How Hannibal Loves vs. How Will Loves
Where one is nourished, the other aches.
Hannibal’s love for Will, when not threatened by the loss of control, is something delicate, brutal in its delicacy, yes, but still tender. He holds Will as one holds a thing of rare beauty, a treasure to be admired, adorned, sometimes with the gentle violence of his own scars. Will is not simply a man to Hannibal. He is art, the most beautiful among all beautiful things, something to be looked at, something precious. Will can wound him, shatter him, break him beyond recognition, and still, Hannibal cannot bring himself to hate him. He cannot even be truly angry.
In another life, in another world, one without blood and hunger, Hannibal would watch Will as he sleeps, or as he does something mundane, with quiet reverence. The sight of him would be nourishment, a sweetness that satiates the soul as milk satiates a newborn. Love, to Hannibal, is something to be savored, something to be held still in time and admired forever.
But Will’s love for Hannibal is something else entirely. If Hannibal’s love is milk, Will’s is liquor: inebriating, intoxicating, draining. It pulls at his sanity, leaves him starved, hollow. Hannibal is an endless well of violent delights, and Will drinks deeply, knowing that no matter how much he takes, it will never be enough. His heart is a vast and cavernous thing, like the womb of the universe, an emptiness that only expands the more it is filled. And so, love for Will is an ache, a hunger that cannot be satisfied. In another life, a life untouched by survival, Will would hold Hannibal too tightly, would press himself against him as if to dissolve into his very bones. Are you real? he would ask, over and over again. And if you are, let me live inside your ribcage.
And so, in the end, Hannibal would crave to die looking at Will, surrendering himself into that final, peaceful oblivion with the last sight of his ultimate beauty. And Will would crave to die in Hannibal’s arms, cradled by the only thing he has ever longed to belong to.