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Will digs his hand under the strands of his head, fingertips crawling beneath the scratch from those scalp as he continues his way down towards Hannibal’s lips, a tender reminder to the intimacy they’ve built upon, and the older man smiles lovingly at the touch.
Although Will hasn’t spoken much since that day, but his actions were otherwise quite sweet in the contrast of things. And once again Hannibal couldn’t help the curve of smile wavering in front of his lips as he slowly leans forward into that warm embrace.
Days in and days out peacefully and unremarkable, Hannibal couldn’t have been any happier than he could ever wished for. If one was given a choice in life, he’d choose Will Graham over anything. Perhaps this is the happy ending that he has so desperately longed for since the time when he lost his dear Mischa.
The new company of dogs alongside the presence of a man to the awful damping scent of animals consistently made into a sort of discomfort that he didn’t much as pay his mind to. The psychiatrist wears his smile like a familiar second suit, best to say he’s at home where he needed to be, never mind the killing if all he could ever wanted was just for a single person that loves him so dearly despite everything else, even if that was a bit selfish.
Hannibal would go about his day, dutifully like a wife and gentle like a husband, a nurture harbored from a seed where instead of plants, it’s his hand that were brought over to touch, like flaming skin detaching to rotten flesh while teeth gnawing into buddle of blood and affection devoured its way into his empty wiring mind. A guidance - a new beginning, somewhere in between that both parties could be sated away their hunger.
The agent managed to make his body go to sleep soundly right at the first exchange of their lips, as if a trainer were to be so gentle a beast turned into a housedog - wagging tail and beautiful, dulling canines. He would watch him over the night when the gentle hand repeatedly admiring his hair features - from the disheveled bedhead, a brown shy cue into blonde whipped in dim candle-colored. a purr emitted under the rumbling throat, fever lighten by the cheeks like the soft brushes from an artist’s skill, crafted at the way his jawlines would work in hast, honey mumbling like that of a child just because he felt peace to do so.
And then he opens his eyes, carelessly taking in the image before his eyes before it slowly distorting away right on sight. Their house gradually darkens when the entire skyline befalls inside.
He tried to grasp back the reality before it disappears, yet if fate was cruel enough to deny him even the possibility of yearning for only one thing in this world, then maybe he was right to be so resentful towards everybody to rejecting him the gift of being known.
How could he? It wasn’t his choice that Will died under his arms that day, yet it was his choice to stay inside whatever his mind subjected him to by memories, living under the illusion from one to another wasn’t a thing he usually fond of, if anything. But then again, how could he? To accept that only one from two survived, breaking away the spilt image of true happiness where he was held ever so gently even when death is by far the least of his concern.
He tried for years, to find ways so that the teacup was never there, should it be so broken beyond repair afterwards - something alike to the last act of devotion. And then tears would inevitably fall, panting him pathetically sorrowful - the perfect image of an abandoned dog.
In the end, he was there. Back to the house at the cliffside, back to the empty space between land and ocean, and back to where he held him for the last time.
Hannibal Lecter once more cried himself to sleep, the hollow purposely fabricated used space beside his bed left unattended as the haunt of nightmares crawling back to make him remember.