Chapter Text
The night before Hannibal leaves smells like rain and cut grass.
Will leans back against the hood of the car, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, eyes fixed somewhere just past the treeline. He hasn’t said much since Hannibal arrived, which isn’t unusual—but tonight it feels deliberate, like each silence is chosen.
Hannibal watches him instead.
“You’ll ruin your posture standing like that,” Hannibal says lightly.
Will huffs. “You’re leaving in… what, twelve hours? And that’s what you’ve got?”
“It’s what you respond to.”
That gets a glance. Brief. Sharp. Then gone again.
The porch light behind them flickers, moths batting themselves senseless against it. Somewhere down the road, a dog barks. Will shifts his weight.
“You don’t have to come by,” Will mutters. “Not like we’re doing some big send-off.”
“I’m aware,” Hannibal says. “I wanted to see you.”
There’s something in the way he says it—too measured, too precise. Will finally turns fully toward him, frowning.
“That sounds like a line.”
“It isn’t.”
“Okay,” Will says, dragging the word out. “Then say what you actually mean.”
Hannibal studies him for a moment, as if deciding how much truth to allow.
“I mean,” he says, “that this arrangement—whatever you would like to call it—has an expiration date.”
Will blinks. “An expiration—” He lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Jesus, Hannibal. You’re breaking up with me like I’m spoiled milk?”
“I’m being practical.”
“Yeah, well, don’t.”
The air tightens.
Hannibal steps closer, just enough that Will has to tilt his head slightly to keep eye contact. “I will be in Baltimore. You will be here. Our priorities will diverge. It is inefficient to maintain—”
“Don’t,” Will snaps, sharper this time. “Don’t make it sound like a schedule conflict.”
“Then how would you prefer I phrase it?”
Will’s jaw tightens. “Try honest.”
Something flickers across Hannibal’s expression—annoyance, maybe, or something more fragile that disappears too quickly to name.
“Very well,” he says. “I don’t intend to come back.”
Will goes still, like the words physically hit him.
“…What?”
“I have no reason to,” Hannibal continues, voice even. “Everything I require is elsewhere. My future is elsewhere.”
“And I’m not in it,” Will says.
It isn’t a question.
Hannibal doesn’t answer immediately. That, more than anything, is answer enough.
Will looks away first this time. His laugh is quieter now, rougher around the edges. “Wow. Okay. Good to know I was just… what? A placeholder?”
“You were not,” Hannibal says, and there’s a hint of something real there, something almost urgent. “You were—are—significant. But significance does not necessitate permanence.”
“That’s a really messed up way to look at people.”
“It is an accurate one.”
Will shakes his head, pushing off the car. “No, it’s just convenient for you.”
“Holding on would be inconvenient for us both.”
“Speak for yourself.”
They stand there, the distance between them now wider than the step Hannibal took earlier.
“Will,” Hannibal says, softer now, “you will be better served without me.”
Will lets out a breath that almost turns into a laugh. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I already have.”
Another beat. The porch light hums.
“Right,” Will says finally. “Of course you have.”
He pulls his hood up, like that’s enough to shield him from the conversation, from Hannibal, from everything.
“So that’s it?” he asks. “You just… leave, and I’m supposed to what—wish you luck?”
“That would be appropriate.”
Will looks at him one last time. Really looks like he’s trying to memorize something or erase it—hard to tell which.
“Yeah,” he says. “Good luck, Hannibal.”
It doesn’t sound like he means it.
Hannibal inclines his head, as if accepting a polite formality.
Then he turns and walks away.
Will waits until the sound of his footsteps disappears before he exhales, long and unsteady, and presses his palms hard against his eyes.