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Title: His Last Act
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1drabble
Prompt: 34, Innocence
Author's Note: Sequel to "Seduced By the Darkness."
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.

***

It wasn't going to be easy to convince Hannibal that he had changed.

Will winced as he looked into the mirror, wishing that he didn't look so young and innocent. Even with his hair cut, he still looked like a young, unformed kid.

He wasn't. Not any more. That young man had been reborn in the flames of hell within the Baltimore State Hospital For the Criminally Insane. His innocence was long gone; his belief that people were intrinsically good was being questioned more every day.

He wanted to hold on to that innocence, to that belief that the human race was composed of mostly good people. But it was slipping away from him, a little at a time.

Hannibal had been instrumental in corroding that innocence.

Really, he was surprised that he'd been able to hold on that belief in people as long as he had, given what he saw on a daily basis, and his unique empathic ability.

But yet, he had somehow managed to retain a bit of innocence, even with all of the horrible things he dealt with every day as part of his work. He saw the worst side of human nature, but he hadn't given up on people yet. At least, not until his last confrontation with Hannibal.

He was still struggling with that, still trying not to fall into that darkness that threatened to envelop him, the darkness that beckoned so seductively.

This was a different kind of darkness from what Hannibal had been trying to draw out of him; this was the darkness of despair, the blackness of lost hope.

He couldn't let Hannibal do that to him, Will told himself firmly. That monster had taken away his freedom for a brief period of time, he'd attempted to take Will's mind, and in the end, Hannibal had even tried to take his life. He wasn't going to let Hannibal take everything.

Though at the moment, it felt as though Hannibal had taken his innocence, the last bit of it that remained to him, and crushed it into dust.

He didn't want that to happen. He didn't want to be so irrevocably changed.

But he might as well accept it, Will thought with a sigh. Hannibal had changed him, in so many ways, and there was no going back to who he'd been before.

He might have lost his innocence, but he had gained something else; he had developed a steely resolve to catch Hannibal and put him behind bars, one that hadn't been there before. That resolve had deepened and hardened; it had become a part of his soul.

Will knew that he wouldn't stop until he had achieved that objective. He was going to make sure that the Lecter monster paid for his crimes, if it was the last thing he did.

Though sometimes, he was afraid that it would be his last act.

***