Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Seventh Soul
I remember falling.
I remember the feeling of Hannibal's arms around me and mine around him.
And after that it's all very hazy. I remember flashes of it- the pain of hitting the water after falling from such a height, and the shock of just how cold it was. I remember being disoriented and wondering how long it would take me to drown. I remember panic when I could no longer feel Hannibal in my grasp. I didn't want to die alone.
But I didn't die, and neither did he. Somehow we made it out of the ocean. Admittedly, that was mostly thanks to him. My strength had long since left me, after that brutal fight against Dolarhyde. If I'd been on my own I most certainly would have drowned. But of course Hannibal wouldn't let that happen. Even at our worst moments I know he would not have allowed me to die in any way that was not part of his design.
I remember reaching land, with him half dragging me onto the shore. We collapsed on the sand and just stared at each other. I wondered what he was thinking. And then I stopped wondering anything as my body's exhaustion finally won out.
When I came to again, I was in a bed. I sat up quickly and immediately regretted it. My body felt sore from all it had been through, and I felt a rush of dizziness. I rubbed my head and was surprised to feel a bandage on it.
"Hello Will."
I turned my head and saw Hannibal sitting in a chair a few feet away from the bed. Despite having sustained as much damage as me, he seemed as cool and collected as ever.
"So we survived." I was aware that I was stating the obvious, but my mind was still too foggy to care.
"Indeed we did, despite your best efforts," Hannibal agreed. It was impossible to tell from his tone if he was pissed at me or not.
"I'm not going to apologize," I warned him. "After everything you've done to me I'd say you had it coming."
"Perhaps I did," Hannibal acquiesced as gracefully as he did everything else in life. "However, I would be remiss if I did not point out that you have done as much to hurt me as I have to hurt you."
And wasn't that the truth. If I tallied up all the shitty things we had done to each other over the years, who would win the award for being the worst?
"What a pair we make," I muttered. I shifted my body and swung my legs off the bed so I could face him properly.
"What do you plan to do now that you failed to kill us both?" He seemed genuinely curious. I wonder what he would do if I tried again. Would he end up killing me? I wasn't sure if I even cared anymore. The comfortable life I'd been living such a short time ago seemed so far out of reach now. After what I had done, I didn't know if I was capable of returning to that quiet and peaceful life. I had really thought that I could be normal, but all I had done was drag Molly and Walter into danger. The darkness inside of me would always attract other sources of darkness.
"I don't know," I admitted reluctantly. "Bedelia told me that I can't live with you, but I can't live without you. It seemed like the only choice left to me."
"Does it still feel like the only choice?"
It felt like old times, with him prompting me and pushing me in order to get me to better understand myself. He sat there as calm and patient as ever, just watching me while I tried to figure myself out. God, this whole situation was so surreal. It occurred to me that I should probably be afraid, but I wasn't. What would be the point? Hannibal had already done so much to me. There wasn't anything left for me to fear from him. I hadn't been afraid of him in a long time, if ever. I'd always been more afraid of myself.
"If I keep trying to kill you then you're just going to kill me," I said. Not quite the answer to his question, but I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
"Wouldn't that achieve the same result as what you were trying to get by going over the cliff?" Hannibal asked.
I shook my head. "No. I don't just want to die. That wasn't my design. I wanted us to die together."
"What a beautiful design it was," and he did seem rather appreciative, "but not one that I agree with. Your death at this point would be such a waste, after you finally gave me what I wanted. There is so much more for us to do together, Will."
So for the time being he wasn't interested in killing me. That would take some getting used to.
"So what happens now?"
"That, Will, depends entirely on you."
I frowned at him. "What does that mean?"
"It means that you need to make a choice, and sooner rather than later. Staying here too long will lead to us getting caught. You can either come with me or wait here for Jack Crawford to find you. I'm sure you wouldn't be in too much trouble. You could simply blame everything on me, and then go back to your old life," Hannibal told me. Even as he was saying it I knew that he didn't think that I would go for that option. "Or you can come with me, and continue to discover who you really are."
Was there even really a choice? I couldn't help but think that my fate had been sealed from the moment that we had met. If I hadn't met him, then my life would still be my own. I would have kept teaching, and kept working for Jack, and maybe without Hannibal fucking with my mind I could have retained my tenuous grasp on my sanity. Maybe Alana and I would have actually gotten to try a relationship. Maybe she would have had a child with me instead of Margot. Or maybe I still would have met Molly, and I could have actually been the man she thought I was. My life could have been safe, normal, and- well, if not happy, at least content. But I would have never stopped feeling like I didn't belong. All of the hopes and dreams for a normal life were never bound to come true. And God, I never felt as alive with anyone else as I did with Hannibal.
Maybe we were always going to end up here. It certainly felt inevitable. I had tried to fight it, to fight him and myself, but here I was anyway. I mourned, for a moment, the thought of what could have been if I had just gone with him years ago. It would have saved us and so many others a lot of pain. It would have saved Abigail. Even now I still missed her. While I may be able to accept the things Hannibal had done to me, I wasn't sure I could ever forgive him for killing her. But I couldn't erase the past. All I could do was focus on the future. As much as I hated the things that Hannibal had done, I didn't hate him. I probably should, just as he should hate me, but how could we? He was the one person who truly saw me, just as I was the one person who truly saw him. Hannibal was a part of me at this point, and nothing I did could change that. I was tired of lying to myself. Maybe there was no way for us to truly live together, but being apart just didn't work. This might very well still end in blood and pain. Regardless of what we felt for each other, we had still hurt each other over and over again. I didn't know if we would ever be able to break that painful cycle of betrayal. But I no longer had the strength to deny him. Not after we killed a Great Red Dragon together. I would never be able to forget that night, and the way the blood shone black in the moonlight. I wouldn't forget the way that he looked at me, covered in blood and eyes bright with the thrill of it, as if I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. I wouldn't forget the desperate way that we clung to each other, or how right it all felt. There was no going back now.
I held out my hand to Hannibal like I had that night on the cliff. He rose from the chair, body slightly stiff from numerous injuries, and grasped my hand. He pulled me up, and I grabbed his shoulder with my other hand for balance and breathed through the pain in my body. I looked at his face and saw the triumph in it, but also the happiness. The unguarded pleasure was almost too much for me to look at, but at the same time I couldn't look away.
I didn't know where we would go or what we would do. There was still a lot we needed to talk about, and too many issues to work through. But in this moment, I didn't let myself focus on all of my worries. Instead I just let peace wash over me as I finally allowed myself to make the choice I had wanted to make all those years ago. This time, Hannibal wouldn't be leaving me behind.
Author's Note: Alright, here we have Week Eleven! The prompts for this were "Erase" and "Hopes and Dreams". I decided to try writing in 1st Person POV, since I never do. It was weird. I kept accidentally switching to 3rd Person. If there were any instances of it that I didn't catch, please let me know.
So here we have a Will who is thoroughly broken, and a Hannibal who is thoroughly pleased. It hurts me to know that there is still no real confirmation of a season four. I'd love to see what would happen next for these two, especially after Will basically orchestrated Hannibal's breakout, and then helped him kill someone, and then yeeted them off a cliff. Poor guy is definitely not gonna be in a good headspace if they do survive (and of course they will, neither of them is going to be that easy to kill). In the meantime I suppose I'll just have to keep imagining what might happen next.