Aaaa the line I love the MOST from Hannibal’s script – the line which I think philosophises the intimacy with which Hannibal loves people, and just, capsulates the eroticity between Will and Hannibal – is from s1e4, “Ouef”. Hannibal is in Will’s house to feed the dogs and he messes with Will’s fishing lures. At first he admires them, before tying off an incomplete fly expertly. THEN the script reads:
“Having completed his work … He presses his thumb gently against the pointed barb, and keeps the pressure on until he draws a drop of blood. Without lingering on his act, Hannibal sucks the lone drop from his thumb-tip. The sound is not unlike a quick kiss.”
There is the aspect of violence – blood is drawn – but it’s not aggressive, it’s gentle, it’s coerced. And the weapon – is the sharp hook on Will’s fishing lure. Unafraid of Will, shameless, when Hannibal sucks away the remnant of this brutality, lips where the hook pierced him open, it sounds like a kiss. How utterly romantic.
And in the actual scene!!! It SOUNDS like a kiss!!!! And oml, they really have me fainting here like a distressed maiden in a Shakespearean play.