Work Text:
Dear Will,
I have never been in love.
Or I have. I’ve just never known about it.
Because love in stories is about fireworks in the middle of the night; candlelit dinners over silk tablecloths and fine china; soft, memorable kisses that leave each other wanting more; seeing each other in parts of each other’s lives, soft reminders of small things; picnics on fluffy grass and checkered cloths.
Love in stories and movies and what my friends describe is like falling onto a cloud, of warm, steady hands clutching onto them gently as they cradle each other in the morning light, shining onto their silhouettes. Hands holding each other, intertwined in a gentle embrace in repeated squeezes as if to say that I am here, to your partner, like a steady rock against life’s crashing waves. Soft, teddy-bear like hugs as you breathe into each other, holding on as life cannot deter you from each other’s paths, forever forging into one.
You love them endlessly, breathe life into their lungs.
That’s what love is to some. All of the stories and novels and Oscar winning movies. But not to me.
No, never me.
Because my love is dangerous dancing on the edges of rooftops, gripping hands tightly to ensure you never fall and that you are here; raging jealousy that burns in the darkness in the show of hands you are in someone else’s arms; winded kisses that leave us breathless as I ache to draw portraits on your back, your blood spilling into the palms of my hands, a reminder that you are mine and only mine.
I think of you all the time, as the clock ticks away our life with each passing moment; never faltering, never fading; you are always on my mind. You are there in every stroke of my pen, every piece of furniture or stationery or fluffed up plushies I see; in every show and in every stray dog I spot on the streets. You are in my music, in the twists of each harmony and careful note, dancing along the lines and your voice brushing the handmade instruments. You are in everything I see, missing you with each painful breath I take that you are not here with me.
I painstakingly create things for you, even if it leaves my hands bloodied and injured beyond repair; I would do anything for you.
I burn with the need and the want and the everlasting ache to need you in my arms, to bury my face in your hair and breathe in your scent and memorise it. If you try to leave, my fight to keep you will leave us both torn and raw by the end of it, scratches along your arms, drawing iron hot blood to keep you here with me.
Seeing you laugh and enjoy time with others poisons me and grows flowers in my lungs, bloody and withered petals flowing out of my mouth. It kills me, roots burrowing into my lungs and embroidering the veins into a painting of love and death and life. My heart lights ablaze with every smile not directed towards me; with every gift and every affection not given towards me. It burns and burns and takes, but I am never that selfish to take you away from your loved ones.
But if I ever was, I’d never let you speak to anyone again.
I am what people call possessive; obsessive. I see all of you and wish you will have all of me, for all I am is for you.
With all my heart,
Hannibal Lecter