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“I’ve been thinking about leaving.” He tells Hannibal over dinner, putting the nameless meat into his mouth and chewing slowly. The other’s gaze is heavy on him, but he refuses to look, knows they both know he’s picking another fight, but Hannibal started the last one, so it’s only fair.
The silence between them stretches out before Hannibal speaks again, the words are those of a one time psychiatrist, but it is only a part now, his voice is anything but. Cold and stark, it cuts, steeling for the blows to come. But Will has begun the game already, and he does not back down, ready to lash out. It is below them, in many ways, this childish schoolyard battle to see who gives in to the pain first, but they’re both skilled players, determined that the other break, determined to break themselves. Chess with knives.
“And what to do you imagine when you think about such a thing?” A clinical question, as though he’s merely curious, but the ice betrays him.
“I imagine I would be happy.” Will murmurs back, the truth and not a lie, Hannibal would know a lie, they don’t play on lies, lies don’t hurt like truths, and to abandon the goal of the game with such things would be rude. “Don’t you think I would be happy, Hannibal? Somewhere else.” He lays his dirty napkin across the table, lets the sauce covered tines of his fork darken stains across the white tablecloth. Hannibal’s teeth grit, he can sense the anger now, beneath the tundra. His lips curve in a lopsided smile. “With someone else?”
“You have turned your back before.” Hannibal points out callously, and Will is sickeningly pleased he’s stopped eating, has pushed the plate away, appetite fled. They don’t hide their anguish, a point scored must be tallied. “Did you find yourself quite happy, then?” There’s a baring of teeth, a facsimile of a smile. “I would destroy it for you.” He adds, voice falling conspiratorially. “If you fled. Perhaps you enjoy such destruction and that is why you think of leaving. Did you relish Abigail’s death, find satisfaction that her life was spilt in your name?” He leans into the way Will’s eyes darken. “If you miss the sensation, by all means, make some friends, we can fillet them together at the table.”
"I know you would.” The words thrum lower, twist grimly, the ruination Hannibal speaks of is not the one he craves, but this one certainly is. “I’ve always known you were a monster.” He finds his grip, softens the tone, adds poisonous honey. “An abhorrence, such desperation clinging to you. You forgot how to feel while I was gone.” He’s risen, circled around to whisper in Hannibal’s ear, the other stiffening under his breath. “All those silly little letters. You think you would cast down vengeance, I think -” He presses too soft lips to Hannibal’s forehead, a mockery of what once was, drinks in the shudders as only Hannibal could have taught him. “I think you would fall apart all over again. And I know you infinitely better than you know yourself.” Lips exchanged for fingers, and he tilts Hannibal’s chin up. “If I left, the thinking would shut down first, and then the smells and the tastes, the melodies, all of it. You’re too brittle now, to go another round.”
Hannibal pulls his face away, his eyes falling for just a breadth of a second, the blaze of an ache barely evident, before his fingers snatch out and dig bruises into Will’s wrist, holding him there. As close as he’ll get to an act of violence, though Will has slapped him before, a backhand dissolved to laughter and a bloody smile. But the rules aren’t the same for both of them, this doesn’t rely on fairness.
“Is that why you stay then?” Will can taste the fragility somewhere, but there’s only a savage roar filling his ears. “For my well being? Poor, generous, Will clinging to a home.” The grin he’s given is feral, hungry, he’s pulled closer, the sharp teeth beckoning. “You eat what I kill, you sleep in our bed. If I am a monster you are no less so. You deserve me.”
A stab at validation, sometimes neither of them can resist. “I do.” He nods, laughing. “But I would survive you.” His other hand comes up, undaunted by the fate of the first and strokes through Hannibal’s hair, edging his face. “I see myself clearly, Hannibal, and you. And you are blinded. You could burn down the world and it would never be the same, cut out thousands of kidneys, eat the livers of cities, drink the blood of continents. Without me it would fall to ash on your tongue.”
He leans in and kisses Hannibal on the lips, sacrifices some of his own pleasure to imbue it with the precious remains of affection he has for the other. It makes him ache, somewhere deep, to kiss Hannibal as though there love is something pure, something salvageable. But it’s well worth it to feel him melting, undone completely.
“And I’ve been thinking about leaving.”
He wrenches away as the murmured words echo between them, names himself the victor, puts on a crown of thorns.