Chapter 7: The Fall

When Hannibal sees Will lose consciousness, he acts on impulse, throws the knife away – not even bothering to follow it with his eyes to watch where it lands – and holds Will's lifeless body in his arms, keeping him against his chest. He can't bear the thought of letting Will fall to the ground.

He thrusts his shoulder under Will's numb arm and half-carries, half-drags him across the rooms to his bed. There, he makes him lie down on the shabby blanket.

The cracked, worn boards of the floor creak under the doctor's feet as he sits down next to the younger man. The stormy winds besiege the cheap, thin windowpanes, causing them to fly slightly ajar. Though the house seems to be filled with the noises of the dying nature, Hannibal somehow manages to find everything distant and dim. For a long while, he keeps his eyes on a silvery wrapper of a bar of chocolate resting on the floor.

He stays there, sitting on the side of the bed, close to the younger man, and starts to completely lose track of his thoughts. One moment, he thinks of searching for the knife and cutting Will's throat, but the next, he caresses Will's hollow cheeks with his fingertips. The room turned completely dark, everything turned dark. The only thing he can see is Will lying there unconscious. Why can't he think clearly?

He has to get up, look for the knife and cut Will's throat. He must... Right now... It's highly important... It's vital.

But the rational thoughts just whirl in and out of his mind and don't take any effect. He doesn't even turn towards the door.

What if he grasps the knife and cuts? What happens then?

Will would be dead, lying in a pool of red blood in the middle of the bed... Hannibal would cover him with the blanket. Will's eyes would be open from the sudden pain of the fatal cut... The doctor would close them.

Hannibal slowly lifts his right palm and puts it on Will's eyelids. He tries to imagine...

Will's dead. Truly dead. He killed him with his own hands.

At first, he feels content. He did it, he freed himself from the dangerous dependence he was shoved into. Yes, he must admit, it was a sort of dependence he experienced with Will. Now it's over. He defeated it. He won.

And what about tomorrow? He would wake up in his dark bedroom, knowing that he is completely alone in the world, and there will be no clear reason for getting up. It will be a cold and boring day. Nothing will happen, and, in fact, there would not be much that could happen at all. He might search for prey and kill someone. He might see some patients during sessions. These are just routines. Routines, events – mechanical and uninteresting. He is indifferent about them. They won't have any effect on him.

That play of light... The glimmering of fever in those light-colored eyes... Will won't stand in the doorway of his office, won't ever visit him out of the blue...

And what about the day after tomorrow? He will get up for the same, boring nothing as he did the day before. Dark, cold, silence... Everything will seem to become gray.

What will happen two weeks later? Monotony. Blunt, soundless apathy. He might try to search for something that can grab his attention, but it will be rather useless... He won't feel any pain, won't feel despair... He won't feel anything. Just the bereft, empty void...

What will happen a year later? Getting used to it. Perfectly dispassionate, colorless steps will create the order of his days...

Abruptly, Hannibal shoves his fingers into Will's hair, and he rests beside him. He hears the heaves of the younger man's lungs and every beat of his heart. The heat of Will's fever creeps under his skin, making him take the same ragged, erratic breaths the unconscious younger man does. He climbs on top of Will, wanting to feel every inch of him pressed against his skin, almost crushing the tormented, weak body with his weight. He brushes his lips against the frail skin on Will's neck, taking in the sweet scent of illness and sensing the pulses of the artery with his mouth.

The fever is not just a faint reflection of Will's illness in his veins anymore, Hannibal is sure that it truly burns in his head, sending cold shivers down on his spine and igniting painful fire in his muscles. His lips are still touching Will's neck, and he is unable to break the contact. He starts kissing the younger man, his face, his forehead with blind, desperate kisses, wherever he can reach the pale, shivering skin.

He needs some time to comprehend that Will can barely breathe under his body. When he finally realizes it, he slightly shifts his position so that his upper arms around Will's shoulders could support some of his weight. The motion makes Will quietly whimper.

"Doctor Lecter," he groans, opening his eyes.

Hannibal expects a violent push against his chest as an attempt from Will to free himself, but the younger man just looks up at him with his sore, lackluster eyes and whispers his name again weakly. "Doctor Lecter."

The doctor puts his fingers to Will's lips. He continues kissing Will's forehead.

"Why don't you just kill me?" Will's voice is tired and full of pain.

"I don't want to know what it's like without you," the doctor answers quietly.

Will shuts his eyes as if he were wishing for falling back to unconsciousness again. "You could take me to a hospital, then, you know. If... if you really don't want to hurt me..." His voice is blurred. "I have no idea what kind of illness this is, but it's killing me. And... and the fever... Could you do that, please?"

"I'm afraid I can't." Hannibal answers between two kisses. "It would mean losing you."

As the doctor pulls his hand away from the feverishly hot cheek to stroke the disheveled, disorderly curls of Will's hair, he sees a bloodstain on the younger man's face at the exact place where his palm rested a moment before. He almost starts to wonder what could have injured Will, but then realizes that the blood is not Will's, it's his. The troublesome cut on his left hand is soaking its bandages with bright red, salty blood. It broke out anew, even though he stitched it up yesterday for the third time.

He sighs.

"Nothing's ever going to heal it," he utters very softly. "There is no cure in this world either for you or for me."

And he kisses Will's temple.

"Please, try to concentrate." Will's weary mutter is almost inaudible. "Your wound is bleeding again, there must be a serious problem with it. You should have it checked immediately. And... and you have to take me to a hospital as well, I need strong medicines, otherwise I..."

"I can't." The doctor interrupts gently. "I don't want to go back to the familiar emptiness of the same old routines."

"What are you planning to do, then?" The helpless, vulnerable tenderness of the question suggests that Will wants to hear a firm reassuring answer from the doctor, but Hannibal can't think of any.

"I don't know," he murmurs instead, moving his head back down to Will's neck. "Let us both lose the remains of our sanity. I don't care what comes afterwards. Anything can happen."

"Please, please, just take me to a hospital. I won't tell anybody..." Will breathes into Hannibal's hair. "Or kill me. Do it, kill me. I can't take it. This pain is too much..."

The doctor lifts his head up slightly to touch Will's bruised chin with his lips. He whispers, "I want to know what it's like to belong. I want my world to be completely yours and yours to be mine."

"This will torture and kill us both." Will is panting heavily against Hannibal's arms. The younger man's t-shirt is already sticky and permeated with the doctor's blood.

"I know. But I want it either way. Do you?"

Will looks at him, eyes watery and bleary. He seems to lose the last fragments of his strength to hang on. He nods ever so slightly that the gesture is hardly noticeable, but Hannibal catches it, and it's enough for him to let every sober thought fall apart in his head. He collapses on Will's broken body and buries his face in the damp, trembling skin of the curve of his neck. Will feebly embraces the doctor's shoulders.

Hours later, they are still lying in the same position in the palpable cold of the blackening room. The tiring, excessive heat of the fever pulled them into a nebulous, amorphous, sleep-like state. And they both dream about a stag. An eerie stag with unworldly eyes full of darkness.

- The End -