Hannigram: Cuts Unscene -- Season 2

S2 E12: Tome-Wan

Companion Song: "Burning Desire" – Lana Del Ray

"I drive fast, radio blares, have to touch myself to pretend you're there

Your hands were on my hips, your name is on my lips

Over over again, like my only prayer

(Come on tell me boy)

I've got a burning desire for you, baby

(I've got a burning desire, come on tell me boy)"

Will had the opportunity to cut Hannibal's throat and let Mason Verger feed him to the pigs. Of course, Will probably knew he was going to be fed to them next, and saw an opportunity to save Hannibal and himself. Plus... let's be real, he can't kill Hannibal. He releases him instead, and is promptly clocked on the back of the head and passes out. When he wakes up, he finds Carlo fed to the pigs, bloodstains all over the floor, and everyone missing. Heading home, Will discovers Hannibal hanging out with Mason, who is tripping balls and cutting off his face, feeding it to Will's dogs. Hannibal suggests that Will kill Mason, but Will defers to Hannibal and says, "He's your patient, you decide what's best for him." Hannibal breaks Mason's neck where he will be paralyzed but not killed.

"He's still breathing," Will pointed out. Mason Verger was stretched out on one of Will's bed sheets near the door. Will could still hear soggy, rattling breaths whistling through Mason's exposed teeth.

"I severed the spine below the nerve bundle required for his lungs to function independently," Hannibal said, glancing up from where he was scrubbing blood from the seams of Will's chair with an old toothbrush.

"You wanted him to live?" Will was bitter, incredulous as he dotted the smaller stains on the floor. The rush of Mason's downfall was wearing off, and he was tired, hungry, and the back of his head throbbed where he'd been slammed with the butt of a gun.

"You could have killed him yourself." Hannibal stood up and wiped his hands on a stained rag. "You left him to me."

"You aren't, ah, worried he's going to tell someone what you did?"

"Mason can't tell anyone anything without incriminating himself," Hannibal promised, kneeling to wipe down the chair leg next.

"Hmm," Will muttered, finding another splatter on the hardwood to sponge away.

"Would you have wanted to leave poor Margot with nothing?"

"Poor Margot?" Will got to his feet, anger adding to the throbbing pain that traversed the circumference of his skull. "You pity her now, after what you did?"

"Mason sterilized her," Hannibal reminded him, stepping closer. Will could feel the dark tension between them like a taut band drawing them together.

"At your suggestion. Margot getting pregnant was also your influence," Will accused him, voice ratcheting up in volume and aggression.

"I had no idea she would come to you to fulfill that duty," Hannibal reminded him. "You've certainly downplayed your role in this. It takes two participants to result in a pregnancy."

"She told me she was on the pill."

"And you, the FBI's most skillful profiler, believed her." Hannibal's hand tremored lightly as he clenched the cleaning rag into his fist, coming another cold step closer to Will.

"She was–" Will took a breath, trying to calm himself. "She was hurting," he said, softer now. "She'd been traumatized, scarred – and I thought she just... needed someone, just for a night."