Title: Serenade
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Sequel to "Symphony."
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.
***
There had been a time when he was so blissfully happy.He had felt that he belonged in a way that he never had before. He had basked in the sunshine of Hannibal's love, believing that it was real.
He'd felt that Hannibal was serenading him every day and night, that their hearts were as one, that the two of them were going to spend their lives together.
How wrong he had been. But for a wile, he had lived in a fantasy world, a world that had seemed like bright, beautiful, shining place. Maybe that was what being in love did to a person; it made them see the world as being a place of grand adventure, instead of the dark, dangerous place it actually was.
Being in love had kept him from seeing the dark underbelly of the world he lived in, even though he had been to crime scenes nearly every day and seen Hannibal's handiwork.
Would he have felt differently about those crime scenes if he had known that it was his lover who was committing all of those atrocious murders? Yes, of course he would.
But he had turned his back on what had been staring him in the face.
He had believed in Hannibal's serenade, believed that they shared something special. He had actually believed that the monster he'd been involved with had loved him.
Hannibal wasn't capable of love; he was a serial killer who had no compassion for the human race. He was nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer with a stone for a heart.
Will knew that it had been foolish of him to believe that he was loved, but there was still a part of him that wished he could go back to those days when he had been in love, when he had believed that he finally fit in with the world, when he had been so gloriously happy.
Would he ever feel like that again? He seriously doubted it; that kind of love only came once in a lifetime, if at all, and when he had fallen from grace, he had fallen hard.
He doubted that he would ever look at love and relationships in the same way again. In that sense, Hannibal had managed to spoil him for all other men.
He didn't believe that he would ever find the kind of perfect happiness he'd known when their relationship was in its first bloom with anyone else. That only happened to anyone once; he would never be able to re-create it with another person, never be able to feel that bliss again.
That serenade had been so perfect, so beautiful. If anyone else tried to bring him to that point again, it wouldn't feel right. It would be jarring, discordant; it wouldn't ring true.
Will doubted that he would ever be able to love again, not in the way that he had loved Hannibal. His first love would more than likely also be his last.
Why was it that a first love was never the one that lasted?
And the first love was never one that was good for you, for peace of mind or lasting happiness, Will thought with a way smile. It was always the one that broke your heart the most.
But what would he know about love? His own had been crushed, shattered into millions of tiny shards, crumbling into dust and blowing away with the wind.
Love was never something to be trusted, he told himself bitterly. And neither was a sweet serenade that sounded too good to be true. It that was how it sounded, then it made sense to believe that it wasn't true, that it never could be, and to run from it as fast as was possible.
He should have done that. He should have run from that siren's serenade, should have put his hands over his hears and refused to hear it -- or to believe i.t
But he had, much to his everlasting regret. And he could still hear that serenade, sounding as sweet to his ears as it had the first time he'd heard those dulcet strains.
He would never believe it again, never let his heart trust in that sweetness.
He didn't want that sweetness in his life. He didn't need it. Now that the original serenade was over and done with, he didn't want to hear it from anyone else.
Will knew that he would never hear such a siren song again -- and that his heart would never respond to another one the way it had to Hannibal's. That kind of serenade was only sung to one's heart once in a lifetime; once it was over, it never came again with the same poignancy as the first.
He didn't want to hear it again, and he didn't want to remember it. He would only be reminded of all that he had once held dear and had lost, at such a high price.
The price he'd paid to let his heart hear that serenade had cost him far too much in the end.
***
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