them Will had decided he wanted to stop running.
- I already have," he replies.
The embrace, at last, that was meant to be. Can human souls be put back together? Hannibal feels that with Will's arms around him he is capable of anything that has to come.
- I wanted you from the moment you crossed my path. I called it curiosity. I called you many things. You're the only person I hold close to my heart, Will. The only one I want.
Will smiles against Hannibal's lips, clinging to him like someone who's drifting and knows he'll go under if he doesn't.
- Come on," he says, touching his face, "the gold in our skin invites us to try.
Because walking again is never easy, and doing it in a different way to the one you know even less so. One life for another and the memories of how it all was. The longing for what is left behind and the uncertainty of what will be. Hannibal knows perfectly well what Will is risking, and loves him all the more for it.
Kintsugi.
Past, present and future in their intertwined hands, and the story they both decide to continue because it is meant to be.
