Chapter Text
… and while the seagulls are crying,
we fall but our souls are flying,
and oh, my love, my love,
. . .
we both go down together.
Will was quite certain that he’d shattered every bone in his body when he hit the water. He felt a scream rip from his lungs in a flood of air bubbles that rushed to the surface as his body sank lower into the black depths. For a long moment nothing in his body seemed to respond.
Was he dead? Had he died? Was this it? An eternity spent in a watery grave starved of air.
His eyes stung as he opened them and realized, no, no he wasn’t dead. He was alive. Somehow, he’d survived the self induced plunge off the cliff and into the cold, unforgiving Atlantic. His lungs burning for oxygen, he kicked at the heels of his shoes, succeeding in pulling them off as he fought his way up; he broke the surface tension with a deafening gasp of air.
On his tongue he tasted copper and salt.
Taking in several large mouthfuls of air, he then realized in a panic that he was alone in the dark. Hannibal was gone. Will turned around and around in the water as fast as he could, his eyes desperately searching until he finally locked onto a pair of shoulders bobbing up and down in the water, Hannibal’s face downturned and submerged.
In a frenzy, Will swam towards him as fast as he could and grabbed a fistful of wet hair, pulling his head back and up more violently than he probably should have. Hannibal’s eyes were closed, his mouth slack.
“Oh fuck, no,” Will whimpered to his unresponsive body. “No, no, no.”
Wrapping an arm around his chest, Will began to swim towards the shore. Every wave that hit him seemed to knock him back farther and farther back, seemed to make holding onto Hannibal inhumanly strenuous.
After an incalculable amount of time, Will finally made it to the wet sand of the shoreline and crawled up to his socked feet. Standing behind Hannibal, Will grabbed him by his sweater near both shoulders and dragged him away from the water. Dropping to his knees beside him, Will put his fingers to Hannibal’s neck and felt no pulse.
“No, no,” He murmured. “You can’t do this.”
Placing his palms flat over Hannibal’s heart, Will forcefully pushed down and up, down and up, down and up, tracking the number of compressions in his head before he tilted Hannibal’s chin back, pinched his nostrils closed and breathed deeply into his still body. He saw Hannibal's chest rise with his borrowed breath. Again, he inhaled and locked their mouths together and pushed the air from his body into Hannibal’s.
Leaning back, he locked his flat hands over his chest and began a second series of compressions. He gasped and nearly sobbed as Hannibal suddenly lurched up and coughed water out of his lungs. Will helped roll him to his side as he continued to cough and inhale life back into himself.
When he was relatively convinced that Hannibal wouldn’t stop breathing again, Will fell backwards onto the sand. After a few more lingering coughs, Will felt Hannibal’s shoulder come to rest against his as he also collapsed onto his back. They lay there like that, chests rising and falling with a newfound purpose, the sounds of their breathing overpowered by the rush of the ocean near their feet.
Hannibal reached blindly towards Will’s side, fumbling until he found his hand, and threaded their fingers together.
In this moment, Will’s mind should have been racing between thoughts. They’d just killed a man. He’d just flung them over a cliff to their seemingly unavoidable deaths. The FBI would be looking for them. Jack would be looking for them. Molly would be looking for him. His dogs would be missing him.
But in this moment, there was nothing else. There was only the fingers locked with his own and the steady rise and fall of their chests as their exhausted bodies gave in to sleep.