Words that confirm his own hatred for what's happened ring in his ears, so loud Will ends up closing his eyes against the clamor. The echo is reassuring and horrifying, because here is a person who won't look at his Mark and see a willing lover and future husband, but the truth.
And the truth of his relationship to Hannibal Lecter doesn't tend to make Will feel strong. It's never made him feel competent.
But as Rust slinks closer, carefully keeping his arms in sight but still on bare silent feet, Will hears a different version of his own story.
One that he stares into Rust's face for. Rust's hands are on his upper arms, just up and lateral from his Mark on the right side, and Will feels the jerk of an anchor catching him in place. There are aspects of his and Hannibal's past that Hannibal will surely get to take to his grave, parts that Will's mind was too broken to even record, let alone allow him to retrieve. There's still other parts that Will might never be ready to share. But now--
'You are not his prey.'
--in a dim living room, the lamp beyond them eclipsed by Rust's shoulders, Will begins to pour out what parts of the story he suddenly needs to address. To acknowledge outside his own head, and make real. "Hannibal-- took me to a neurologist. For my hallucinations. He got another doctor to lie to me about the encephalitis. To say that there was nothing physically wrong with me. The hallucinations, the sleepwalking, the lost time -- it was all just in my broken mind. That I was too weak to look into madness and walk away unscathed. That I wasn't strong enough to accept what was inside of me."
His breaths are coming short and sharp, Will's shoulders rounding under the re-delivered towel. "But he was wrong." Will swallows, eyes on the shapes and shadows of Rust's face instead of his eyes. "I survived."
This is his. This is his and Will's never seen this entire dance as anything except an embarrassment that he fell in the first place. He's never looked at it and been happy that he got back up in the end. "I won."
Will so rarely wants what eye contact brings him - unabashed honesty, an intimacy to knowing what people think during every breath of a conversation. In this moment, he stares directly at Rust. "I wanted to know if anyone would be on my side. If I survived this from him, too." Because now it's coming full circle. Now, in the semi-dark with a man who's just told Will that he's killed someone before in the heat of the moment, too, Will is seeing what might need to happen.
no subject
And the truth of his relationship to Hannibal Lecter doesn't tend to make Will feel strong. It's never made him feel competent.
But as Rust slinks closer, carefully keeping his arms in sight but still on bare silent feet, Will hears a different version of his own story.
One that he stares into Rust's face for. Rust's hands are on his upper arms, just up and lateral from his Mark on the right side, and Will feels the jerk of an anchor catching him in place. There are aspects of his and Hannibal's past that Hannibal will surely get to take to his grave, parts that Will's mind was too broken to even record, let alone allow him to retrieve. There's still other parts that Will might never be ready to share. But now--
'You are not his prey.'
--in a dim living room, the lamp beyond them eclipsed by Rust's shoulders, Will begins to pour out what parts of the story he suddenly needs to address. To acknowledge outside his own head, and make real. "Hannibal-- took me to a neurologist. For my hallucinations. He got another doctor to lie to me about the encephalitis. To say that there was nothing physically wrong with me. The hallucinations, the sleepwalking, the lost time -- it was all just in my broken mind. That I was too weak to look into madness and walk away unscathed. That I wasn't strong enough to accept what was inside of me."
His breaths are coming short and sharp, Will's shoulders rounding under the re-delivered towel. "But he was wrong." Will swallows, eyes on the shapes and shadows of Rust's face instead of his eyes. "I survived."
This is his. This is his and Will's never seen this entire dance as anything except an embarrassment that he fell in the first place. He's never looked at it and been happy that he got back up in the end. "I won."
Will so rarely wants what eye contact brings him - unabashed honesty, an intimacy to knowing what people think during every breath of a conversation. In this moment, he stares directly at Rust. "I wanted to know if anyone would be on my side. If I survived this from him, too." Because now it's coming full circle. Now, in the semi-dark with a man who's just told Will that he's killed someone before in the heat of the moment, too, Will is seeing what might need to happen.
"No matter what the cost is. He can't have me."