Chapter Text
He isn’t dead. Not even close. His heart beats slow from forced unconsciousness, rather than the fast tempo that would normally accompany his regular sleep due to the nightmares. A pain across his skull, a dull headache, tells him that Hannibal strangled him only until he passed out. He is a doctor; the differentiation would not have been difficult.
He’s tied down, wrists handcuffed above his head, he discovers when he flexes his arms. This is less of a surprise than the fact he is still alive. When he opens his eyes, he fails to see the reasoning behind this—Hannibal stands vigil over his sleeping form. What the necessity for his restraint is, he does not know. It makes even less sense when he attempts to shift and pain flares up in his bones. He couldn’t run even if he tried.
He lays in a bed and is instantly assaulted by textures and smells that do not belong to his own home. Hannibal’s place. How long was he out? Long enough for Hannibal to drive him back up to Baltimore, apparently. The emotional strain must have exhausted him enough to keep him unconscious for longer. Or perhaps he was drugged.
“What am I doing here?” He demands, voice gravelly and sore. Still, fatigue hangs off his every word. He feels both angry and relieved of his still-beating heart. The despair from earlier remains, in a lesser quantity. He can’t help but feel offended that Hannibal would dare to bring him here, where they shared so many intimate moments. All lies.
Though, a worry pulls at the edge of his mind, firm and uncertain, that Hannibal has brought him here to torture him, to rip his organs from his body and consume them. That is what the Chesapeake Ripper would do, right? Will finds little solace in the knowledge that his body will not be displayed somewhere, turned to homicidal fine art. Hannibal has no reason to mock Will.
It is with the image of his heart in Hannibal’s oven that Will flinches when slender fingers brush along his scalp. As if gaging his temperature.
“You know how I dislike the sheets you use,” he says with a faint smile. And god the sentence is so Hannibal, so resonant of their relationship and everything they were before it all turned to poison. He wants to cry. Tears already sting at his eyes, but he manages to push the heat back with rapid blinks. Hannibal appears more or less pleased with his show of self-control.
“I admit, it is sometimes difficult for me to discern what is happening inside that beautiful mind of yours,” Hannibal murmurs, lowering himself into a chair, displaced from the corner of the room to sit beside the bed. “So, in case you are worrying, I would like to put your mind at ease. I brought you here to talk to you. What will happen after, even I do not know.”
Slaughter isn’t off the table, then. Hannibal lowers his chin at him, expectantly. Will grimaces in response and flexes his feet—they are bare, but Hannibal removed no other clothing.
“What is there to talk about?” He isn’t being difficult—at least, not only being difficult. He imagined that they were done talking when he ‘succeeded’ in getting Hannibal to ‘kill’ him. He was mistaken.
“We may be more now, but I was first and foremost your therapist, albeit not formally. Yesterday must have been traumatic for—“ Will cuts him off to laugh, not caring how rude he is. He honestly cannot believe that this is happening, that his lover is attempting to council him following the epiphany that he himself is a serial killer. It is very nearly surreal.
Hannibal pauses, waiting for Will to explain his reaction, obviously unwilling to speak until he does. Will says, “Yes. It was very traumatic, Dr. Lecter.”
“You said that I ‘lied to you’. Could you pinpoint exactly what you were referring to?”
Perhaps this is another sort of torture. It’s believable—Hannibal is very aware of the disconnect between Will’s mind and his body. If he assailed his body the pain would likely become quickly dulled. But to extract everything and anything from Will’s mind, before killing him… that would be the most gruesome.
“It’s a bit difficult to name just one. You’ve lied so much,” Will murmurs. Refuses to meet the man’s eyes. Hannibal bows his head but seems for once unsure what to say. So, Will continues.
“I… I thought I knew you,” he admits. As if disclosing something of the utmost embarrassment. He remembers earlier, when he looked into Hannibal’s eyes and expected to see everything, especially after knowing the truth, but instead saw nothing. “I don’t know you at all.”
“I disagree.” Hannibal’s response comes uncharacteristically quickly, making Will’s head snap up, but Hannibal isn’t elaborating. He’s standing, moving closer to the bed and leaning over Will.
Panic comes over him before he can stop it. “N—no, get back, I—“ He shakes on the bed, trying aimlessly to roll to one side or the other.
Hannibal freezes, again mildly confused, concerned, before realization dawns over his face. He sits beside Will on the bed and reaches up past his scalp to his wrists. In his hand, which Will was too frightened to notice before, is a key. The handcuffs fall away from his wrists with a couple clicks.
“What…?” His voice is mostly dead air, more of a breathy whisper than anything else. The harshness of his breathing has subsided and Hannibal takes the opportunity to run a couple fingers through the sweat drenched locks resting beside his eye. A shiver crawls down his spine at the touch; he closes his eyes.
“I restrained you simply because you seemed very set on ending your life. I did not want you to make another attempt if you awoke while I was away from your side. If I am here, there is no reason to keep these on.” Though his eyes remain closed, Will hears the clinking sound of the handcuffs falling to the floor—Hannibal’s proof that there is no need for them.
Behind closed eyes, Will is still exhausted enough to fall into a light, hazy sleep. It is short lived as he sees organs laying out on a butcher’s block. Blood covers the wooden surface and drips down the sides into sopping puddles on the floor. And there’s no way it will ever wash out.
Will forces his eyes open. Only a few seconds have passed, Hannibal has not moved. When he awkwardly shifts is body he is relieved to feel that he has no erection. His body has not betrayed him, not so entirely.
“It wasn’t luck,” Will says. He doesn’t want to talk about this, but he needs to stay awake. Hannibal listens very carefully. “It wasn’t. It was everything. It was like my—heart has been building to it, for weeks. It’d been dragging me down, making me…heavy. But you put this mark on my neck, and you were there, at the crime scene, and I could smell you, and I had just realized that I—“
Will stops speaking abruptly. Because he can’t, won’t, refuses to confess his love (whether it still exists in the moment or not, he is unsure) to a cannibalistic serial killer that has singularly worked to ensure their entire relationship’s basing upon a lie.
Hannibal does not let it go: “You—what? Complete the statement, Will.”
He shakes his head, looks at the door and wishes he were in his own bed, safe. Or maybe dead somewhere.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over.” There are only so many possibilities given to them. Will turns Hannibal in, Hannibal kills Will, Will kills himself, Will knocks Hannibal out and calls the police, Hannibal—Hannibal obviously feels the tension in Will, understands his train of thought and speaks.
“It does not need to be that way, Will.” Hannibal says. It was apparently not difficult for him to decipher Will’s curtailed declaration. Will isn’t sure if the angry edge to it is just his imagination or not. “There are other options.”
Will scoffs, loudly. “Like what? You keeping me captive in your basement? Oh, or do you expect me to be like you?”
There is a long pause, during which Hannibal stares calmly through him while Will’s eyes dance across the room. He feels sick.
“Oh…Oh my god…” He whispers, then raises his voice. “Is that really how you saw this ending?! Have you been trying to—to turn me into a psycho, just so you would have a pal to gut innocent people with?!”
Is that always what this has been about? Hannibal didn’t even want him for him. He wanted to change him, alter him into something twisted and disgusting and needy.
“We would have been happy, Will,” Hannibal chides. “You would have been happy. But, regardless, you misinterpret my words. I would never change you—your essence is far too precious to be tossed aside so tactlessly.”
He pauses, lets his gaze stray down his neck to his chest, to the bite mark sealed in his skin. Tactless, Will thinks. Tactless is manipulating him towards homicide. Would killing me be tactless?
“That being said, you have so much potential if you would only let the walls come down. If you had organically allowed yourself to—“
“No. No, Hannibal!” He cuts the man off because he cannot bear to hear another word of poison. “If you cared about me, you would have known that I wouldn’t want that and you would have fucking respected that!”
In the echo of his shout, his declaration, the room falls silent. Will moves from the center of the bed to sit on the edge opposite Hannibal. He wonders if his captor would let him leave this bed; he wonders if he really wants to. Bending to the violence of the monster feels so much simpler.
“Very well, I admit—I acted solely in consideration for my own desires. But we would have been happy together, the way I intended us to be. I would have ensured it.”
Guilt rises in Will, in response to how easy it is for him to believe Hannibal, to believe the bittersweet promises he offers. But belief isn’t enough—not now. He turns his face to his hands and works to still the tremble in his fingertips.
“What now, then?” He asks of the impasse. He can’t take it, the waiting. The ambiguity of what may come.
Hannibal hums, asks, “What would you like to come next, Will?”
“I—I don’t—“ he looks up, suddenly aware of how close Hannibal is. He had moved closer, gradual and discrete, since Will first looked away. Their eyes lock and nothing can stop his arm from rising, to finger against the bruise. Hannibal’s hand replaces his, delving beneath the collar of his shirt. He leans into the touch.
And here they are. Sitting on Hannibal’s bed. Where they’ve touched each other, fucked each other so many times. His lips fall open.
Will can taste Hannibal on his tongue before the man’s lips even press against him.
They first press against the bob of his Adam’s apple, teeth doing nothing but scrape the pulse point. An arm loops around his middle to pull him closer and Will doesn’t even resist against the hands that deftly work at the buttons of his shirt. But he does whine.
The sound hastens Hannibal. Fabric falls from his shoulders and the mark is laid bare between Will’s flesh and Hannibal’s mouth. The man sucks at his creation once more, kissing and biting at it violently, so violently. Until it burns and aches.
Will feels a fire devouring him.
Once Hannibal is content with his widening and lengthening the love bite, lips skim upwards so he may teeth at his earlobe. Their chests—Will bare and Hannibal in a waist coat and rolled up sleeves—press together. Will could run his hands up naked arms, if he only reached out. Tongue sweeps across the shell of his ear.
“Do you want it to hurt, my love?” He asks, referring to Will’s wish for pain during sex weeks prior.
The words are jarring, excruciatingly reminiscent, pulling Will from the reverie. His elbow flies up, into Hannibal’s neck. The impact leaves him reeling only barely, but it gives Will the space to jerk out of the hold. He is halfway out of the grip when Hannibal snaps forward to take hold of Will’s ankle. His balance fails him and the rest of his body falls to the floor. The plush carpeting of Hannibal’s bedroom cushions the impact.
Hannibal drags him back by his hair. An attempt is made to help the movement, he scrambles to follow despite himself, but still feels the pain resulting from the tug. With Will pliable, maneuvering himself on top is an easy feat for Hannibal. He pins Will to the bed between his thighs before allowing the grip to loosen.
“You told me to kill you, precious William. Does that not make your life mine?” Fingers trace the outline of his cock through his pants. “Doesn’t that make you mine?”
“Don’t—don’t—“ His eyes fly all across the room, looking for an escape that cannot be found.
Hannibal hushes him, cooing with gentle fingers, trailing across his lips. “I would never rape you, dear one. Do you really find me so crass, now that you know the truth?”
Will is unsure how to interpret the situation, when Hannibal speaks such things and yet presses his hand against his crotch, rubbing through the khaki trousers. The two actions seem to be at odds. His cock is hardening and part of him screams that he has yet to truly give consent, that Hannibal forcing arousal on his body isn’t kind or generous or any of the other words that Will could label the action with. But he doesn’t care—he jerks upward.
Is it really forced, when the passion comes so easily?
“Ah, there’s my good boy.” The endearments sting at Will’s ears to point of devastation. He leans up and kisses Hannibal.
He feels like he’s being ripped to pieces, thrown to the wind. Part of him wants escape. Another fragment desires nothing more than to be smothered by the man’s weight. Until death. The last wants to mewl into the grip, let himself be carried away.
It is that part that wins out, at least temporarily, when Hannibal undoes the button of his fly and tugs the fabric down his hips.
“Why are you doing this?” He asks faintly. Everything he knows about the Ripper tells him that the man should have him dead by now.
“I know you want this,” Hannibal replies, having elected to ignore the question. His tone is one of psychoanalysis. “You have…been aroused recently, upon returning from your hallucinations. You said your heart, your subconscious has been dragging you towards this day. Each step closer brought you arousal, no?”
“That’s not—It wasn’t—“
“Hush, William. Even the truth could not drown your hunger. Your body betrays you.” This is especially true when fingers move to press against Will’s hole, when his knees unwittingly twitch up and apart to give better access.
“Oh god,” he mouths, silent. Hannibal does not hear, but feels the vibrations pulsing through his veins, content.
Hannibal leaves him to undress—rapidly, no doubt aware of Will being on the edge of flight instinct—and in the end he does retrieve lubricant. Unwilling to take the time necessary to open Will up in its absence. Back at Will’s side, naked, he smears it across his fingertips to apply it at Will’s hole.
He still hasn’t asked permission for any of this, part of Will’s mind continues to skew this as sexual violence, but the rest of him is glad of it. Relieved that he doesn’t have to make any painful decisions.
Fingers press up into him and he bites through his bottom lip in an attempt to silence himself. Hannibal licks at the blood. Forces his mouth open with a tongue so that when the fingers scissor at his hole he cannot keep quiet.
“Ah—ah—Hannibal.”
This is so much more hectic. Even when Will is desperate, Hannibal stays in control and makes him wait. Now is different. Before Will can so much as beg (though he tells himself he would never do such a thing) Hannibal is removing his fingers to grind up against Will’s thighs. He arches his neck, at the blunt sensation alone.
Hannibal rolls his hips down, cock sliding the first half-inch in, before easing forward. Will isn’t prepared enough, how could he be? Judging by the atypical, anxious look on his face, Will is lucky that he isn’t bleeding. Lucky that the monster isn’t rutting to seek his own pleasure.
Fully sheathed, their hips knock together. Will’s toes curl and his legs bend up around Hannibal’s waist. Hands scrape across the flesh of his back as he clings to the man with everything he has.
“I hate you—I hate you!” He growls, though he hates himself more. He wants to bite into Hannibal, to cause him pain, but when he moves to do so he feels bombarded with the thought that the action is so characteristic of the man himself.
“I know,” he replies. Merciless. Lips press to his cheek, tongue swiping across flesh and steaming beads of sweat as he pounds into him over and over again. “I know, my darling.”
And Will truly believes this is as close to saying ‘I love you’ as they will ever get.
Hannibal moans, mouths against his flesh. Voice demanding, “Do you not see, William? See how perfect we are together. And now—how I need not hide myself from you. You see me.”
“No, no, stop it,” Will replies, grinding his hips in upward circles. Working for incessantly insufficient friction. I can’t see anything in you.
“We need one another. There is no one else out there, for either of us.” Hannibal leans back, pulls out completely, and takes Will’s cheeks in his hands, so he can’t look away. He freezes, waits until Will pays him the attention he desires. Eyes burn red.
“I love you, Will,” Hannibal hisses through gritted teeth. The words should be gentle, calming, but instead they come out hectic and angry. Bitter for things taken from him. He thrusts back in, bruising Will’s insides with the sheer power of the motion. “I love you so much.”
“Shut up!” Will sobs, actually sobs, because this is too much. He clenches around Hannibal in his hysteria—the man grunts in response. Because Hannibal is a monster and can’t even understand what love is. “You’re a psychopath—a sociopath—you don’t know what it is to love someone—“
He doesn’t know like Will knows.
“Come, now, William. You know better than to define me by such asinine terms, I know you do. You understand.”
“I don’t understand you!” He’s choking on his tears, barely breathing against the suffocating fog. He wishes they weren’t having this conversation now, in the throes of raw desire. He wishes they weren’t having this conversation at all. He wishes so many things. “How could I understand a monster that—“
Hannibal does not give him the chance to attempt at an eloquent rebuttal (not that Will would have succeeded anyways). He kisses Will, full on and with a ferocity that is inescapably contagious. The tears do not stop, but he moans into it, knots his fingers into Hannibal’s gelled hair and imagines, almost blissfully, that he can rearrange the beast inside just as easily as the pristine disguise worn.
“I love you, Will, and I will never let you go.”
Teeth bury in his collarbone, each word riding on the staccato snap of Hannibal’s hips. Will clamors at his shoulders, anything for support in this terrifying place. The most miniscule of voices, residing in the back of his skull, intones that he needs to deny this to make Hannibal stop saying such things. Because what the words imply is unacceptable. But he doesn’t say anything, because he can’t get enough air in his lungs, and because he feels Hannibal must know this as well.
That, one way or another, he has to let Will go.
The fucking turns gentler, slower so that Hannibal can focus on kissing Will, scenting him and leaving infinite love bites across every stretch of skin he can reach. Each thrust is languid and their peaks consistently make the breath catch in Will’s throat.
This is nothing like Hannibal likely imagined, when he un-cuffed Will and stroked his hair, kissed him and coaxed him into letting himself be fucked. This was meant to be persuasive, meant to convince Will that he can’t possibly be without Hannibal. Pity, that the one time Hannibal is unable to manipulate Will is when it matters most.
“Tell me, Will.” Tell me you love me. Hannibal rubs the head of his cock against his prostate. “I know it’s true. You realized this morning, after you awoke from a nightmare, after you killed through my eyes.”
How does he know? How could he possibly know that? Am I so transparent?
“Tell me.” This time the words are a growl, animalistic and desperate. “There’s no reason to hide, not from me.”
He needs to hear it, Will realizes. He needs to hear the words with the same intensity that Will needs to say it. So he gives it to him, because it’s true.
“I do,” he whispers, knowing it won’t be enough, but if Hannibal can do all of this to him, then he can exert his revenge with these few seconds. When orgasm reaches him, he speaks loudly, “Oh fuck, I love you.”
The world breaks into a million pieces and he sobs through his orgasm, sobs because he hates everything about himself, but specifically that he could love a serial killer that has never done anything but hurt him.
He realizes, with a fading sense of being, that Hannibal is also cumming, licking at his tears and kissing him through it. Biting his neck and face and chest and Will both fears and hopes the man will choose to bite through flesh. With absolution.
But he stops, traces the plush form of his lips up the curve of Will’s abdomen, the jut of his chin, to press their foreheads together. Eyes meet, lips brush, lacking any real pressure.
This is how Will wants to remember Hannibal; this is how he wants to be remembered. He still doesn’t know how this all will end, the mystery is boundless and sprawling, but he feels in his gut that neither of them have ever been more alive (or more lifeless) than in this moment. It’s a paradox, an oxymoron, but that’s all anyone is, right?
It fades too quickly and numbness follows. It isn’t like before, when they could be in love without saying a word of the truth. There is too much hanging between them now, like miles of storm-poisoned, choppy water that’ll drown them if they try to maneuver it. The inelegance of everything that has just happened is suffocating, stamping out the sweet post-coital glow. It is gone before Hannibal even withdraws from him, to let the liquid of his seed dribble out on the sheets.
“You said that you could not betray me,” he says. There’s a bit of anger, tinting the words. It isn’t a question but Will nods. He knows what he’s referring to. Will empathizes with him, knows that they feel the same in this moment. “Then why would you ask such a thing of me?”
Will wishes he could roll over, turn his back to Hannibal like he does whenever they fight. Instead, he stares past him to the ceiling, numbering cracks.
“You already betrayed me.”
They speak no more. Hannibal wordlessly pulls Will’s dirtied body into the crooks of his form. Holds him tight for ages until exhaustion wins out and he falls asleep. Giving way to nightmares or death.
Hannibal does not kill him, nor does he have any nightmares that night. He wakes at eight, after having a full night’s sleep, in Hannibal’s bed. He is alone and he feels in his gut that even if he searched the house he would not find Hannibal. His skin is dry and his mind is clear. He knows this is only temporary. That the nightmares will return soon, likely the next time he finds sleep (whenever that is), but he can’t help but feel that Hannibal is somewhat responsible for how clearheaded he feels. Finally.
He walks into the kitchen and finds a note placed carefully beside the stovetop. Will picks it up with deft fingers, as if it may taint his flesh. The handwriting is elegant, stretched across the paper as if Hannibal had tried to drag out the writing of it as long as possible. It reads:
William,
One of my many trespasses against you is my withholding of information regarding your health. Please seek a second opinion with a neurologist. In two day’s time, an anonymous package will arrive at the FBI, containing all the evidence necessary to cement my identity as the Chesapeake Ripper. I recommend contacting Jack before then.
You may choose not to believe me, but I am sorry, dear William. For everything.
With Love,
HL
Will retrieves a box of matches from a drawer and walks into the dining room. He lights a candle and holds the note up to the flame. Waits for it to catch before resting it upon the silver tray centerpiece and watches it burn to ashes. Then, he picks up the phone and calls Jack Crawford.
Outside, it is raining.
fin.