Title: The First and the Last
Rating: PG13 perhaps?
Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Hannibal, those characters, that world, all go to their respective owners.
Summary: Post S3 finale, just interactions between Hannibal and Will if they survived that fall.
A/N: check the end for some notes
Pure. Cold. Shock.
It's the first word that Will identifies after collapsing into the depths below. The waters rush over him, filling him inside, feeling no pain. It's the act of emerging up where he lets out a blood curdling scream.
It echoes.
"Will."
His point of view changes at the sight of Hannibal a few feet from him, looking as though he is barely hanging on but his hand grasps onto Will's shoulder, just wanting to keep him afloat. Will intended for them to die. He wanted them to not live after what they had done, what they achieved together: bringing down the Dragon. The Tooth Fairy, Francis Dolarhyde, memories of him were pushed back as a wave swept through and his eyes caught onto Hannibal's.
"We bathed in his blood. In our blood and I relished in it. I wanted us to die together. I wanted our bodies to be mangled and broken on those rocks. Fate, fate, fate... is a bitch." Will spit out that word, blood spilled out. He wasn't whose blood it was. "Yet here we are together, in the darkness, our darkness."
"I told you," Hannibal paused, he hissed and let out a groan. "I told you that this is what I've always wanted for you, Will. Accepting yourself, accepting who and what you are. Accepting the darkness... accepting me." Hannibal didn't need reassurance words from Will. The direct eye contact, his actions a few moments earlier sealed the deal for him. And now, seeing Will reach out and rest his hand against his cheek, Hannibal rested his face in the moment, the caress and touch shook him and not the water.
"Let's go live together." Will whispered to the other man, noticing that they seemed to float further away from the scene of the crime. He had a second chance. Maybe it was his third or fourth. He held onto Hannibal's larger frame and used the last of his energy to get them away and out but just barely.
He let the moonlight lead them to a safe point.
The sunrise was burning, hissed and retracted from the sun like a vampire. That word didn't feel too far from the truth. Soaked in water and blood, their clothes stuck to their bodies. Will didn't hear anything but the crashing of the waves, perhaps they were covering the oncoming of sirens. He knew Hannibal was awake, his pulse was faint but somehow, he was hanging on. It wasn't until Will let the exhaustion take over him that he ended up collapsing right alongside Hannibal, their fingers were locked.
Some time had passed before Will awoke, his body jerked him to sit up straight and out of his mouth were compressed moans that finally were released. He wondered if this were Heaven. At this rate, he wondered if it were Hell, too. Would Hell offer him a bed, horrible decor and not matching wallpaper? "You're awake."
He recognized that voice. Did he make to Hell, too?
"What happened? Where am I?" Will noticed the many bandages and stitches covering the upper half of his body. Bruises on his hands, the knuckles, scraps and scratches, he looked broken but Hannibal would find him beautiful.
"I cannot recall some of the moments in the water but I woke to you passed out. You saved me. You saved us." Hannibal had similar if not matching scars as well. "You've waken up a few moments only to be lost again. It's been a few days since our battle. Do you remember that night, Will?" Hannibal offered a glass of cold water. Shockingly, Will accept it after remember the taste of blood and water in his mouth those days ago.
"I remember it all. Dolarhyde's blood is forever permanent in the concrete. I saw the look that you gave me and we struck him together. You've always wanted us to fight together, be together, kill together, even with Abigail. I knew it then but I wasn't ready to let go all of what brought me to that point. I found killing to be ugly but I loved it. You saw it before I saw it." He sipped some of the water, his hand was shaking but he kept it stable. "And now that you have me, what are you going to do with me?"
It was such a dangerous question to ask but Will knew that in this stage in their blood dance of back and forth, he wanted to know more.
"What I want from you Will, is to be here with me. Be my equal. Be my partner." Hannibal moved closer to Will, dressed in baggier clothes that made Hannibal look not like himself and he sat down on the bed. "What is your answer to that?"
Will managed to sit the glass down on the small desk table next to them and used the same hang to slowly reach out and the finger tips grazed Hannibal's bruised knuckles. "We have the same marks. We have become one." Will wanted to ask him one more question but gulped. "Will you... kiss me?"
"You never have to ask." Hannibal responded, a small smirk appeared on his face as he leaned in to finally capture the lips of a man he's longed for for quite some time. Their lips met and the temperature in the room changed, that invisible tension which had always been there, it felt like a knob had turned it up to a higher level. The kiss ended too soon but their foreheads, brushing of their noses, inhaling each of their scents.
"Where are we?" Will hadn't realized that he asked that question out loud.
"Not too far from where we were, an abandoned cabin. " Hannibal responded without a beat. "Not many supplies but it will do for right now. You must rest, Will," he was the first to pull away from their embrace and Will felt the empty space already turning cold.
"And what of you? Will you rest or are you playing lookout? I doubt that Jack is on his way. Resourceful man, not as smart now that I look back." Will rested back against the pillows, noting the uncomfortable position he had to lay in. "Has he crossed your mind yet? Is he welcomed in your mind palace?" He was curious. He knew that Bedelia had a limited space, as so did Alana, but what of the others?
"Jack is the dirt underneath us. He will be taken care of in due time. He thought of himself as God and me as the Devil." Hannibal pulled some of the blanket higher up on Will.
"You are the Devil, Lucifer, the snake that tempted Eve to go against God's demands." Will had caught Hannibal's eyes with his words. "What did he think of me?"
"A lamb."
"A lamb that needed to be slaughtered as a sacrifice. In a way, I have become that. My blood was shed for the Dragon. But I am alive with the snake between my legs." Will had closed his eyes, felt the bed dip as if Hannibal was going to join him. When he didn't feel the pressure disappear, he opened his eyes to Hannibal right there in bed with him.
"Eve was indeed the second to be tempted. Lilith was intended to be Adam's first." Hannibal spoke in a low whisper, his hand reached over to turn out the light, putting them in complete darkness.
"Am I your Lilith, Hannibal? Your first, your last?" Will was beginning to fall into a relaxed state, perhaps it was the exhaustion again or the medication. Maybe it was the fact that he was with Hannibal, officially. "Bedelia compared me to Frankenstein's Bride and wanted to call herself as Bluebeard's last bride. She appears to be his first wife."
Hannibal let out a small groan, his arm moved to cradle and hold Will against him, around his middle. "You are my first and last, Will. You always were. I will kill for you, Will. I have killed. That will not change." His voice was right into Will's ear, his breath warmed him.
"I understand that now. I do request that you leave Margot alone, as well as her child. Alana doesn't deserve death either," It sounded as if he didn't want Alana to be sentenced with death, but the fear needed to be pressed within her. He wanted her to know that she will never be safe, no matter how hard she could try to hide her family.
The others around them open for execution. Jack was one of them, Chilton was practically dead, barely clinging to a thread of life. "But Freddie, she will be mine."
Hannibal smiled against the other man and lightly kissed Will's jawline before he closed his eyes after Will had fallen asleep.
He was baptized in those waters. His blood, Hannibal's blood and Dolarhyde's were washed away with them. All he was left with was the emptiness on his chest, his shoulders, but not his heart or mind. He had new things that were taking room, building him and reshaping him into a new Will Graham.
This new Will had much to conquer.
And now with Hannibal by his side.
End.
A/N: I've NEVER written a fic for Hannibal, let alone for Hannigram. This was fucking scary to write but I just had to get it out of my head. I haven't written anything fic wise in quite some time, every once in a while, plot bunnies do show up and I write but I just wanted to tackle these two and feel satisfied with the outcome.