There is something of the cub still in how Hannibal draws Will against him, and in his mind's eye Will sees a half-grown lion hugging a wounded calf against its chest to lick at its neck affectionately, the embrace unbreakable but claws retracted - but only for now. Always only for a little while.
There is a desperate hunger in that embrace, in the way that he clutches Will's hair and pulls him against his chest as though he wants - no, needs - the both of them to be subsumed within each other. It is almost childlike, and that, Will thinks, is why the fearsome awkwardness of it reminded him so strongly of a cub.
There is a great part of Will who would see it fed and comforted, but he understands that to do so would mean his being swallowed whole in more ways than one.
But -
The big cat doesn't hate its meat, bears no spite or ill-will toward it. The lion hardly thinks about its prey as another being at all, at least not once it has been caught, but it loves what the prey does for it - the nourishment that can be taken from it, the way it fills the lion up - and so sometimes hugs its meat or grooms its fur before eating, showing its affection in the ways that a lion would, the same ways that it would show its love for a mate or a brother.
A lion thinks nothing - good or bad - about its prey's distress, but is only happy to have it in hand. It bears its meat no ill will, though it eats its life just the same, and sometimes while it is still kicking and bleating.
Will understands that he would be in so much less danger if it were only a lion that meant to eat him, because in the end that would be all that a big cat would do to him.
And also: Will knows himself to be no helpless calf. He is no one's meat, though perhaps things would have been simpler for everyone involved if he were. Easier for Will, certainly - Hannibal would have killed him by now if he were, or else never taken an interest in the first place.
Lately, the image Will sees when he thinks of himself is not that of some halpless helpless prey animal - no trembling rabbit or frightened fawn. He doesn't see himself as a mongoose anymore either, though when Hannibal had first suggested this imagery it had brought him a great deal of comfort.
Will sees a kingsnake - a small one still, yes, one that might still be picked off by other predators, even one of his own kind, but still a king snake - and a king snake is a predator that will eat rodents and birds but that prefers the flesh of other snakes.
Perhaps all of this is happening because Hannibal saw this too, Will thinks, but corrects himself quickly; it's not new news to Hannibal, not at all. But Hannibal had seen Will's fang turned toward him - the steel tooth masquerading as forgiveness - and that meant that none of this was only about meat.
Will can feel the welter of Hannibal's emotions against his own skin as he draws him in - the hurt and the spite and the love and the wanting (the wanting wanting needing, pounding inside his chest like a bird beating itself to death against the bars of a cage), the vulnerability and the rage at having been rejected - twice now - in that vulnerability, all too much and too strong, and in spite of all that he suspects is coming Will feels bitter gratification at knowing that he has marked Hannibal more than Hannibal himself yet understands, and that no matter what happens next the other man will never again be at complete peace.