#dekubitusrex

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Will didn’t care for Jack’s guilt, he could have choked on it, if it were up to him, and he didn’t want his pity. He wanted him to see. Wanted him to finally, properly, look at him and recognize what had been there all along, bubbling and seething under the paper-thin surface, tearing at the badly mended cuts of his exterior like kerosene waiting for the igniting flame. He hadn’t been corrupted. He’d been elevated, freed, years of denial and self-hatred combusted when Hannibal finally struck the match.

As the west grew closer, Will felt himself growing more and more tense. His dreams about the ocean turned into nightmares about blood. The dead man on the bridge came to him at night, and his face was Alana's and Bedelia's, the face of the woman in the beach house and that of her son. In the end, it always turned into Hannibal's, a grinning skull with bits of flesh hanging from his empty eye sockets. Will woke up gasping, clutching Hannibal's shoulders like he expected him to turn into smoke between his fingers.  

Will drags Hannibal out of the Atlantic and has to deal with the consequences of his becoming. They embark on a roadtrip of murder and introspection and Hannibal sits back patiently while he waits for Will to make the decision that will seal their fate. A story about blood and the ocean, and loving something that may ultimately destroy you.

Will could feel Hannibal’s tendons shift under his palm and the soft bump of his larynx as he spoke. He was close enough to smell the shampoo in Hannibal’s hair, lingering above the metallic scent of blood like rose pedals on water. He gave a small, experimental squeeze. His fingers dug into tense muscle and for a moment, Hannibal’s breath hitched. He squeezed again, this time harder. The fragile walls of Hannibal’s trachea bent under his tightening grip. It wasn’t enough to block his entire airway yet, he could still feel his breath rattling through his chest as it was rising against his own.

Will thought that he almost sounded demanding. We are bound now, your dreams belong to me. It was the truth of course and Will found himself strangely unbothered by it.

As they said their goodbyes, Alana put her hand on Bedelia’s shoulder. The gesture struck Bedelia in its gravity and for a moment she couldn’t help but search the other woman’s gaze for any sign of remorse, or pity. Alana’s eyes were distant and calculating, like Bedelia was nothing more than a piece on a board who’s next move she was contemplating, and not the human being she was so willingly sending to slaughter. She thought of the look on Will Graham’s face when they had discussed Frederick Chilton and it made her skin crawl.