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There’s not an inch of their bodies that weren’t impacted by the fall. Bruises, sprains, abrasions, lacerations, punctures—it’s a miracle they survived it. By all accounts, they shouldn’t have.
But unlike everything that’s come to pass before Francis Dolarhyde, this doesn’t feel like something Hannibal did to him. In fact, everything after could arguably be called what Will has done to Hannibal.
He pulled Hannibal out of the water (with a strength and dedication that can be accredited only to pure spite, because goddamn it, if Will’s going to survive then he’s not doing it alone).
He stripped him from his wet clothes to stop the onset of hypothermia and bundled him into blankets (not so unlike that night, and why is he thinking about that now, it’s already done, it can’t be changed and they can’t go back, no teacups and time and no rules of disorder).
He brought Hannibal to his father’s fishing shack in Louisiana, left in disrepair. Brought him aboard the boat and got the motor working, stocked it with everything Will could think to collect, and shoved off into the Gulf of Mexico where the lines of international jurisdiction get muddy, and where as long as the Coast Guard see a trap off the back of the trawler and a US flag on the hull, no one cares to get close enough to see who’s at the helm.
He did all of this under the weight of dark and watchful eyes, and with precious little argument. It might be the first time in his life Hannibal’s ever sat back and let someone else take the lead, but—
“I’m interested in seeing what you have planned for my life,” Hannibal says that night in the boat’s dim cabin. He’s shirtless, mottled purple and greenish-yellow; the Verger brand is shiny with scar tissue, though half-destroyed from a hard impact with the rocks. One arm is casted, bundled in a sling; his bullet wound is red, though no longer at risk of infection.
But the most captivating of his many injuries is the slice across Hannibal’s abdomen. Thirty-eight crooked stitches by Will’s shaking hands to hold his belly shut. One for each year of Will’s life, which retroactively feels like maybe it’s always been twined with Hannibal’s. It seems fitting that at the end of all this, they’ll bear matching scars, and forever wear the evidence of the hurts they’ve dealt one another.
They’ve both spilled their guts. Literally and figuratively, symbolically and metaphorically.
And now, on his knees, it’s time to remove those stitches, and hope like hell they’ve healed enough to survive without clear fishing line and fly ties to hold them together; little wounds dealt in the hopes that the bigger ones—the life-threatening ones—will mend.
Silk string and human flesh aren’t as elegant as gold and broken teacups, Will supposes, but they’ll do.
“What makes you think I have anything planned?” Will asks with a wry smile and steady hands. He slips the scissors between the loops and trims them one at a time.
Hannibal doesn’t flinch at the cold of the steel against his skin. Instead, he watches with rapt interest. “I find it hard to believe you have nothing in mind.”
“Plenty of things in mind. Nothing concrete.” He removes each piece of thread, one by one. “Except…”
Hannibal doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t move. His gaze is tangible, burning, until Will is forced to turn away in avoidance or meet him head-on. Will’s focus becomes purgatory as he pulls the last suture free; smooths his fingers over the scar, still raw—
—but healing. Warm. Alive.
Will’s eyes lift. “We can’t survive separation. Can we?”
“No, I don’t believe we can.” Hannibal blinks, just once. “I’m no longer sure I’d want to.”
Blood and breath, Will decides, and exhales, and covers Hannibal’s uninjured hand with his own.
“Yeah,” he says, and leans up—“Me too.”