Archive of Our Own

Will sat cross-legged on the floor of their Bern villa, staring blankly at the ratty guitar in front of him. The lustre of its finish had worn off and there were scratches along the pickguard. The case was hardshell, but the velvet inside was soft and flattened by time. It smelled like old guitars should smell, wood and metal and a little musty. 

Next to it, in a placement which almost felt mean to the old Alvarez, sat the most beautiful instrument Will had ever seen, a recent gift from Hannibal. It was the sort of thing he never would’ve managed to lay hands on in any other life, but, in this one, Hannibal acted as though it was a given. The guitar was a Gibson Hummingbird, and every inch of it was breathtaking. Warm, spotless mahogany, mother-of-pearl inlay, even the tuning pegs looked like jade. Hannibal had been unwilling to divulge a price, but Will knew without any research that it was at least a few thousand dollars. The way it sounded was almost otherworldly, sure and luscious like a hearth. 

He knew that he could give the other one away. There was no reason to keep it. But something kept stopping him, pushing his hands away when he moved to snap the case shut and drive it to a charity shop. 

His first guitar had been a gift from his father. Actually, it had been something of a hand-me-down. Will had been fifteen, and his father was back on the wagon, perfunctorily attempting to make amends. 

He remembered walking in the door of their trailer, shirt sticking to the sweat of his back, and seeing his father at the table, tuning a guitar with shocking focus. As he looked up, he smiled crookedly, strumming one mostly-in-tune chord. “Got somethin’ for you,” he said softly. His voice was always soft when he was sober, like he was trying to average out how loud it was when he was drunk. 

“Didn’t know you played guitar,” Will had said, cracking open a Pepsi. “Or owned one.”

“It was your grandfather’s.” He plucked absently at the strings. “He gave it to me when I was about seventeen. Now, I’m giving it to you.” A wistful ghost of a smile blew across his face. “Maybe someday you’ll give it to your kid.”

Will had rolled his lips between his teeth thoughtfully. “I don’t know how to play it.”

“You can learn. I taught myself, so did my dad. Then you can teach your own son.”

“You’re gonna teach me?” Will had asked, eyebrows skyrocketing. 

His dad had laughed, but Will had never been able to parse what exactly was funny. “No, kid. You don’t want me teachin’ you. But I’ll give you the tools, that’s legacy enough.”

Toward the end, his father had blathered on about legacy an awful lot. Will imagined his repeated falls back off the wagon had something to do with it, but the conversation had always stuck with him. And he had cherished that old guitar, too, had brought it with him to Wolf Trap. There would always be something in him that craved what his father had said, a child to pass things down to. He had more than his father did, even in the pre-fall era, so much he would’ve loved to grant and to teach. As much as he had imagined teaching Abigail to fish, he had imagined teaching her a thousand other things. He had been looking forward to a level of closeness with Wally where he could do the same thing. 

His father’s guitar was nowhere to be found. It was either somewhere still in Molly’s closet or some kind of impound with the rest of his things. But this old, tortured one that he had gotten from some crotchety old man the first month after the fall felt the same. And the guitar wasn’t the point, not really. The guitar didn’t mean anything, that’s what he kept telling himself. 

Except it was time to come to terms with the fact that he would never, in any capacity, be a father. Not even an ersatz one like he had planned. There could be no child, not in this life. There could be no protege. Over the course of their time knowing each other, Will had misunderstood many things about Hannibal. He was right, however, when he said, “you don’t want me to have anything in my life that isn’t you.” To invite a child into their life together was to bequeath the child with a target, either because of Hannibal’s envy or his perception of Will’s weakness. And, with a cold, hard look in the mirror, Will could admit that this was probably for the best. Most of him could, anyway. 

And yet, there remained a part of him that was desperate to care for someone. To teach them and give to them and parent them, and he was not yet finished resenting the fact that this could never come to fruition. 

Snap the clasps shut and put this fucking thing in the trunk. Will sighed, staring at the guitar and brushing his fingertips softly across the strings. You’re inventing a problem in a life that is already tenuous. It’s just a guitar.  

He snapped the clasps shut and shoved it under his bed, mentally shaking his head at himself. 

For the next week, he would sit on the floor for a few minutes, staring at the old guitar, trying to make himself put it in the car. He couldn’t do it. You are not father material, he told himself. There is no legacy here. 

“Will?”

Will looked up, startled, to see Hannibal watching him amusedly from the doorway. 

“You do not have to get rid of the old one. There is plenty of space here for both of them,” Hannibal told him. “The new one is meant to bring you joy, and yet it seems you are unhappy with it.”

“I’m not,” Will said. “I love it, it’s beautiful.”

Hannibal stared at him for a moment, then sighed, coming into the room and sitting on the bed, his hand absently brushing over the comforter. “There is no shame in holding onto a relic of oneself.”

“I’m not ashamed.” There was a nonzero chance that he was lying. 

“Do you see yourself in these guitars? Does accepting the new one feel like a betrayal of the old?”

Will scowled up at him. “I’m not doing this. Let’s eat dinner.”

Reluctantly, Hannibal stood, extending a hand to him, which Will hesitantly took to pull himself up. Hannibal gripped his elbow, holding him still and looking intently into his face. “Are you unhappy, Will?”

God, he wished he was something that made as much sense as unhappy. “No, I’m not,” he said, and this was true. This was the right thing, he knew that. Still, it grated on him. 

“Good.”

That night, before heading up to bed, Will made himself put the guitar in the trunk of his car. After, he collapsed into bed for a few minutes, acutely aware of the empty feeling beneath it. Beneath him. It felt like forfeiture of something he didn’t need but now could never have. The absence of the thing was uncomfortable, the inability of its return was excruciating. 

He gave up so much to be with Hannibal. It wasn’t regret that plagued him, it wasn’t quite cut-and-dry enough. If he was going to have nothing else, he would by damn have all of Hannibal. 

Will rose and padded down the hall toward Hannibal’s room, knocking softly on the door. 

“Come in.”

As he pushed his way in, he made a concerted attempt to school his face into neutrality. Whether it worked, he couldn’t say. 

“Are you alright?” Hannibal asked, sitting up and sounding genuinely concerned. And he was, probably, though more for the threat of Will’s departure than Will’s actual wellbeing. Nevertheless, he seemed earnest. 

Will wordlessly plodded over and lay in the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling. “I like the new guitar.”

Hannibal slid down so they were level, eyes fixed on his face. “I’m glad.” 

Nodding slightly, Will felt his eyes grow a little wet, but squeezed them shut until the tears disappeared. He turned to lay on his side, looking at Hannibal. “We haven’t shared a bed since the boat.”

“The boat did not forge positive associations in either of our minds, I imagine,” Hannibal said, voice gentle but teasing. 

Will smiled despite himself. “No, it didn’t.” He pulled the blanket over both of them, sighing into the pillow and finding himself soothed by it. “This is our life, now, though.”

“God smiles upon the wretched once again.”

Slowly, knowing that he was about to shatter something that he had very meticulously maintained, Will leaned forward and pressed his lips very lightly to Hannibal’s. “Goodnight, Hannibal,” he said, pulling the blanket more tightly around his shoulders and then pressing his head to Hannibal’s pillow. 

He felt the tremulous nature of Hannibal’s next breath, no matter how much he tried to hide it. “Goodnight, Will.”

A few hours later, Will woke up to a shifting in the bed. He half-expected Hannibal to be rising to go kill someone as a means of coping with strong emotions. Instead, the other man was moving in his sleep to rest his head against Will’s shoulder, forehead pressing into the nape of his neck. Will cautiously raised his hand and let it card through his soft, fine hair, which Hannibal leaned into without waking up. It was strange to watch him sleep. He seemed so gentle, and his fingers twitched every few seconds. Fingers that had ruined lives, ruined, by some estimations, Will’s life, and yet, they fluttered now like a sleepy child’s. 

Will tipped his head so that Hannibal’s temple was against his chin. “I have you,” he said quietly, knowing he’d get no response. It was better that way. 

At 5:45 a.m, Will woke up again to find Hannibal still curled tightly to his chest, which was almost nauseatingly endearing. At 7:30 a.m, he woke a third time to Hannibal getting out of bed and stretching. 

He didn’t particularly want to have a conversation, so he kept a low profile, watching Hannibal pad silently over to his closet and pull out a cashmere sweater and some trousers, along with a completely unnecessary undershirt. 

“Ordinarily, I would put this outfit on in the bathroom,” Hannibal said quietly, but still with unbearable smugness. “But if you’re enjoying watching me change, I am happy to stay here.”

God, you’re irritating , Will thought, almost affectionately. “I don’t want to interrupt your morning routine.”

And, sure, he didn’t mean to put Hannibal in a position to either back down or strip right in front of him, but he certainly wasn’t opposed to it. That said, Hannibal was Hannibal, meaning he was apparently devoid of shame or reservation about anything. His shirt went first, and Will stared at his chest with intrigue. The scar on his side where the bullet from the Dragon had punctured him was puckered and gnarled, evidence of Will’s shaky stitch job. The long incisions along his wrists stirred something in Will, something adjacent to pride. When he turned around to pick up his undershirt, the Verger brand made Will cringe. 

“Does it bother you?” Will asked him. 

Hannibal tugged the undershirt over his head, moving on to his button-up. He watched Will with intense scrutiny. “Not particularly, though it is my least favorite of the scars I possess.” He paused, hands stilling over his buttons. “It bothers you.” And that bothers me, went unsaid, but Will heard it loud enough. 

“It does,” Will said slowly. “Not in the way you think, though.”

Unceremoniously, Hannibal dropped his pants, reaching down to pick up his trousers and leaving Will momentarily a little distracted. “In what way, then?”

Will blinked. “In part, it has to do with possession. Which I assume you knew.”

“You are a jealous person. For me to be marked by someone else must irk you.”

“Right, but it isn’t just that. I feel… Secure, in my possession of you. I don’t like that, even for a second, Mason felt like he beat us.” Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Hannibal pulled on his pants and belt, admiring himself in the mirror for a moment, then turning back to Will and sitting on the bed facing him. “He suffered greatly, in the end. Perhaps it would be more therapeutic for you to consider his downfall more painful since he fell from a greater height. Thinking he was winning made his destruction all the more undignified.”

Huffing something adjacent to a laugh, Will stared down at the bed. “I’ll bet you loved that.”

“As much as I enjoyed delivering Mason his comeuppance and Margot her restitution, I’ll admit I was otherwise preoccupied.” He reached up, brushing the red scar along Will’s forehead. “He was right to acknowledge that you have a beautiful face.”

Will grimaced, twitching his head away. Despite the fact that he usually woke up around this time, Hannibal’s bed was cushy and soft and it allowed him to forget that he was currently feeling… Adrift in this life. He slid back down into it, pulling the comforter up once more. “Thanks for the show.”

Hannibal half-laughed. “My pleasure. I will have breakfast ready in about half an hour.”

Will grumbled meaninglessly, drifting off once again. 

That day, he drove past the charity shop, guitar in the trunk. He was aware that he should’ve torn the bandage off, forced himself to go in, deposit the old guitar, and, in doing so, accept the inevitabilities of this life. And yet, he couldn’t do it. There was no protege on their way, there was no incoming child or student or recipient for anything Will had to offer. He knew that. 

It hurt too much. Resentment, unfair, horrible resentment, burned in his chest

He came home to Hannibal curled up on the couch, sketching peacefully. For a moment, the affection he possessed for Hannibal was eclipsed by hate, by the urge to punish and torment. It wasn’t fair, he knew it wasn’t fair, but he wanted compensation in some way for this thing he had sacrificed, even in principle. 

Hannibal looked up at him. “You should keep both guitars, Will.”

The hatred fizzled out. Will still felt angry, but he had known what he was signing up for. It was almost pitiful, watching Hannibal’s misshapen attempt at love. Watching him note that Will was in pain and, bizarrely, want to rectify it, watching him be completely wrong-footed in the face of emotional conflict. Hannibal understood Will, of course, better than anyone else ever could. He was operating, however, with an incomplete dataset. 

To say Hannibal could not feel would be inaccurate. To say that he had a reduced capacity for emotion even less so. In fact, by Will’s estimation, Hannibal was a deeply emotional person, especially now. His desire to keep Will seemed, at this point, so innate that it was ungovernable, it ruled all other things. It was love, though it was love in the way that was unrecognizable to the naked eye. Hannibal loved the way God loved; absolutely and incomprehensibly. For Hannibal as for God, to love something did not preclude hurting it; in fact, that which was beloved was almost certainly at greater risk of pain dealt by his hands. 

If Hannibal’s love for Will could be described as misshapen, Will’s love for Hannibal could only be described as deformed. Mutated, maybe, or tattered. Hannibal’s hold on Will was a sort of pinion, both debilitating and supportive. Will’s was more of a grasp, a last-minute, desperate claw, equally as likely to rip that which it held as it was to hang on. Will had cared for other people, but he had not loved them. Not in this honest way, at least. Not in this frenzied, rending tear. This, he had realized, was reserved for Hannibal, alone. 

“Will?” Hannibal said, voice startlingly tender. “You seem upset.”

Will shook his head, moving to join Hannibal on the couch and then resting his head on his shoulder. Hannibal took his hand and intertwined their fingers, raising it to his lips and reverently pressing them to his knuckles. “I feel…” Will began softly, unsure whether he could take this tonight. “Bereft.”

Hannibal froze, his grip on Will’s hand tightening minutely. “Bereft of what?”

It became clear, then, that Will couldn’t do this. Not when things were this tenuous, not without planning his words, not when he was this tired. He didn’t want to hurt Hannibal, not like this. Or, rather, not incidentally. He needed to be able to deliver accurate, measured blows, not thrashing accidental hits. “I don’t know,” he said, instead of the truth. 

He could feel it leaching into him from Hannibal, the terror. The increasing panic at the thought that Will might leave, and, as much as he wanted to punish him, there was no point when he didn’t know the problem at hand. “Not with us,” Will added. “Not with you.”

Hannibal relaxed slightly. “Is there anything I can do?”

Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful. Like a dog with a dead rabbit, hopeful that it would strike pride. To hurt him like this felt ignoble. “Not right now,” Will told him, kissing his shoulder gently. “I’ll think about it.”

Despite Will’s best efforts, Hannibal still seemed disappointed. A moment of silence passed, Will could feel the lessened but still-present panic in the castles of Hannibal’s mind, could almost feel him seeking every corner for whatever he was missing. “I want you to be happy here.”

“I know.” Will also knew that, if he were to stand now, to pull away from Hannibal physically, it would bring this discussion to a boil that it could not sustain. He needed to say that he was happy here, but it wasn’t true. In fact, Will wasn’t certain that he was a person who could be happy. The things he wanted were opposed to one another, he could not have one without an equal opposite sacrifice. To choose Hannibal had meant forfeiture of parenthood, he had accepted that. 

Hannibal was not satisfied with this answer, that much was clear. Will could empathize with that. Hannibal wanted him to stay , wanted this rippling undercurrent to be neutralized. He wanted to rejoice in the closeness that Will was granting him, but previous experience had likely taught him that Will was a fickle person, inclined to show affection and immediately withdraw it. All of that was understandable. 

“Your pillows are too soft.” Will ran his free hand through his curls, trying to recalibrate himself. 

There was a flicker of something like mollification in Hannibal’s eyes. “Are they?”

“Like putting my head on a half-inflated beach ball.” The reminder of the intimacy of sharing a bed was heavy-handed and inelegant. 

It was also extremely effective. “You are welcome to bring your own,” Hannibal said, the shadow almost chased out of his voice. 

“BYOP? Some host you are.” Will stood, rolling his head from side to side. “I need to shower.”

“I will start dinner.” 

That night, Will traipsed leisurely into Hannibal’s bedroom, his own pillow in hand, which he waved snarkily upon entering. He threw it on the bed then slid under the covers with a familiarity that surprised even himself. Hannibal, sitting against the headboard with a book, looked down at him in badly-hidden glee. 

Will clicked off the light on his side of the bed. “You can stay up,” he mumbled. 

“I will join you after this chapter.” Hannibal went back to the book for a few minutes, ignoring the fact that Will was unabashedly staring at him. Steeling himself, Will took Hannibal’s hand from the book and held it in his own. He considered guiding it to his hair or his cheek, but decided that it would be too much too soon for either of them. 

The corners of Hannibal’s lips twitched up and he put the book on the bedside table, reclining until he was level with Will again, allowing his hand to stay in his grasp and using the other to switch off the light. 

In the darkness, it was somehow easier. Will sighed, pressing his forehead to their clasped hands. There was a tension, a subtextual creaking string on a tuning harp, getting closer and closer to snapping. He wasn’t sure yet if the snapping would be productive or destructive. 

“Will-” Hannibal began, and Will couldn’t bear what he was going to say, and the whole room smelled like him, and Hannibal was all he had, all he’d ever have, so he interrupted him immediately and pressed their lips together. 

Whereas the night before, Will had kissed him chastely, with almost adolescent shyness, tonight felt desperate, like he needed Hannibal to hear him. Will snatched his hand away from Hannibal’s, instead clenching his fist into his sleepshirt. 

For his part, Hannibal’s hand immediately slid into Will’s hair, and Will could feel his barely-intact restraint preventing him from pulling, his fingers instead carding through the damp curls gently. 

Hear me, Will begged nonverbally, rucking Hannibal’s shirt up slightly to feel the soft skin of his waist. Listen to what I’m trying to tell you. He felt so… Held, so contained, like an animal in a sling. With unnameable urgency, he pulled them closer together, wanting, more than anything, to be inside of Hannibal like a parasite. He needed to burrow under his skin, bury himself in his lungs, his gut, the very cells of his being. If Hannibal wanted to be his everything, then Will would take everything. Hannibal loved him, therefore a part of him would always want to eat Will. Even this concept was unsatisfactory. To eat someone had an endpoint, Will realized, and therefore he did not share this desire. He wanted, instead, to keep Hannibal alive and feed from him, let him replenish his stores and then feed from him again. 

Hannibal allowed the kiss to deepen for only a few seconds before pulling away, pressing their foreheads together instead. Will felt himself scowl. “It is dishonorable to abuse my affection for you because you require a diversion tactic,” Hannibal said, not unkindly. 

“I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you,” Will told him. “The diversion was just a bonus.”

He hummed, seemingly unconvinced. “Do you intend to tell me what is weighing on you?”

Will half-smiled, fingertips grazing his waist still. “Soon.” He brushed their noses together once, then rolled over, facing away from Hannibal. “Goodnight.”

He felt Hannibal hesitate, then trace a featherlight hand over his back, as though counting the knobs of his spine. “Goodnight,” Hannibal repeated absently, as though the word had no meaning whatsoever. 

Will found himself unable to sleep, plagued by the need to come up with a solution to this problem. He wanted Hannibal, obviously, wanted this life. To bring up a shortcoming of it, though, one that stemmed from Hannibal, himself, was dangerous territory. Not for the first time, he considered finding a way to temporarily incapacitate Hannibal so that he would have to hear the entirety of Will’s grievance without reacting, but decided against it. 

Hannibal, it seemed, had fallen asleep, as his arm had drifted from Will’s back to around his waist, his nose pressed into the base of his neck. 

A part of Will wanted to forget any of this. To forget that he had these urges for fatherhood, to forget that the two of them were incompatible with it. He wondered if there was a world where he could trust Hannibal with this again, where he could be naive enough to bring another child into their lives. It was far too painful to imagine their lives with Abigail, though Will could admit that there were parts of his recollection of her which were embellished, as well as parts which were not, and he struggled to differentiate the two. Nevertheless, he had forbidden himself from dwelling on the life they could’ve had, and from apportioning blame for forsaking it.

This was the life he had chosen. He rolled over again and Hannibal tucked his nose into Will’s shoulder. Will figured that the odds of this sleep being genuine were about fifty-fifty, but he let it slide either way. Hannibal was warm, Hannibal was his , Hannibal saw him. They saw each other, Will reminded himself. For all of his faults, Hannibal knew Will in a way no one else could. In some way, that had to contribute to trusting him. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would tell Hannibal about all of this. It would hurt both of them, but not as much as this reticence was hurting them. For a second, Will wished he could be someone else, someone more emotionally eloquent, more emotionally literate, even. As it stood, Will’s theoretical understanding of emotion was disparate with his own feelings and experiences. He wished he could be childish, could start out a conversation with, don’t be mad, but…  

And yet. He had chosen this, as he kept reminding himself. As Hannibal made a soft hum in his sleep and clenched a fist into Will’s t-shirt, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. 

The skin under his eye was so soft, Will realized, brushing his thumb along it over and over again. He had Hannibal, even here, at his most vulnerable. Hannibal’s history was mottled with trauma, and a not inconsiderable amount of it included Will, and yet here he was, asleep in his arms. A lifetime of starving winter, and he tucked into Will like a dog curled up in front of a fireplace. It was worth it, the sacrifice and the emptiness, it was not a choice that Will regretted. That didn’t make it painless. 

When he woke up, Hannibal was out of the room, the smell of breakfast wafting up through the vents. Will groaned, accepting the fact that this conversation had to happen and wondering if he was truly ready for it. 

He changed into a flannel and jeans and then slunk down the stairs into the kitchen. Hannibal was standing in front of the stove, poking at something with a spatula. “Smells good.”

Hannibal inclined his head in acknowledgement, eyes still fixed on the pan in front of him. “Another five minutes and it will be done.”

Will gathered plates from the cupboard and set the table, reveling in the domesticity. He was intent on reminding both of them that he loved this life, that he was at home in it. They had specific mugs, a fact that stoked something in his guts, something adoring and familiar. He poured them each a cup of coffee then sat at the table, tapping his fingers aimlessly. 

Hannibal pulled something out of the oven and plated whatever it was with sausage patties and buttered toast. “Halloumi and garlic frittata, maple sausage, and toasted rye bread with garlic butter,” he said, sounding more than a little proud of himself. 

Without hesitating, Will dug in, moaning appreciatively. “It’s delicious, thank you.” He ignored Hannibal’s bloodstained gaze fixed on him with unhidden fascination.

With what appeared to be considerable effort, Hannibal dragged his gaze away from Will and began tucking into his own breakfast. “Did you sleep better on your own pillow?” 

Will half-smiled. “You know that I did.” He steeled himself, putting down the fork and fixing his eyes on Hannibal’s.

Immediately, Hannibal responded. “Are you ready to unburden yourself at last?”

“I don’t know if it’s unburdening me or burdening you,” Will said. He sighed, drumming his fingers on the table. “I always wanted to be a father.”

A shade was cast over Hannibal’s eyes, something dangerous, something aching and volatile and hurt. “Do you attribute the fruitlessness of your family tree to me?”

Will felt the creature inside him bare his teeth, snarling and snapping with the urge to detonate, to ruin the tenuous peace between them. He dragged his fingertip along the handle of his mug, trying to remain calm. “Not entirely. But you certainly had an impact.” 

“On the contrary, I gave you a child, Will,” Hannibal said with that false politeness that he so often used to deliver cruelty. 

“You gave yourself leverage over me. You extended your hand to me just so I’d hate when you jerked it away.”

Hannibal’s eye twitched. Despite his best efforts, Will had landed a blow. “I loved Abigail. I wanted us to be a family.”

“I know that.” Will sipped his coffee, trying to buy time to think. “You can love something even when you know it has an expiration date. Shepherds love their sheep despite planning to send them to auction.”

“Do you believe you, too, have an appointment with an executioner?”

“That’s not what this is about.” Will rolled his lips between his teeth. “In choosing this, I forfeited any chance at fatherhood. Any child brought into this life would be… Tainted. ” 

Hannibal’s eyes were almost black now, the pleasant expression on his face brittle and robotic. “Do you regret your choice?”

Will stared at him for a second, palpating his own soul to see if he was telling the truth, then shook his head. And, despite himself, he meant it wholeheartedly. 

Countenance thawing a degree, Hannibal’s brow furrowed slightly. “I would be willing to consider parenthood with you.”

“I wouldn’t.” His voice was surprisingly firm. “I spent my entire life planning to be a father. Planning to be better than my father. I’m having a little trouble adapting to this reroute.”

Hannibal appeared cold, but the ice in his eyes was fracturing, and hurt lay beneath it. Will could understand that. Hannibal was satisfied with the life they had carved out for themselves, was happier than he’d ever imagined being, had everything he’d ever really wanted. To know that Will was finding that in some way inadequate was excruciating for him. 

Will imagined that it felt like failure. 

And it wasn’t that he didn’t want to hurt Hannibal. He deserved to feel some semblance of the pain that he had dealt Will, the emptiness, the reaching-and-just-short feeling of loss, both of Abigail herself and of the future he’d destroyed in that kitchen. Strongarming him into empathy, into feeling what Will felt, it was appealing, in a way. 

“You feel unfulfilled,” Hannibal suggested slowly. “You are grieving the wants of the past.”

“A part of me will always want it,” Will said. “I just can’t want it with you.”

The room felt as though it dropped ten degrees, Hannibal’s face mutating back into something twisted, something flammable, something childish. Will could feel it, feel how badly he wanted to lash out. If Will was forcing Hannibal to feel pain, he would damn well reciprocate, they both knew that. 

This wasn’t the goal. Disruption of the peace in the form of an all-out brawl would be cathartic, but it would only make things worse. Put the distance back between them, and, after being distant for so long, Will simply didn’t have the heart to start over. 

He placed his hand on Hannibal’s wrist. “I want you more. More than any of it. I’ve forsaken the wants of my entire life because I want this. ” He waited for Hannibal’s expression to change. “I chose you.” 

“When faced with a life together, you threw us off a cliff,” Hannibal replied, voice unreadable. 

“I tried to die in your arms. What is love, if not that?”

Bizarrely, Hannibal flinched. “To die is often easier than to live.”

Will hummed. “That’s true. But it’s not what I want.”

Hannibal turned his hand over, taking Will’s and holding on oddly tightly. “What is it that you want, Will? An apology? Acquiescence?”

“I want you to understand,” he said, deciding not to elaborate. 

There was a moment of silence, then, “that, I can do.” Hannibal took his hand back gently, picking up his fork once more. “I want you to be happy here, Will,” he said, for what felt like the thousandth time. 

“I don’t know if I’m a person who can be happy. I want too many things that are at odds with each other. But I will be content, someday. I will be content with you.”

“Content with having only me or content alongside me?” Hannibal asked, expression warm once more in the way it could only ever be with Will. 

“‘Yes’, I think is the answer to that,” Will said smilingly, nudging Hannibal’s ankle with his own.  

And someday, content they were.