ngl I headcanon that in universes where Hannibal and Will end up at the BSHCI after TWotL, the orderlies call them "Gomez and Morticia" (Clarice has no idea what she's walking in to).
Anon, I second this headcanon heartily.
I also second the idea that, upon, being admitted, Hannibal and Will are separated. Put at opposite ends of the hospital, with no ability to see each other or hear each other’s voices. They’re both under strict supervision without the ability to pass notes (though Barney is usually willing to generalize during mealtimes, to whisper to Will “he looks awfully calm, but I don’t think he enjoys being alone. He misses having company.” and Will knows that means he misses you).
But it unsettles Alana, looking on the security cameras and seeing them do the same things at the same times, without having any reasonable way of knowing what the other is up to. Two floors away, they sleep at the same time, turned on their sides so they would be facing one another if they were in the same bed. They eat at the same time, even though Alana has their food brought nearly an hour apart; they’ll wait, for some unknown reason, like a sixth sense that the other is not yet fed. They read at the same time.
And sometimes they’ll sit quietly on the floor, backs to the wall, legs crossed, eyes closed. They’ll sit there in silence for an hour or more. Alana herself has witnessed it happen—where Will assumes his silent meditation, and Hannibal will pause in his restless pacing and turn an ear to the air, as though hearing a call. He will listen, and then respond. Though his expression does not change, there is a softening around his eyes that speaks of relief, of peace, as he goes to meet Will in whatever ground they share that is somewhere far removed from her jurisdiction.
She isn’t the one who starts that awful nickname. She doesn’t know who says it first. But the first time she watches Hannibal hear it, she sees him twitch, and has her finger poised above the panic button for fear of the orderly’s safety.
And then, slowly, Hannibal smiles. Pins the young nurse in place with his eyes like a butterfly to a specimen box. “And in the public opinion, which of us is Gomez, and which is Morticia? Tell me honestly.”
The nurse is frozen in place. “Um,” he says.
“Go on,” Hannibal says, with those same crinkles around his eyes that were so charming five years ago, and are still damnably endearing now. They make him look younger. From the security box, Alana grits her teeth.
“You’re Gomez,” the nurse admits. “Graham’s Morticia.”
Hannibal’s smile widens, all teeth. “And quite right, too.”
When the news makes it back to Will, the flicker of suffering on his face is visible even to surveillance cameras. “I’m never gonna hear the end of this,” he mutters, and retreats into his silent meditation for the rest of the night with a distinctively scolding pull between his brows.
When Alana relents and moves them beside one another months later, in twin cells lined with bulletproof glass, it is only because she is secure in her ability to hold them. There is no other reason, she says to the other staff. If anything, it is a punishment, to be so close and not be able to see one another through the brick that separates them (though she knows damn well that one way or another, they have been together all along).
They can’t reach one another. There is no way for them to touch. And yet Alana feels intrusive as Hannibal stands beside the wall, and looks the most at peace that he has in nearly a year. His voice is a caress that is solely for Will, a fond and loving indulgence that Hannibal has never been able to muster for anyone else. “To live without you,” he says, “only that would be torture.”
Will grimaces. Rolls his eyes. He stands with his arms crossed over his chest, still skeptical of Alana’s motivations, still irritated that they have been caught. But in the wake of Hannibal’s expectant silence, Will sighs. He brings himself to the other side of the wall, and the vent holes cut there. Like this, there is only the width of concrete blocks separating them. It is made to be psychologically devastating, but Will has never been devastated by anyone but Hannibal. They all know this, though Alana likes to pretend otherwise.
Will touches his cheek to the glass like he can see Hannibal’s fingertips pressed against it in the next cell over. “A day alone—only that would be death.” A beat of silence. Will’s eyes fix on the lens of the surveillance camera high above, positioned to spy upon them both. His lip curls in a silent snarl, and he places his palm upon the glass. “Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.”
Hannibal’s eyes are fire as he, too, looks directly into the feed, directly at Alana. He looks the perfect picture of a man stricken by love all over again, lit from inside with lightning and promise. “Not just pretty words.”
They smile as one.
Alana swallows and turns the cameras off.
[insp]
