Notes: Inspired by the slow, kind of creepy version of Beyonce's Crazy In Love, and in honor of the ending of Hannibal, which I will admit I have not actually seen, so please forgive me. (I did, in fact, look up the summaries and youtube the end and the conversation Will has with Bedelia but I am woefully behind because I had trouble focusing on Italy. Any continuity snarls can be blamed on that, but as this is an introspective piece that's unlikely to be a major issue)
Crazy In Love
This is how it starts. Hannibal Lecter stands barely an inch taller than Will, but with a quiet presence that seems to draw him out another foot. Will feels dwarfed by this man, in his effortlessly draped suits, hair neatly combed, face freshly shaven. Will can't even find his razor, likely knocked behind a shelf somewhere. There's dirt under his fingernails that seems to be ever present. He can taste it.
Standing before him, in his baggy flannels, curls twisted in a sloppy, uncombed fashion, Will feels insignificant, but Hannibal Lecter, Doctor Hannibal Lecter, looks at Will like he is important.
This is how it ends. They are filthy. The copper tang in Will's mouth settles in for the long haul. In the back of his mind for months, for years, since the minute he met Hannibal, something has rested on the back of his tongue, waiting to be called out, waiting to be seen. It is this, this slick red, this metal that is seeping into his clothes, his skin. Will has chased the flavor a thousand times, trying to name it.
Baptized in blood, Will flourishes.
It is the ultimate betrayal. To sit behind bars while the man who fed him – fleshfleshofhisenemiesofhisfriendsofAbigailoftheirAbigailoftheirDAUGHTER – walks and talks and acts like him, plays pretend, dresses up as Will and wears his life. To realize that every bite has been human. Every inch of flavor something no one should know. Will sits behind bars and all he can think is that Abigail is dead and no one believes him and it was so delicious and he wants to be sick again, to heave and cleanse his body until no trace of the sin Hannibal has tainted them both with remains.
Hannibal Lecter has changed him. He has made Will someone new, someone important. He has taken his intimate gaze and pressed it outward until it becomes the truth. Will Graham, professor, FBI consultant. Will Graham the husband, Will Graham the father. These things are running down his skin along with the blood, slipping through his fingers until all that remains is the Will Graham who is loved, who is craved, who is everything to Hannibal Lecter. The Will Graham who crawled into the head of a murderer and did not climb back out.
This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.
And Will could love this life, he really could. He knows the taste of blood, and of flesh. He knows the feeling of someone's life spilling out before him. He knows the way light leaves eyes. He has felt a soul brush past him on it's way to Hades. There is a grace there, a sense of belonging. In death, he can find a purpose, and make sense of the haze that haunts him. In the therapy that Hannibal has created for him, he can find release.
It's beautiful.
Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter. Will reaches out and twines them together until they slide into place and they are one and Hannibal's heart thrums in Will's chest beneath their shared skin and Will breathes and Hannibal exhales and it is here he fits and here where Will finds sense and solace and it is so peaceful his head is so quiet and still at last.
And when they fall from grace to the blackness below, they do so together. This is how it ends and they begin.