Will is in a coma after an accident that he can come out of anytime. But he stays there, within the last save corners, behind the last save walls, because it's before he fell, before everything he based himself on in the last months gave away, before he knew who the Chesapeake Ripper was, before he hated what he felt.
Drifting deeper
It changes. Sometimes its dark brown, sometimes its so blue he believes it's the ocean.
Or the sea. He is nor sure. He might just be in a depth, in a dimness, in a darkness shot with lights. He's only sure of the motion. He's in motion, he's in movement, and the movement is bluish brown.
He floats in shades of Oakwood, drifts through cerulean water lines, tumbles in sapphire and iris and ultramarine skies, and sometimes he drowns in hazel brown, smooth and promising.
He remembers searching for this hazel like shade of brown. It's hard to find it in the woods, harder to find than the socks Winston steals. It's even rarer if you search it in people, even harder if you're Will Graham, avoiding their eyes. He had to time precisely, had to catch him in sunlight and say his name so that he turns his head just at the right angle to the light, and oh so very fortunate he found it, in his eyes, caught a glimpse of it, perfect, fathomless, hazel brown.
He drowns in it now, when he's lucky.
He can climb out of here any time he wants to.
He doesn't.
It was arbitrary. It fit no pattern, solved no crime(it could still if he would tell anyone),sealed no sacrifice. It was just a step off a curb, a glance at the dissolving stag, and just time enough to think, " How didn't I notice that?" as the car he couldn't get away from knocked him flying, up against a wall and down into the brown and blue.
We don't know most of the world.
In the oceans, available living space has both vertical and horizontal dimensions. Water makes up seventy-one percent of Earth's surface area, but ninety-nine percent of its biosphere. The deep sea, in utter dark, is the planet's largest habitat. And we know practically nothing of it.
Every night and every morning, billions of sea creatures travel from the black deep to the surface and back again in search of food and light and some fragile warmth. It's the largest synchronized animal movement on earth, this vertical migration, and it happens every day, twice a day, diurnal. Will drifts. And together with thousands of predators he makes his way from deep blue into lighter field up into the contaminated, dirty brownish rivers he used to fish in with his father.
Patience till they bite. Don't move. Act precisely.
The cool waves are crushing over selfdecomposing body's fighting to get to their place of birth.
The scales glitter like rainbows.
Will likes the sea. But he favors the rivers.
He's still drifting and spinning, floating up and down in a pleasant vertigo. Down is violet dragging to black, up is cobalt reflecting through shades of maroon dissolving into hazel brown; he wants to stay here, between the black-violet and the cobalt. Memories live here in the hazel layer.
He knows he's in a coma. He knows he has a choice. He thinks he might stay here. He likes it here, friends aren't monsters here, Hannibal hasn't lied here, and it's all warm and brown and there's nothing to do but dissolve in the feelings.
Angry, Hannibal's eyes were dangerous. They weren't hazel brown then, maybe not even longer any sort of brown, maybe black or red. Will can't look at them long enough to tell.
Never raising his voice, Hannibal is always calm, but beyond that there is steel. There is no change in his moving, still the steady, fluid movements alike those of dancers, never a false step. His eyes burn through everything, but that didn't stopWill's mouth from saying the words.
"I hate you right now. You are a monster Hannibal."
The doctor's eyes glittered. He whispered, and it was awful.
"Aren't we all Will?"
"You were behind it all the time. It's your design."
Calm, mature, refined Hannibal sat down next to him but only prompted him with silence and burning eyes. Violating his office had been too bad, not as bad as his words thought but still so very bad.
And thought it was dangerous, though it was very very dangerous, revealing his throat, he took Hannibal by the shoulders, turned him, and kissed him on the mouth.
If only the car had hit him then.
He drifts. The brown is lighter, darker, lighter darker lighter. He thinks he might stay here, in the layer of memories where Hannibal isn't a monster yet, isn't angry, isn't cold. Where Hannibal is still bringing him Tupperware boxes of food, if he forgets eating and still smiles at him. Those smiles a person might kiss. His smiles change his face so much. He shines then, he glows. Will likes when he smiles, it's like the reflected light from Dr. Lecter makes him less of a monster himself. He's still not sure who the real monsters are after all.
Yes, he might stay here, if he can. If he can keep out of the cold black below. In the farthest deep, that's where the dreams are. The ghost of Hobbs haunts him, seen in dreams of firing ranges and in the graves of murder victims – some of whom are not entirely dead. The lights are beautiful down there, but the creatures themselves are nightmares. The memories would tear him apart bit by bit, his face, his eyes. Will couldn't see a single emotion in Hannibal's eyes, they were empty, dead. Hannibal was letting Will see the real him. The killer, the man who warned another killer that Will was coming, just to see what his response would be. The man who ate the people he killed.
No he's staying here, the hazel layer of memories is much better.
He fell asleep on the couch. They just discussed the latest victims, the arrangement of the woman's body when he felt himself loosing it. He wanted to sink down to the floor and fall asleep right there where he was sitting, but he was also afraid of sleeping. The nightmares were getting to be too much. He hadn't slept properly in the last few days, weeks to be honest. But somehow the steady flow of Hannibal's voice and the comfortable cool texture of the couch lulled him. He closed his eyes.
He felt his hair being stroked, which drifted him, and then his face. He hadn't heard nor felt the material dip beside him. He didn't hesitate tacking those strong hands down to his chest and deeper, his mind was pleasingly calm. But for a moment Hannibal didn't do anything, he just looked. His eyes were chocolate like, dark and warm. Then he let his hand took hold, and Will pressed his face into his suit covered stomach, letting his moans sink into the skin. His hand stroked and flowed, soft and strong as currents on the sea. The moment dissolved in pure bliss.
His face was still being stroked, when he found back to himself. Hannibal put his thumb over Will's mouth and made him look up. Then he gripped his hair and pressed his face into his stomach, so he felt him hard against his cheek.
It was just a little swim up to Hannibal's mouth to learn kissing. That took a bit, and while Will had always been a quick study, he kept finding new things to do and to feel. Hannibal was patient, he waited, he's good at waiting. But finally he put those hand exploring his hair down onto his cock.
Will tasted salt marsh and bitter seaweed and something herb like grapes.
Then there was a sound, a sound Will had never heard, an unclassified sound hiding in the vocal spectrum. Not speaking, not singing, not crying or grunting or moaning or shouting, but a seventh sound as yet unnamed: Hannibal Lecter in ecstasy.
Perfection.
No.
That's not a memory.
That didn't happen. He only wishes it had. He thought it was a memory but he'd gone down too far. The lights distracted him.
He wishes it had happened that way, on the sofa with his head in Hannibal's lap and his hands on him. With him touching him first. That would have been sweet and safe, to come first that way, but in reality it would never be that easy. He'd be awkward and nervous, and since he can't stand to be nervous he'd rush. He's sure it would embarrass him. But it's overwhelming, being touched, even just hands, skin to skin and he loses himself. Hannibal may will think him to be standoffish but it's the opposite: touch him and he drowns. If he felt his belly against his own, if their cocks slid together between them, if their chests pressed and their hands clasped and then on top of it all he kissed him—well, he'd be over, and Hannibal had have to wait until he stopped shaking to touch him again. But he'd wait. He would. Patient. Looking hazel at him.
Will would like for that to happen.
There was a killer on the loose who was drawing inspiration from the Bible. Old Testament—a traditionalist. Will had holed himself up in an empty interrogation room, and he had three different translations open, each one less forthcoming than the last. Will saw nothing but the pages that were in front of him. Hannibal kept coming in with food that Will was not in the mood to eat.
"I'm not hungry," he said, when Hannibal tuted at him.
"Even the Israelites had manna in the desert," Hannibal told him.
"The Israelites were running." Will turned a page.
"And you are not?"
"The Isrealites were running away," Will clarified. "I'm running towards."
Hannibal sat down, and said nothing.
Minutes later, Will looked up, finding Hannibal's gaze already fixed on him. He met his eyes, uncomfortably. "Does that make you God, then?" he asked.
"Pardon me?"
"Your analogy. You giving me food, like God giving the Israelites manna. Isn't that a little…I don't know, egotistical?"
Hannibal reached across the table, pulled the book from Will's grasp. "I suppose," he said. "But what one of us has never felt the urge to play God, if only for a little while? Take our killer, for instance."
And, just like that, Will can see it, see more than just what is in front of him. Another angel an all pieces fell in place. He sees the short quirk of the other man's lips.
That's when Will knew he was in love.
He doesn't have to stay here. Drifting through the hazel he decides to go back. The stag dissolved, there're just echoes now. He knows who will help him fight them till they go away too. But it's a long way up. It's a long effortful swim to the surface: mind the fish, mind the bends, mind the nitrogen in the blood.
The sounds of the hospital are tides that come and go. Lights that grow and dim. He hears Jack's voice now and then. One time or two there are other fingers laced between his own. Though he still can't open his eyes or see through the deep cyan, he looks towards it. He' s sure who's sitting next to him.
"My dear Will you complicated the matter a little."A sound of cloth tape tearing; something nudges at his wrist, tugs at the vein on the back of his hand. He can almost feel it, like a fish nibbling. "Trying to run off even now."
I'm not, he wants to say. I'm trying to come back. But the water column has an enormous weight.
Now he can feel his hand, because Hannibal's pressing it between his own. "I'm still here, Will. And I won't go until you tell me I have to."
Now he can feel his heart, because it's rising.
I'm coming up, Hannibal. But it takes a while.
He knows the human waves better now; he recognizes the time of day by the rhythms of the hospital staff. He tries opening his eyes again. He's getting better at it. There's dusk in the room, and the sunlight diffuses through Hannibal's hair, silver-gold like autumn leaves. Will watches, waits for the moment when Dr. Lecter's at just the right angle to the window, and he drags every bit of breath into his waterlogged lungs to say,
"Hannibal?"
The lean figure in a three-piece suit turns his head, and leans in, eyes perfectly aslant the light—"William?"
Ah. There it is. He understands. He takes his hand, and never let's go.
Will thinks that every lonely monster needs a companion. He doesn't care anymore who the monster is.
Fin