I'll Leave You Words

500k plus words and biweekly updates! It's really just a very long story about Will and Hannibal's life post-fall as their relationship unfolds and they themselves change, too, while moving to different places. Inspired my Dante's comedia and his circles of hell, which each mark a different ''arc'' in the story.

There's letters, anger, motorcycle Hannibal, bathing together, old houses, hallucinations, a lot of alcohol and blood and mostly there's love.

Love you all who have been waiting and glad to share it with u

The inspiration/vision

For who wants to check it out:

Something about bleeding to death in each other's arms...

They freak out, they fuck, they fight. That's pretty much it.

‘’That’s probably my favourite thing about ‘im, his hands. About his body, for sure. Have you ever looked at his hands? They’re beautiful.’’   Chiyoh picked two books from the shelves and stared at me with a frown.   ‘’Like knives.’’ I muttered, grinning like an idiot. ‘’His hands look like knives. You must know what they feel like. They touch you and suddenly there is nothin’ in the world that feels better. They make you feel like you’re special. One of a kind, y'know the feelin’? And then suddenly they’re inside of you, and they get so sharp. And you wonder what is so special about you that you get to deserve this. What you did wrong to be hurt by somethin’ so beautiful.’’ 

For Hannibal and Will, there is all these ways and reasons why they cannot be together. Be it who they are, what they did to each other or what the world around them thinks, they cannot be. But they can't let each other go, because there is no one else on earth with whom they can be truly, unconditionally themselves: their beastlike, violent yet caring selves as they are.

I have been curious about fic writers backgrounds, if you feel comfortable sharing about yourself! Academic background, special interests (besides the obvious hannigram) and/or what motivates you to write?

No pressure and thank you in advance!

I love your work!

Hi hi Piu! Glad to see you!

For fic backgrounds, I've honestly never written any other fics than the Hannibal stuff I write right now :D Except for bad drafts that have been in my docs for years, I am not an experienced fic writer. I have read quite some fics in the past, but now I only write. Vita Nuova is my first ''serious'' fic and took quite some dedication, which is why I mainly focus on that story :)

I am studying history of literature/literary sciences with a side course of philosophy at the moment ! (many errors in my fics that I notice as an aspiring professional, but all of you, hopefully, don't...) I don't engage in any other ''fandoms'' than Hannibal, but I love a good piece of media, and I'm pretty interested in anything artsy/academically challenging. I like poetry, fine arts, dance, opera/classical music, fashion & tailoring, good food, debate, languages and black and white films made in the sixties. The basics, yk. I'm pretty classic that way :3 (Just realised I summed up Hannibal's interest catalogue... I like most things he likes, except for cannibalism and drugging people and all that fun stuff. Which is probably why I like his character so much, I always thought he had great taste. He makes my dusty interests look COOL haha, minus the manipulation and all...)

What motivates me to write is the joy I get out of it, really. University requires me to write a lot of essays and scientific pieces and be creative with my own poems and fiction. I enjoy just using someone else's world and characters because it's easy and challenging at the same time. It's also that I deeply love these characters and, like many others in this fandom, like to imagine what the perfect/most canon s4 would have looked like. You should know, Vita Nuova initially started as a joke. I was telling myself ''I'll write a part of s4 and see how far I can get before I dip'' and it kind of got away from me and ended up with 500k... The reason I keep posting though is truly because of all the love and support I got from readers <3 It means the world to me to see people enjoying my stories and get inspired by it. Every comment I get is a gift :,) I have also been using it for writing practice. Vita Nuova accidentally became a very long writing exercise, which has taught me a lot about storytelling and working with characters and finding my own writing style, for which I am very grateful.

I am a writer of the people, mostly. I love to impress and inspire others. That is my ultimate goal, to give my readers something to be excited about every two weeks :) I love doing it for free on a platform like Ao3. It's not like the real world publishing industry (which I see enough of in my everyday life), where harsh criticism is the standard. Fanfic, certainly the Hannibal fandom/my readers who are always so sweet and kind, is a very healthy and freeing form of writing and expressing your interests without having to be scared of not being ''good enough'' ykyk. It's stress relief, in a way <3

That's a lot of words for saying simple things, but you know, that's me. Thank you for the ask!

Every other scar Will has is random. The places aren't specific, nor do they hold any meaning. A bullet to the shoulder from Jack, a knife in his cheek from Francis, those were all aimed to harm him, nothing more.

But Hannibal wasn't (just) harming Will, he was marking him. He was saying through violence what he couldn't express in words. Because violence is what they understand, it's the only way they can justify touching each other. The only way they can be intimate without accepting that what they feel for each other is love. Hannibal and Will are both touch starved in their own ways. And possessive, too. Will claims his ownership over Hannibal by telling anyone who will listen that they should ''stay away from him'' or making snarky/jealous comments. Will believes Hannibal is his, and he's a bitch to anyone who he thinks dares to question that. He has that ''he's not my lover, but as soon as you lay a finger on what's mine, you're done'' attitude. Hannibal handles his feelings exactly the opposite way. His claim over Will isn't something that should concern others, as long as Will knows who he belongs to. That's why Hannibal scars him every chance he gets, and not just any place, either.

The first is his forehead scar; symbolising the way Hannibal got inside Will's mind/head.

The other is his abdomen, initiating literal sex/intimacy, as Hannibal got inside Will's guts.

You'd say Will would hate those marks, but no! Will is proud of them. He displays them at the first best chance he gets. When he meets Chiyoh in s3A and she asks him how he knows Hannibal, he lifts his shirt immediately. ''One could argue, intimately'' he says, showing her that Hannibal has been inside of him, literally. Code for We have been intimate, we were intimate. (''You are here visiting an old flame'' Bedelia says, a couple of episodes later.)

Three years after Hannibal has cut Will's head open? Will wears his hair back constantly now. There's not a scene, except for the ones where he wears a hat, where Will isn't wearing his hair combed back. He wears his scar on display, always. Even during his marriage. It's literally Hannibal's ownership written on his forehead. ''Your wife may have you now, but your mind/body was mine first.''

Will is literally a canvas Hannibal left his creations on. His marks, his signatures. No wonder Hannibal it ''excites him'' that Will is ''marked that way''. He put those scars on him, they are his. Will has Hannibal's name written all over his body.

It's not surprising Will wanted to mark Hannibal that same way in Florence. He was carrying a knife after all. Will usually uses a gun when he intends to kill. There was no gun on him in this case. And, on multiple occasions, Will has admitted that if he were to kill Hannibal, he'd do it with his hands. What does that mean? That Will never meant to kill him, only hurt him the same way Hannibal did in Mizumono. He wanted to claim that ownership, too. Hannibal never intended to kill Will in Mizumono, and Will probably meant to mirror that, if Chiyoh hadn't been there to shoot him.

Or my original title: Season 3 tried to warn us for the world's most fucked-up failmarriage. Hear me out on this.

Through small details it becomes clear that s3 is an allegory for Will and Hannibal undergoing every step of marriage, except for the ceremony itself. At its core, a wedding is a moment where two people are tied together for a lifetime, where devotion is put entirely on one person, and where one is supposed to give their soul to their partner. A wedding is merely making all of that official and putting it on paper, so that being unfaithful/unloyal to that promise/the vows made can have consequences.

Here’s some s3 clues, small and big, that I have found that allude to Hannibal and Will undergoing every aspect of a wedding except for literally doing it:

In all of Will’s hallucinations of Hannibal in s3, Hannibal wears white suits. Which is kind of special, because Hannibal, the real Hannibal, never wears white. The lightest suit colour we’ve seen him wear is baby blue with a white tie in s1, but never a white three piece of itself. In Will’s fantasies of Hannibal in s1 and s2, H always wears a suit that he really owns, that Will has copied from reality and pasted into his dreams. That all changes in s3. 

Will has two types of hallucinations about H in s3. One if moments in which he’s inspecting crime scenes/searching for clues (in Lithuania for example), and imagines Hannibal talking to him/giving council and advice, leading him to finding the right answers. The second is are a more personal, intimate kind of fantasies, where Hannibal is not a mentor/a voice in his head, but something entirely else. There are scenes, much like the kinky murder fantasies in s2, where Will fantasises about them, their relationship, the life they could have had and scenes/moments that happened. The killing Jack/best possible world fantasy in s3a, Will imagining Hannibal making dinner for him when he drugs him in Dolce, their meeting when Hannibal is in prison and the post-credit scene GIF above. In these fantasies, Hannibal ALWAYS wears white/cream/ivory suits. Will is always dressed in darker colours. It’s kind of literally starting to look like Will’s version of wedding attire…

Also! In WOTL, in real time where they arrive at the cliff together, Hannibal is dressed in his white prison jumpsuit and Will is wearing a white button down with a black jacket on top, his collar peaking out. It’s kind of a fucked up version of traditional bride/groom colours if you think about it. Put their figurines on top of a cake and nobody would notice.

Then there’s the way other characters refer to them through marital terms. Used by Will himself, as well. There’s Freddie Lounds and her famous ‘’Murder Husbands’’ things, literally calling them out on a honeymoon to Italy. And Will and Bedelia! Will is SO stuck up about Bedelia getting to pretend to be H’s wife in his stead, he literally bitchfights her for it in Florence, and then later in s3b, even though he’s married and has a WHOLE ASS WIFE, he cannot let go of his spite. What does Bedelia do? She backfires by calling Will Hannibal’s wife and bride. ‘’You’re the bride of Frankenstein.’’ Will says. ‘’We’ve both been his bride.’’ Bedelia answers, knowing that she was pretending, but perhaps Will never was. Later, when Will calls her ‘’Bluebeard’s wife’’ she replies ‘’If I am to be Bluebeard’s wife, I would have preferred to be the last.’’ In normal words, she’s calling Will Hannibal’s last wife/spouse.

Then there’s Will literally walking down the aisle MULTIPLE times. Hannibal is always standing there with his back towards Will, as Will walks up to him. THREE times this happens in a literal chapel (Both in the Norman chapel and in Hannibal and Will’s interpretation of it in the shared room of the mind palace). Will finds Hannibal’s heart at the altar in 3x02. In 3x08 and 3x13, their first and last meeting in prison, Will finds Hannibal himself at the altar, waiting for him. This same setup is also used in Dolce (3x06), where Hannibal is sitting in front of the Primavera at the Uffizi, his back facing Will, and Will coming in framed by the long hall behind him, sitting down next to H in front of the painting as if it’s actually an altar. 

Speaking of that scene, their dialogue, to me, seems suspiciously much like wedding vows. Their own extravagant, metaphoric take on it, but definitely romantic enough.

‘’We’ve conjoined, I’m curious if either of us could survive separation.’’ ‘’You and I have begun to blur.’’ ‘’Mine? Before you and after you.’’ And obviously: ‘’If I saw you everyday forever, Will, I would remember this time.’’ Like WHO are you kidding? And lets not forget this famous scrapped piece of art:

There’s their conversations in 3B, too, where they’re almost bickering like a couple who just went through the world’s most terrific divorce. The whole deal about family and children. ‘’Is there a child in your life, Will? I gave you a child, if you recall.’’ Alright? Then H also says ‘’You are family, Will.’’ And, well, one usually becomes family after taking a surname and marrying, so… 

Also Will referencing Romeo and Juliet when he says ‘’I’m not fortune’s fool, I’m yours.’’ He references Romeo’s line ‘O, I am fortune’s fool!’ (act 3, if I remember correctly? been I while since I last read Shakespeare, correct me if I'm wrong). Oooooh, Will, you knew what you were doing. The shortest explanation I can give is that Romeo shouts that after he kills Juliet’s cousin after having married her in secret. His rage at Tybalt (the cousin) for killing Mercutio (Romeo’s best friend) was so great that he had no choice but to avenge his friend and kill Tybalt, but it dooms his love for Juliet, because he finally found happiness with her, but then fate made him into a murderer and made sure they could never, politically and personally, be together. AKA, a marriage doomed by the narrative, blablabla. You get what I mean. Either way, Will turns the quote into ‘’I’m not fortune’s fool, I’m yours.’’ Indicating that it was not fate, but Hannibal himself and his own actions, who turned him into a murderer/criminal and doomed their love/marriage.

I’d advice looking it up on google, kind of complicated to explain Romeo and Juliet here HAHAH.

Anyway, Will sails the Atlantic to find Hannibal. What does that remind us of? Sailor husbands/marines who spend weeks or months on a boat waiting to be reunited with their wives.

Then in 3x07, Hannibal carries Will through the snow bridal style. Which is literally a romance TV trope, though Will looks like a wooden plank (my guy was STIFF in those core muscles, they told hugh to tense up to make it less heavy for Mads I think either way this has me dead every time).

And how about Will’s belly scar? What if, besides a C-section/abortion metaphor, it’s also an allegory for a wedding ring? Hannibal marked Will that way for a reason. Like this, Will is forever tied to Hannibal. It’s in his skin. He made Will his property with that scar, so that Will and everyone who will ever love him/see him naked, will see who he really belongs to. Much like a wedding ring. You wear it to show off who you belong to, and Will does just that when he meets Chiyoh and lifts his shirt to show her. Bedelia points it out later, as well, that Hannibal takes delight in having marked Will that way.

Bella and Jack also mirror Hannibal and Will. In 3x04 we see Bella’s funeral and a flashback of her walking down the aisle to Jack, then Jack walking towards her coffin. With Will and H it’s the other way around. In 3x02 we see Will walking down the aisle towards Hannibal’s ‘’broken’’ (dead) heart. When he touches it, it comes alive. It’s Jack’s flashback in reverse order.

And, though this may be far fetched, I think it’s worth mentioning that Will and Hannibal seem like two men who have never considered themselves (the right people) for marriage in s1 en s2, SUDDENLY after their ‘’breakup’’ in Mizumono, they each get themselves ‘’married’’. In S3A it’s H with that ring on his finger, though he’s playing pretend, he’s doing it with the only woman who could be a substitute for Will. She was filling Will’s place, since Will was supposed to run away with Hannibal after Mizumono. During his ‘’marriage’’ to Bedelia, H was also having… fun with Anthony Dimmond, AKA Mr. European second-hand Will Graham supreme. When Hannibal ‘’takes the ring of his finger’’ halfway through season 3 and they have their second breakup/divorce, Will is married in the next episode. To, mind you, a woman whose personality could not be further from Hannibal, but who does look like him/resemble him in appearance. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that together, Hannibal and Will have worn wedding rings throughout the entirety of s3, just not literally to each other, but metaphorically…

And I know that this is crack, but don’t tell me the cliff scene in WOTL isn’t a very brutal wedding night. It literally reminds me of this fucked up scene from Twilight every time AHAHAHA

They talk about family and gardening and bugs and touch this time.

I should be the only thing you are afraid of. Nothing should be able to make you quiver but me. ‘’I’m the world’s most sought-after serial murderer, Will.’’ You groaned into my shoulder, still out of breath. ‘’I can fight my own monsters.’’ But I want it. To protect you. I want to keep you in a house surrounded by a wooden fence and barbed wire and never have you see the outside world again. I want to keep that little boy safe, the one who clearly didn’t feel at home in this mansion. I want to protect you from snakes on highways and angry family members and broken bones and death and grief. I want to do for you what nobody did for me.  ‘’You don’t have to. Not always.’’ 

There's no way Will could have thought they had a chance of survival, not with their injuries and the height of the cliff. He also knew the FBI would find them if they stayed in the house and tried to flee, so he chose the only option he felt was left for them: dying together. Mind you, if Will had stayed ashore, he wouldn't have been arrested. He could have handed H to the FBI without thinking twice. He was also in the position to just shove Hannibal off the cliff, carrying out the plan he promised would work: kill Dolarhyde, then Hannibal. But he didn't. He couldn't! He didn't have a plan. He thought that their embrace on the cliff was it. Will chose to spend his last moments with his head on Hannibals chest and his arms around him, listening to his beating heart. He couldn't stomach the idea of living without Hannibal, not again, not after everything that happened, so it ended up in Will pulling them over and Hannibal letting him do it! If he wasn't ready to die there with Will, he would have stepped away from the edge moments before. They both knew, and they were satisfied with their ending. Maybe it wasn't happiness, but it was beautiful. No greater ending than that for a pair like them.

Particularly, or exclusively, in season 2B. (And most of what you need to know about whether or not they were physically intimate during the show is in Will's conversations with Bedelia in 3x10)

Something I need to say first though! I love and appreciate the canon in which Will and Hannibal’s love was never physical until the Fall. It’s a beautiful way of portraying a love so strong it doesn’t need to be physical to be intense and enduring. I am not refuting that canon, I’m simply introducing a fun take on what also could have been the case, since nothing was ever stated, so! Room for interpretation ;)

First things first: I think it started somewhere after Will goes back in therapy with Hannibal. Not immediately, but sometime during all those late night visits and conversations, dinners and flirty crime scene murder-duo fiascos (Randall and the Freddies faked corpse). The first thing Will says when he shows up for therapy in 2x07 is ‘’I have to deal with you… and my feelings about you… I think it’s best if I do that directly.’’ And that’s where the whole honey-trapping plot starts. Will has not chosen his side here. He is playing the FBI and Hannibal, but also himself.  I think he, at the start, really meant to side with the FBI because he was still super fed up with H from the whole prison/framing betrayal thing. The thing is, we know that in Mizumono, Will does choose Hannibal in the end. He calls H and tells him to leave (though it’s already too late, since Hannibal thinks Will betrayed him). Will actually planned to leave with Hannibal. He meant to follow him and Abigail afterwards, that much he reveals in S3A. So, what does that mean? It means that Will lost himself somewhere along the way. Which means that something happened to Will’s feelings and made him change his mind. 

There’s only a few things to mention about S2, because everything else (the touches, the stares, the theatrics, the way they get more familiar/comfortable around each other and each other’s darkness) are pretty obvious. First: Will and Hannibal regularly drank quite a bit during their nightly sessions/dinners. Will lives more than a three hour drive away from Baltimore. You can NOT convince me Will never spent the night at Hannibal’s. He has to. No matter if it was the guest room or… not. 

Then there’s the fact that Will did not give a damn about murdering and eating people. He did that for Hannibal without making a fuss. In other words: Will already accepted the darkness in Hannibal and felt drawn to it, he was sharing it with him at that point.

Second, an important detail I didn’t notice until my fourth rewatch, Will knows what Hannibal's bedroom looks like! He imagines it in Naka-Choko during the wendigo fivesome hallucination. That is not to be mistaken for what Alana is seeing, because the Wendigo is Will’s mental construct of Hannibal’s darker self > so Will definitely knows what Hannibal’s bedroom looks like and… I mean…?

I mean, that there is Hannibal's bedroom fireplace and his kinky mirror! Will knew what was up!

Or how about the awkward dinner scene with Will, Hannibal and Alana, where Hannibal was sleeping with Alana as a cover up, Will started acting weird about it until Alana asked ''It's just hard to know where you are with each other.'' and Will has the audacity to be bitchy and reply ''We know where we are with each other. Shouldn't that be enough?'' That's like the ultimate petty 'I'm having an affair with the guy you're dating' response.

And, most famously, the ortolan scene. Mainly because, except for Alana, Hannibal isn’t shown being explicitly sexually intimate with anyone. Despite that, we know he had instances with several characters. How? Through metaphor, innuendos and symbols. We know Hannibal and Bedelia were intimate in Florence because of the mentions of oysters/symbolic jokes about sexuality related to food. We know Anthony Dimmond and Hannibal might have had an affair because of the ‘’Are you here to twist me into an uncomfortable position?’’ ‘’I’m here to help you untwist. To our mutual benefit.’’ conversation, followed by a time-skip that skips to Hannibal letting Anthony into the apartment with an undone tie and messy hair that weren’t there before, avoiding all eye contact and looking obnoxiously guilty of something. The makers of the show clearly relied on subtext to convey sexuality for certain characters. And, I mean, if ANYTHING is obvious and easier to pick up on than the previous two, it’s the ortolan scene. It’s barely even symbolic, it’s straight up intercourse. The way it was filmed is brattily sensual. Cut out the ortolans and try to convince people that it's anything but a BJ. Like the producers are teasing viewers with those vague kinds of ‘’sex scenes that aren’t really sex scenes (censorship) but are obvious enough to symbolise one’’. So, if we have to rely on the context of other moments in this series when it comes to affairs between characters, Will and Hannibal did it at least one time in the ortolan episode.

Now the reason I started this meta was not because of direct scenes in S2B, but because of the way characters refer to H and Will’s relationship in season 3. ESPECIALLY the way Bedelia talks about their relationship in 3x10. Bedelia is, of all characters on the show, the one who is the most careful with her words. She is VERY aware of the things she says and the speech she chooses. When she talks to Will about him and Hannibal, she has a very particular way of saying things. (and, mind you, Bedelia might be the most all-knowing character in the show. She was ‘’behind the veil’’ for a reason)

‘’We’ve both been his bride.’’ > Bedelia was sexually intimate with H in Florence, she might be suggesting that Will was before her, in s2b.

W: ‘’How did you manage to walk away unscarred? I’m covered in scars.’’ B: ‘’I wasn’t myself. You were. Even when you weren’t, you were.’’ W: ‘’I wasn’t wearing adequate armour.’’ B: ‘’No, you were naked.’’ > In other words, Will gave himself to Hannibal. Entirely, his naked self. And something about their tone makes me believe it isn’t entirely metaphorical.

B: ‘’Have you been to see him?’’ W: ‘’Yes.’’ B: ‘’Haven't learned anything, have you? Or did you just miss him that much?’’ > Will’s jealousy, attitude and bitchiness towards her is for a reason. He’s literally behaving like a high school girl who hears her ex-boyfriend got it going with someone she doesn’t like. And Bedelia is playing/taunting him for it.

Then later in the episode.

B: ‘’My relationship with Hannibal isn't as passionate as yours. You are here visiting an old flame. Is your wife aware how intimately you and Hannibal know each other?’’ > Sorry? A woman as clever as Bedelia would not have said ‘’passionate, old flame and intimately knowing each other’’ in that tone if it didn’t imply anything. Will’s answering with ‘’She’s aware enough.’’ isn’t much better.

Right after that Bedelia says ‘’You couldn’t save Hannibal, what makes you think you can save this one?’’ and it’s safest to assume she’s talking about Francis, BUT! What if she was talking about Molly? What if it’s yet another parallel between Will’s wife and Hannibal’s role in Will’s life?

And, my favourite! Bedelia then says, actually mocking Will now: ‘’Your experience of Hannibal's attention is so profoundly harmful, yet so irresistible, it undermines your ability to think rationally.’’ > That is SO erotically charged. And it also ties with her ‘’It excites him to know that you are marked in this… particular way.’’ quote in 3x12. She literally hints that Will’s scars are like hickeys to Hannibal. It’s the bespoke way of saying Will being marked gets Hannibal off. ‘’Why?’’ ‘’Why do you think?’’ Yes, Will, why do you think?

Also! There are constant parallels between Reba and Francis and Hannibal and Will, and Reba and Francis are all about sexuality and (literally) loving blindly. Sooo….

And at last, mainly because I think it’s funny, Will not even being surprised when Alana says that Hannibal will only agree to the plan if Will says please, and then Will saying ‘’I’ll say pretty please.’’ and actually doing it while fluttering his lashes? That’s kinky. He did that before. Hannibal’s face is too goddamn smug to not have seen that before.

And! Something I just thought about: Hannibal drew Will naked when he was in prison. This was on his pile of sketches in a deleted s3b scene, you can find it between the official props. How else does he know what Will looks like without clothes on? He's got to have a reference. (and yes I know Hannibal dressed Will from the waist up but he's butt booty naked here, CHEEKS OUT AND ALL THAT) You cannot tell me this doesn't give them away > (link because tumblr flagged me)

Anyway, they were familiar with each others bodies up until the very end. Whatever you believe, we cannot twist around how touchy they were! So, uhm, long story short: this was my pitch about why I like to think Hannibal and Will went at it during the latter half of season two. And then presumably during/after WOTL too, but that’s a story for another time. Thank you for reading.