#post-fall twotl

[cartsandhorses]

who’s up will grahaming their wednesday

[willgrahamcracker2013]

what if hannibal and will survived the fall and made it to a cove only for them to bleed out slowly, both too weak to get up or get help and one of them dies first and the others last moments are pain and grief and wishing to god they never lived to see the world without the other and they just lie there waiting for death looking into the others eyes void of life

[dr-reids-fidget-toy]

Ok so after I saw that last post I reblogged, I was thinking about how, after the cliff scene, we see Bedelia with her leg cut off and steaming dinner in front of her, and the table is momentarily empty. A lot of people, myself included, have taken this to mean that Hannibal and Will survived the fall. But what if only one of them did?

I believe it was Hannibal who promised Bedelia he would eat her (pls correct me if I’m wrong, he may have also not directly said so but it was implied). If only Hannibal survived the fall, he would have eaten whatever he could find or hold on to of Will, and then gone on with his life and promises (Alana, Bedelia, etc).

If Will had been the one to survive, I believe he would have done the same to Hannibal, possibly leaving some sort of artful monument to Hannibal as well (think of Randall Tier, that man he hung as a bug). And I think he would have followed through on Hannibal’s promises as if they were his own. I can’t imagine he would try to go back to his own life, at least not completely. Hannibal is a part of him and he must continue that way. Maybe he would go off and live his serial killer life. Maybe he would pretend the innocent and go back to his old life while killing in secret as Hannibal had done.

[lunairka]

“The Fall”

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Closeups, different versions and more under the cut!

HOH BOY. THIS PIECE PUT ME THROUGH ACTUAL HELL. The LENGTHS I had to go to get this done man. BUT NOW ITS HERE. ITS DONE. Anyway, I had to watch The Fall on repeat in order to make this, and I think that I’m completely mentally destroyed from that! The things I do for you all <3

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Despite everything, I’m still really proud of how this came out, and I hope you all enjoy!

[tethered-heartstrings]

I know that was a joke post but now I am genuinely curious what Hannibal would want (and be allowed) to have as his last meal.

let me start off by saying this started one place and took a huge turn (sorry) but... this got me thinking. my assumption is he was tried in maryland. maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, but if he was tried under federal and not state, death penalty is still technically on the table in all 50 states.

unlike other states, maryland does not offer a special last meal to those about to be executed, and they are offered whatever is on the menu at the prison they are residing. i don't think that if he was charged federally it would have necessarily changed his food situation.

given that hannibal was held at bshci, he probably would have had whatever they were serving that day. we saw in s2 with will that it wasn't anything particularly exciting. canned/processed/boxed food. the more gourmet meals he got while imprisoned were definitely due to a special deal he had with alana. it's not directly specified in the show to my knowledge, but pretty sure he got special privileges for helping her and margot. but also if it means hearing him complain less, all the better.

that being said, there is a chance alana would break the maryland tradition and actually offer him a special meal. most requests deny alcohol or tobacco, but again, we're humoring a special meal.

now for the fun part. obviously hannibal wouldn't be given human meat. some inmates in other states asked not only for a meal but to share the meal with someone. and i think hannibal would definitely request to have a last meal with will since the last meal they had together (at least on screen) was the meal before mizumono.

and i think it would be well within the realm for hannibal to want to recreate this meal, maybe even going so far as to ask to make it himself. +/- if alana would allow for that, maybe if everything was precut and he wasn't near anything sharp. if he wanted will to share the meal with him, i'd be curious to see what will would do. he'd know hannibal was on death row, it'd be all over the news, jack would tell him, etc. and i think he would seek out the result of hannibal's trial if he was not sitting in the room as he was sentenced. knowing he indirectly put him there, and i'd place bets on him opening that hand written letter asking for his company one last time and he'd go to see hannibal and share that meal with him. to dine one last time together.

and i wonder how each of them would see it. will never answering if he wanted a sacrifice, yet one now sat across from him. how during the mizumono meal, will said "that'd make this our last supper" to which hannibal responds "of this life" which now truly is the last meal of this life, of hannibal's life. maybe for will, too, in a way. for how good could food taste or sate knowing your conjoined, blurred half is about to die, and that nagging guilt in your chest that it's your fault. and the question of if they could survive separation. and maybe the question was more up in the air when it was possibly hannibal who had to live without him, but now will is faced with the reality that he has to live without hannibal. and in some alternate life it would have been easier to stay with his wife and never see hannibal, but knowing he was alive was enough, and he'd no longer have that crutch.

but hannibal seeing it as almost a redo for before the slaughter in his kitchen. going back to a moment they had some peace, even if brief, life as he knew it was brief now. but still, someone he loved, the only person he loved, sitting across from him eating and drinking wine together. maybe in silence, i don't know. smiles would be exchanged; hannibal's genuinely happy and will's a bit sad. to be so fully and deeply and intimately seen. now there was no running away together anymore. will would leave and hannibal could only hope will would go to his execution.

and i think will would go. i don't know if it would be a "want" situation, but a "need". to see hannibal lecter taken down almost so effortlessly. the unkillable finally killed. the man he couldn't shoot the two times he had a gun in his face, the man he dropped his gun for and let himself be gutted and held by, the man he pulled a knife on and still couldn't take down. ultimately, in a way, will took him down. hannibal surrendered because will rejected him. will didn't need a weapon, he just needed words and a closed off heart. and within minutes, it'd be over.

but what happens after? the remains of inmates not claimed by family get kept in the prison cemetery. hannibal has no family to claim him, will is the closest to family he has. but what if will claims him, then what? will doesn't know what hannibal's final wishes are; to be cremated, buried? maybe he does know without hannibal having to explicitly say. to eat you like the sacrificial lamb you are.

my guess is a body executed via lethal injection (chosen method for maryland) would not be safe to eat. sodium thiopental is a barbituate like the one used for animal euthanasia, but it isn't the part of the "cocktail" that actually causes death. i know animals euthanized (with a different barbituate) and eaten can kill the animal that eats them, so there is a chance eating hannibal could do the same thing. consuming potassium chloride (the deadly part of the injection) in large quantities can cause a lot of side effects/health detriments and in theory, eating enough can cause cardiac failure, but i don't know the oral bioavailabity in comparison to iv.

as romantic as it seems, i don't think will would eat hannibal knowing it could kill him, and tbh, i don't see hannibal wanting will to knowing his death might be imminent. even if it meant being together in the afterlife, that wasn't how will was going to die. like yeah "death only by my hand" but it's not the same. maybe part of will's punishment is having to stay alive without him. i do think hannibal might if the roles were reversed, though.

if will ended up giving hannibal a graveplot (probably unmarked so it doesn't end up desecrated), or even sprinkling his ashes somewhere, i know will would visit him again. maybe not for awhile, maybe denial or anger, but he would go back. i know hannibal said he could never go back to lithuania, so maybe will takes him there and buries him next to mischa so they can be together, finally and forever. maybe he doesn't take him home, knowing how much hannibal stayed away when he was alive. there are a lot of things will could do, tbh.

[wolfie-art]

the view from the bottom of the cliff 😔👎🏽

[love-songs-for-emma]

I am drowning, there is no sign of land

You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand

And I hope you die

I hope we both die

—"No Children," The Mountain Goats

[willgrahamstrout]

Paradise Found

A post-fall Hannigram fic

Hannibal smiled up at the stars. “If you wanted me dead, you should have left me in the water.”

His voice was scratchy but so was Will’s. “No, that’s not what I want.”

“A baptism then?”

A birth to a new life, washed free from sin?

“Sure.”

Will pulled them off that cliff, so high, then pulled them from that water, so cold. They now travel alone, sailing to safety and freedom. In the cradle of the ocean, they examine and nurture each other, and their feelings.

Read on ao3

Updated 8/29/24 in honor of TWOTL Day!

Currently at 14 chapters, 16.4k words

Tags: Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter worships Will Graham, Post-Fall (Hannibal), First Kiss, wound care as sex, Kissing that’s pretty much sex. soft dom Will, Sub top Hannibal, lowkey, Dom Will Graham, Sub Hannibal Lecter, Pain Kink, Blood Kink, but in a Catholic way, lots of treats for the catholics in the audience, dreamy esoteric romance, Fluff, Cosmic love, stick these two alone on a boat and make them realize their love, "We're just having conversations", love as consummation, love as absolution, Love As Forgiveness, love as divine union, love as confession

[k-s-morgan]

hi katrin i am such a huge fan of your meta analyses on hannibal. i was wondering if you ever had any thoughts of what would happen during s4 and if you ever had plans of writing your own post-fall story. i feel like you would absolutely crush it!!

Hi! Thank you, I'm so glad you found my metas useful!

I'm so satisfied with S3 ending and with the stories of other writers that I never felt an itch to write my own version of S4. Largely because I genuinely think Hannibal and Will have overcome the worst of their obstacles in the show, and now they only have a way up. In my fics, I prefer to tackle the biggest conflicts and drama myself, so I don't have a story interesting enough to tell.

I have a list with the post-canon recs here if you're interested, though they are pretty old at this point.

As for my thoughts on S4, I have two versions, one that I think is logical and one that Bryan might have created.

For the former, I imagine Will and Hannibal learning how to live together, and Will slowly figuring out the extent and specifics of his darkness.

Will consists of unpredictability, and Hannibal is fascinated by it. I think Will is going to kill when an impulse strikes. For example, he might go shopping, without having any dark plans, and end up murdering someone because the circumstances pushed some unfortunate soul onto his path. Will might or might not display the body depending on his mood. Today he can be in an artistic mood, but tomorrow he’ll be in a violent and impatient one, wanting to destroy the body entirely and leaving a total mess behind.

Will might prefer to kill “bad people” in the first two seasons, but it’s the process of murder that excites him. So I see his righteous choices as a preference that helps him justify his dark nature partly, not the core reason for his violence. Hannibal seems to be moved by his interest in human nature and his hunter instinct, but Will, I think, is a truer killer because he actually feels drunk on murder. Unlike Hannibal, he looks downright euphoric when/after he kills Randall and Francis. In TWOTL, Hannibal is more focused on the fact that his dream came true and he and Will killed someone together, but Will seems primarily caught up in the murder after-shocks themselves. Hannibal thinks about Will, Will thinks about how beautiful blood looks under the moonlight.

So, I believe that at first, Will will stick to killing bad people like murderers, but once some times passes, his need for justifications will fade. He’ll move on to rude people, only his rude will differ from Hannibal’s. Hannibal doesn’t differentiate between genders and ages, but I think Will will. He’s interested in a feeling of power, like he himself says, in a sense of dominance, so he’ll look forward to a fight. He won’t be interested in attacking a teenager like Cassie, for instance, because the power imbalance is too prominent. But as soon as someone more equal does something Will heavily dislikes, something that wakes his bloodlust (a personal insult, physical or verbal abuse toward other people/animals, etc.), he’ll attack. He’ll be careful - he knows how to avoid being caught, but it will still be unpredictable and passionate. Will is a storm to Hannibal’s calm.

As for Bryan's version, he said a great variety of things about what S4 could be about over the years, to the point where it's nearly impossible to form one coherent picture. Here is my attempt on it.

Will is going to feel drunk on his newfound darkness and freedom. He was repressed for so long that now that he Became, he’ll be losing his focus and drowning in his own preferences, forgetting what they were and turning into a much more vicious monster any of us expected. He’ll be chasing the high he felt from killing Francis and failing to find it. He’ll be surrounded by blood, his past victims (hence the return of everyone dead, like Bryan mentioned), and more madness. A part of him will want to impress Hannibal, to prove that he’s a worthy partner (which is supported by Will seeking Hannibal’s approval throughout the show - the way he glances at him after biting Cordell is a good example; the way he has low self-esteem and knows Bedelia failed Hannibal’s expectations). So he’ll be acting more and more violently.

Hannibal will see that Will is losing himself in a new way. He won’t want to start a physical relationship with him (which Bryan mentioned) because he’ll be afraid that it isn't for the right reasons, that Will is too far gone to made decisions. So, he’ll feel like the best therapy would be to push Will even more and make him realize that he’s approaching their new life from the wrong angle, to make him figure out that this isn't the kind of killer he wants to be. To do this, Hannibal’s manipulation will entail them going after Alana and Margot.

Will won’t be fond of the idea but Hannibal will manipulate him into accepting it, intending it as a test that will finally make Will snap out of his state. So Will will initially help hunt them down but then he’ll realize this isn’t what he wants to do. Hence finally getting his mind back and being happy in S5.

[fragile-teacup]

On Will’s understanding of Hannibal’s love, his own feelings, and possible developments in S4…

Based on things that Hugh and Bryan have said over the years, I think that it took Will until Mizumono to understand that Hannibal truly loved him, and that he truly loved Hannibal back. Hugh talked at RDC3 about how Will had always idealised love, putting it on a pedestal. He had considered Hannibal incapable of real love because of his ‘black heart’. Even as he allowed himself to be seduced throughout the back half of S2, he considered that on Hannibal’s part it was all manipulation. But then he saw Hannibal’s heartbreak and realised (too late and to his horror) that love isn’t necessarily ‘pure’ or ‘good’. It can be messy and dirty too. And that’s what he spent all of S3 working through - anger, denial, and finally acceptance. I absolutely believe that by TWOTL he had fully accepted Hannibal’s love - and the terrible truth that he returned that love in full measure. Which was why, as Bryan pointed out, Will felt at that point that he had no option but to end them both. Can’t live with him, can’t live without him. Having said that, Bryan also stated that a part of Will wanted them to survive - wanted to give in to what would essentially be Will’s Becoming. And as we know that they DID survive (Bryan, Hugh and Mads have all stated this on numerous occasions), we can reasonably assume that the Murder Husbands are living together in Cuba, under the radar. Now, it’s also been heavily hinted that Will is ‘out of his mind’ in S4, and that some sort of reversal of S1 is involved. But to be honest, with a realisation of S4 looking increasingly unlikely, I’d advise people to pick their favourite post-fall fic and make that their personal headcanon. (I wrote my own S4 scenario as a way of achieving some sort of closure, and I’ve read some other damn fine interpretations of S4!)

[emberandshadow]

Everybody wants their post-fall tending to each others wounds scene as the s4 opener, and that's great, I would love to see that, but you know what I really want?

It starts off with the flashing lights of the police cars on Jack Crawford's face. Its night time. The camera pulls back to reveal the scene on the cliff, with Dolarhyde's body on the pavement. Then maybe things reverse to reset at the start of the fight scene in TWoTL.

There's a voice over in the background as the fight plays out again. Its Hannibal. He says, "I can help you tell the version of events you want to be told."

The scene is slightly off from what we saw the first time. They move a little differently, they don't get the same wounds they did before. They still kill Dolarhyde. The "this is all I ever wanted" bit still happens, but their positioning is different.

The voice over continues with Will saying something appropriately dramatic and Fuller-esque. "The heroic knight has to slay the dragon." "You're not a heroic knight, are you Will? You find the darkness too tantalizing to be." "No. I'm no knight. But we can let them think I was. We can let them think you got to me. Your darkness wrapped itself around me. Suffocating me. We'll let them think my last act of heroism was taking you down with me."

Theres a split screen of Will and Hannibal falling on one side and them walking away from the house together on the other. It cuts back to Jack on the cliff, looking at the aftermath. The voice over is Will again as he says, "this is my design."

Cut to blinding white title sequence.

[craqueluring]

hi @wrathfulgraham here – GOD your tags on my post got me thinking. will and hannibal's relationship is a teacup. it shattered on hannibal's kitchen floor. hannibal gutted will with the shards of it, and will tried to return the favor in italy. they slay the dragon and will tips them over the cliff's edge – will the teacup shatter, or will it gather itself together?

im going APE over here !!!

here is the post and these were my tags:

#hannibal wanting to make abigail proof of time reversing and the teacup being able to gather itself back together#he wanted to use her to prove that time could reverse and order could restore itself again#but will hurt him so much that was completely turned on its head and solidified that the passing of time will always be marked by increasing#disorder and entropy#the teacups will always shatter and time will pass no matter how hard he tries to work against it

#i like ur comment about hannibal’s time being before mischa and after mischa#makes me think that#hannibals teacup was mischa#but wills teacup is hannibal#the thing that represents the most significant moment where the past turned into the future#the teacup isnt ONLY abigail#its hannibal and will’s relationship as well#thats why the raven stag died with abigail

UGH YES i love the comparison of the cliff to a teacup!!! i love ur WORDSSS u make me think so much

i've also seen it as a really significant moment of hannibal almost giving up his neurotic control of trying to tie the past to the present/future and to control the future. every single pivotal moment in hannibal is in hannibal's control (for the most part). but ive always interpreted the end of twotl as him giving will the reigns purposefully, fully, and completely. will stays very carefully vague and gives double entendre non-answers to hannibal in their last conversation before the dragon fight. hannibal accepts this with fond smiles and — "no greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend."

i feel like their relationship, the teacup, is (somewhat) whole again with the consummation that was the dragon fight. maybe will was right in digestivo, and the teacup is broken and will never gather itself back together again. maybe this is a new teacup, or they metaphorically glued it back together again, lol.

and then, as you said, will tips them over the edge, the kintsugi teacup falls, and it could shatter, or it could stay whole. for the first time, the teacup is in will's hands. he is in full control of the direction of the teacup, in control of the direction of their future, and hannibal is okay with this. because at least he has will, at least the teacup is repaired. that's all he ever wanted.

[burningarchitecture]

Dawn.

[love-songs-for-emma]

twotl but before will takes them over the cliff we get a "la la land" ending style montage showing hannibal & will choosing each other again and again over everyone and everything else at each crucial moment in the series, refusing to play games or engage in scenarios that harmed themselves and each other

[gaywitchbean]

It’s HANNIGRAM FANART TIME YALLLLL

[thebentley-bells]

hiii tumblr im insane *twirls hair*

this is for woodsjpeg 15k dtiys on instagram!!