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There are means of influence other than violence. But, violence is what you understand.
The moment Will sees him again for the first time, the knife in his pocket is forgotten. He sits down on that bench in front of La Primavera and looks to his left, smiling a little despite the strain the walk put on his already battered body. Hannibal smiles too, a soft, fond little thing, but his eyes gleam and glitter. He looks proud. Overjoyed.
“If I saw you every day, forever, Will, I would remember this time.”
Will’s heart swells, and the scar on his abdomen burns, but still, he forgets about the knife.
They speak through the mere atoms between their bodies as though they were never separated. They speak without veils, without a sense of “if you weren’t you, and if I weren’t me”. They do not hide their broken hearts, nor how much it means to see the other’s face again. They talk of the stars. Beginnings and endings. Guilt and consequences. They speak as equal adversaries.
It’s a wonderful feeling, being able to coexist in your duality.
Then, Hannibal asks about Chiyoh, and suddenly the knife burns like his smile scar. He remembers why he’s here.
Will can’t become what Hannibal wants him to become. He can’t become Hannibal. The knife is necessary. It’s his only way out.
Their footsteps echo quietly down the middle of the beautiful street. Most people pay the two bloodied men no mind, and the ones who do look their way seem to know to keep their distance. Will thumbs the edge of the knife in his pocket, contemplating.
What will Will Graham be once Hannibal Lecter is dead? Certainly not free. Not even in his dreams.
Will drags his thumb up the edge of the knife’s handle. It would be so easy. One quick swipe and the blade would be buried in Hannibal’s abdomen, then all Will would have to do is tear him open to bleed in this little Italian street.
The locals would scream. Hannibal wouldn’t. He probably wouldn’t even make a sound. There would be no words between them as he lay dying at Will’s feet—they would have only eyes for each other until Hannibal’s closed and never opened again.
Maybe Will would go to prison, and maybe he wouldn’t. Jack would praise him. No one would blame Will, except for Will.
What will Will Graham become now?
What will he be?
He will be alone. That’s the devastating, inevitable truth. Once Hannibal Lecter is gone, no more than a bloodstain on the concrete, Will Graham will be alone.
No one in the whole world to see him for all he is and still love him for it. Everything wild and beautiful about him will die right alongside the Ripper.
That used to be a comfort. Motivation, even, to get here, to bring the knife. Will is surprised to realize that it is no longer the ending he wants.
What will Will Graham become now?
Nothing. Everything will stop. And Will would have nowhere to run to when his victory turns bitter and rips him in half. Because there is no if. It is when.
Maybe for once, Will no longer wants to be ripped apart. Perhaps he’s earned that much.
And even if he hasn’t earned it, does it really matter anymore? Does anything other than the overwhelming sense of belonging he feels just being at Hannibal’s side?
No. It doesn’t.
So, he lets go.
He removes his hand from his pocket and allows it to hang empty at his side. He looks at Hannibal out of the corner of his eye and knows that he won’t be using the knife today, or tomorrow, or possibly ever. Not on this man, at least.
Not on his monster.
Not now that Will knows Hannibal must love him too, in whatever way such a monster can love. He knows Hannibal is capable of it now, having felt the anguish settled beneath the graveyard dirt in the Lecter cemetery. He felt the sorrow in the wind and saw the blood in the firefly’s glow, and under all that, there was love. Finally, Will understood. Love is, after all, a powerful motivator for violence. Violence he understands, and violence he now accepts.
Love is funny like that.
A weight he’s been carrying since before the bloodbath in the kitchen, something that festered during those long nights in his lonely prison cell, seeps out of Will Graham’s skin and flies away in the soft Mediterranean breeze. The anger crumbles, leaving its ruins at the bottom of his sternum. It’ll be there a while, and it has the chance to grow larger again, but if he closes his eyes, he can imagine taking a piece of resentment in his hand and tossing it like a skipping stone down against the current of his peaceful Wolf Trap river. In his mind, he smiles as it’s carried away downstream.
And that is why, against what infinitesimal shreds of willpower and rational thought he has left, Will Graham reaches out and takes Hannibal Lecter’s hand.
His palm is warm, dry, and soft for a killer’s, but they always have been. Powerful and delicate in the way they cradle wine glasses or scalpels. Magically, though, their hands fit perfectly. Perhaps they were always meant to touch like this.
At first, Hannibal doesn’t do anything. There isn’t a pause in his stride, and he doesn’t visibly startle, but Will hears the catch of Hannibal’s breath, and he knows he’s surprised him. There’s a twinge of satisfaction there.
Hannibal tightens his grip, squeezing Will’s hand for perhaps half a second too long, pressing his gratitude into Will’s skin, and above all, hoping that Will won’t let go. Hoping Will won’t denounce him in the middle of the street, won’t betray him a second time. The knife burns in Will’s pocket, and this time it’s easier to ignore.
Will squeezes his monster’s hand and walks into the hellfire where he belongs.
_________________
When Will wakes up in his bed in Will Trap several terrifying, excruciating hours later, for a second, he thinks he dreamed the whole thing. The Valentine, Lecter Castle, La Primavera, the feeling of Hannibal’s palm against his. Then a sharp, stinging pain above his eyebrow and the deep–set aches from the bruises covering most of his body make themselves known, and he suddenly remembers the rest of the dream.
Jack’s interruption at the dead curator’s apartment, the men with guns and black bags for their heads, Cordell’s blood in his teeth. Mason Verger’s ugly mug and Cordell’s now uglier one hovering above his head with a scalpel in his hand.
He has no idea how long he’s slept, but for once, he almost feels peaceful.
It takes quite a bit of effort to push his exhausted body into a sitting position, but by the time he does, the screen door has opened, and Hannibal steps inside. His eyes are fond, but the mask is fully in place. His guard is up.
The sight makes Will pull his gaze away, down to the bedsheets where a curious thing rests. A leather journal, lying propped open with lines and lines of scrawled-out mathematics in rich, black ink. He doesn’t know what they mean, but the depth of the indentations and the sharp edges of a usually immaculate script suggest a deep importance and tied emotion that he cannot name. Hannibal picks it up before he can even begin to try.
Hannibal sits in the unoccupied chair, cradling the little book of equations in his hands like a priest with a copy of God’s word. His face looks severe with the cuts marring his face, but he is as calm as can be when he laces his fingers together and says; “Do we talk about teacups and time, and the rules of disorder?”
Will almost laughs. Would laugh if anything was actually funny.
“The teacup’s broken,” He says instead. “It’s never going to gather itself back together again.”
A pause so heavy the air goes thick. “Not even in your mind?”
A large piece of the anger breaks off and falls away. Will desperately chases after it, wanting to keep the rage just a while longer, but he’s been here before. He’s done this dance, said his goodbyes with absolutes, but so far, every time the moment has come, Hannibal’s inability to hide his heartbreak has been enough to make Will second-guess. Even in hell, Will actually can’t stand to make him sad.
How ironic.
“Your memory palace is building,” Hannibal says, calculating. It’s calm, but there’s a steel edge to his words that Will recognizes as quiet desperation. “It’s full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own. I’ve discovered you there—victorious.”
“When it comes to you and me, there can be no decisive victory.” Will bites back. Hannibal’s idea of victory is seeping into every crevice of Will’s mind, staining him black until there’s nothing left of him and only the monster left behind. It doesn’t matter that Will loves him.
Either way, he loses.
Hannibal shifts closer, processing the finality he hears in Will’s voice. “We are a zero–sum game.” His voice is solemn.
Will looks away, sucking a breath into his lungs that burns all the way down his throat. His eyes fall to the empty dog beds on the floor, and his heart aches. He misses his dogs.
And as painful as it is to admit, he would miss Hannibal more. If these last months alone have taught Will Graham anything, being separated from Hannibal is the only thing more painful than being gutted by him.
He should say goodbye. He should look Hannibal in the eye and tell him that he’s done with their game. He wants peace, he wants to forget. He will not go looking, he will not let curiosity get the best of him. He should tell Hannibal to leave and never come back.
He knows that Hannibal would never actually leave. He’d never let Will move on.
And Will never would. Because he wouldn’t want to.
Just as before, when he put away his knife and took Hannibal’s hand instead, Will tosses another piece of his anger into the stream. It doesn’t skip; it sinks to the bottom of the river out of sight, but close enough to touch.
Will inhales, feeling the dust and stale Virginia air expand his lungs until they won’t stretch anymore. “Nothing just happens. The universe doesn’t work like that. If you want the teacup to come together, you have to put it back together yourself and hope you don’t get cut. Again.”
Hannibal seems to consider this, tilting his head to one side and blinking slowly. “All wounds are teachers.” He replies. “We learn from grief, and loss, and pain as much as we learn from harmony and happiness.”
A bitter laugh slips from Will’s mouth before he can stop it. “You don’t bring me harmony and happiness, Hannibal. I don’t think you know how.”
It’s an unfortunate truth. Hannibal doesn’t view the world the same way, and there’s no point in denying it. He doesn’t expect a reply.
He definitely doesn’t expect Hannibal to say, with glowing sincerity; “I would like to.”
It’s startling. Not just the statement itself, but the way he said it…
The last time Will heard that much vulnerability in Hannibal Lecter’s voice, he was lying on the kitchen floor with his stomach cut open. Except this time, Hannibal is not the angry one. And for once, he’s afraid of what Will’s anger will do to the both of them.
When their hands touched back in Florence, whatever plan Hannibal had for him vanished in the smoke. Knowing that Will, even if he burns, even if the world condemns him a monster, or worse, forgives him for being one, would still stand beside Hannibal and touch him kindly, could even possibly admit to loving him as much as he hates him, was enough. He made the same choice as Will did. How could Will ever betray him now?
Will fixes him in place with a cold, blank stare. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes,” Hannibal answers right away.
“Do you really mean that?” He needs to know for sure. If he’s truly going to give up everything he knows to start this life anew, he cannot doubt. Hannibal should understand that.
Hannibal shifts uncomfortably. It’s clear he feels exposed. “Shall I cross my heart?” He tries to joke.
But Will isn’t having it. One sharp click of his jaw, and Hannibal’s smile fades into a solemn line. “Yes, Will. I mean it.”
“Then understand that I am not like you and that there is nothing you can do to change that.” Will quips, razor sharp and absolute. “Your concept of me is your own responsibility. You can’t mold me into an image of yourself.”
At first, Hannibal’s eyebrows crease in confusion and perhaps in an attempt to argue, until the reality of what Will is saying seems to set in. He breathes evenly, flexes his hands, and nods. “If you continue to understand my need to influence and nurture. To guide you through your Becoming.”
Will expected nothing less. He’s already made his choice. “I accept your influence, Hannibal. But it’s up to me to choose what to do with it.” He forces his expression to be grave. “And, I want my dogs.”
Hannibal goes utterly still. He doesn’t even breathe. Will can hear his mind replaying his request over and over, trying to make sense of it, to understand if Will is really, truly offering what he hopes he is. “Your dogs.” He repeats almost breathlessly.
“All of them.”
There’s a long moment of silence between them. Will’s heart begins to pound in anticipation, suddenly unsure. Has he finally broken Hannibal Lecter?
Then Hannibal rises from his seat, only to fall to his knees in front of the bed in an uncharacteristically ungraceful way. Will’s arms shoot out to catch him, alarmed by his sudden movement, but the moment is shattered when Hannibal grabs for his hand and squeezes tight. Their eyes meet, and Will’s heart catches in his throat.
Hannibal has never looked at him quite like that before. In fact, he’s not sure anybody has ever looked at him like that in his entire life.
It’s desperation. It’s hope clawing at the corners of his eyes, pain and rage and love and glory pouring from every trembling breath. It’s Hannibal begging him to have mercy on his broken heart.
“Will,” Hannibal gasps, squeezing his palm so tightly his fingers begin to scream in protest. “Tell me you’re mine.” It is not an order but a plea.
He doesn’t believe it. Will can’t really blame him.
With his other hand, Will reaches out and brushes a strand of hair away from Hannibal’s forehead. He watches in wonder as his monster’s eyes flutter with the lightest of touch. “I always have been.” He whispers, sad and brave all at once. Because it’s true. “Now you tell me.”
“I am. I am, Will.” He chokes with increased intensity. His hands are trembling now.
“And you’ll show me too?”
“Every day. If you’ll only allow me that chance.”
Hannibal’s head drops down to the blankets where he buries his face against Will’s leg. He looks like he’s praying. Perhaps he is.
The thought amuses him, and for the first time in what feels like several years, a lighthearted chuckle rings through his chest. He looks down at the monster he’s brought into submission, curled up like a child on his lap. Without really thinking about it, he runs his fingers through the longer hair at the base of Hannibal’s neck. “You can start by getting my dogs.”
Hannibal’s soft laughter against Will’s thigh is muffled, but his next words are loud and clear, if not a little thick with unshed, grateful tears.
“All seven,” He vows. “And not a hair out of place.”