Chapter Text
"These violent delights have violent ends;
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume." - Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6
It was the first time Will went to that house after what happened. He still wasn't sure of his motives to go there, if moved by simple masochism or the deep disquietude found in the emptiness of his small house in Wolf Trap, Virginia, the void that came along with the sense of absent.
He wasn't going to fill the blank of his absence by going on his house, he knew that. He wasn't there.
Yet, there he was, parking in front of the yellow brick house, in the early hours of the morning. He had the keys now, a gesture that couldn't serve as comfort. All doors to his past were free and open to Will now, he had all the keys he might need. But without a guider, without the past's owner, the visit wasn't worth.
Opening the front door calmly, he entered, walking slowly, sensing his feet on the wooden floor, aware of all the details he had never been aware before: the sound of the wood beneath his shoes, the tone of the green in the corridor, the way the morning light set an angelical tone to the dinning table and the fireplace. The furniture wasn't covered for some reason. He wondered why. Everything was right in its place, immaculate, the house breathing an air that was no longer necessary. His feet wandered to the kitchen, where he had been many, countless times before. In the back of his mind he could hear a knife hitting the wood of the cutting board, cutting the meat with symmetrical perfection, the butter melting in the frying pan, Bach or Mozart coming from the other room. In the back of his mind he could hear him saying "Hello, Will" with warm in his voice, offering a glass of wine that was already there waiting for Will, and he would head closer to the countertop, bent his body closer to touch those sweet lips, only to hear him say Will's hair would fall on the food, which was an unforgivable sin, and said that he would bent and kiss Will on the lips again only to make sure the younger man knew he was more important than the food's preparation.
All of this was in the back of his mind, while in front of him, his eyes saw the reality of the empty place. There was no classical music coming from the other room, no butter melting in the frying pan, no meat being prepared, no glass of wine waiting for his arrival. Mostly important, if Will leaned over the countertop, there was no lips to kiss.
He was alone.
His hands opened the refrigerator, and he stood there wondering why it hurt that much to see it was empty.
No food, no wine, not even a bottle of water. A long minute passed while he stared at the empty refrigerator. He stared still, like if food would just pop there, magically refilling the empty. Will remembered what Nietzsche said, that if you stare into the abyss, the abyss will stares back at you. In that moment, the abyss was his own emptiness, staring at him from the inside of the empty refrigerator, like a mirroring lake. Shutting the door robotically after a moment, he felt his back heavy, and with it against the refrigerator's door, he left himself slowly come to the ground. It was to expect he would have tears in his eyes by now, but Will guessed he had no more tears to shed. He was dry and empty, like the refrigerator, the kitchen and the house.
Emptiness was also there with him in the funeral, surrounding him like a heavy blanket. He kept away from the small crowd for the sake of his sanity. It wasn't the moment to start empathizing with the others people's pain, he had his own. And while he stood there in the back, looking at those people, he felt an urge to throw up. They all looked very false to him. The patients that were crying over the normal for "he had helped me so much, it's so awful he had to go like this", other people just quietly praying, as if he were such a religious person to begin with, some of the guests he had in dinner parties being there like they were true friends; even the FBI people seemed fake. Jimmy, Zeller and Beverly had no motive to be there; Alana was posing like she owned him so much beside Dr. Frederich Chilton that seemed to be smiling discretely for the death of someone he actually did not like, and Jack Crawford was wearing his guilty face, as if it were his fault.
In some way, it was. If he never had asked for Hannibal to evaluate Will's capacity to work on the field than he wouldn't be involved in the FBI's cases neither would have been shot to death by a murder that was too tired of agents putting their fingers in his business. But Will couldn't blame Jack for this, even wanting too, because if he had never asked for Hannibal to evaluate Will than the two would have never met and Will would have missed the best years of his life. He would never know the true meaning of being understood, accept and loved.
All that was over now. Will was left there with a whole ten thousand times bigger than the one made by the bullet that killed Hannibal, and there was nothing to be done about that.
As the ceremony ended and he was finally left alone to mourn, he remember one conversation he and Hannibal had while in a trip to Florence, when they met in a museum after an argument that Will couldn't even remember what was about. Will was hurt by the fact that he knew he couldn't get away with it. He was dependent on the doctor. He loved him, with all his forces, and he couldn't live without him. The awareness of his dependency on the other man left him angry, but most of all, afraid.
While the snowflakes fell on his face and he stared at the flowers above Hannibal's grave, he remember turning to the doctor on that afternoon at the museum, giving him a wry smile and saying the words that now came to haunt him: "I'm curious whether either of us can survive separation."
Against his will, his curiosity now would be put to the test.