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Title: Imperfect Memory
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1drabble
Prompt: 5, Memory
Author's Note: Sequel to "Monster in His Dreams."
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

He had always hated having a near-perfect memory.

That memory had always served him well before, Will thought with a sigh, rolling over in bed to stare up at the ceiling. But now, it was driving him crazy.

The gaps in his memory -- gaps created by Hannibal -- were starting to worry him. He had thought that all of those memories would come flooding back, or at least come back to him piecemeal. But he'd been sure that he would eventually get them back.

But now, he wasn't so sure any more. It didn't feel as though any of them were coming back, and the ones that did were blurry and confused.

It felt as though he had lost a great of who he was.

That was what Hannibal had been after all along -- to take pieces of who he was, to twist his mind until it didn't feel as though it belonged to him any more.

The evil monster who had claimed to be his friend might have damaged him for the rest of his life by taking those memories away from him, Will told himself. And what's more, Hannibal's machinations could have killed him.

How could that bastard claim to be his friend, when he'd nearly killed him by literally giving him a potentially fatal disease like encephalitis?

Hannibal was no one's friend. Hannibal could only be an enemy, a snake in the grass that struck out when it was least expected.

Will hated knowing that his once nearly perfect memory had been sabotaged, damaged, possibly destroyed by that monster. It might have been a burden to have a memory that good, but now that he'd lost parts of it, he'd come to realize just how useful it was.

The worst thing about losing those memories was feeling that he was no longer a complete person, that he was flailing about sightless in the dark.

When memories did come back, he didn't know if they were real or not.

Could some of what he thought he remembered simply be parts of the visions that Hannibal had induced with those seizures? He had no way of knowing.

Reality had blurred for him when he tried to look back and retrieve those memories; nothing felt real any more. It all seemed like some crazy, impossible dream, a vision out of his worst nightmares. He didn't know what was real and what was fiction.

But somehow, he would get those memories back, Will vowed to himself. No matter what he had to do, he would put the puzzle back together.

And he would never let anyone disarrange those pieces again.

***