Thread by @HesMyDesign

Salt. The smell of the sea.
That was the first thing Hannibal's senses registered as he was agonisingly yanked out of his haze, his brain working slowly thanks to the lack of oxygen.
This couldn't be hell, he thought. He knew this sea, and >

< it smelled of a good place. Hell would be devoid of positive sensations.
Confusion settled in.
Heaven?
Did he, Hannibal the Cannibal, somehow end up on the wrong level of the afterlife?
But no, that couldn't be it. Heaven wouldn't only >

< smell of the sea. There would be blood and rain and the cold stone of churches, paint, parchment, the scent of dogs and poorly preserved aftershave.
That was when consciousness hit him like a jackhammer, he jerked awake and all his senses >

< returned at once. Each of his muscles was burning, a searing jolt of white-hot pain on the right side of his abdomen, the suffocating pressure of water burning within his lungs, dozens of painful locations snapping to his attention one by >

< one, some thumping dull, some stinging like acid burns, some hot and raw and open, pain and light blinding him equally.
The notion of hell returned to his mind, but then he heard his voice.
Heavens.
He didn't know if he'd ever heard a more >

< beautiful sound than Will's tearful, wrecked, terrified voice calling out his name. Hannibal became suddenly aware that he was in fact very much alive, the image of Will coming into a hazy half-focus against the blindingly brighy sky >

< behind him. It was just a brief moment, but for a heartbeat he appeared to glow, to emit that all-encompassing light like the most beautiful and terrible angel that heaven could have produced.
Then his survival instincts kicked in. His >

< stomach flexed, he realised that a good handful of those painful locations on his body were being caused by Will's hand, the heels of his hands desperately pounding his breastbone into his chest. With a powerful turn of his entire body, he >

< rolled onto his side - instinctively moved towards Will, grabbed his knee for support - and started coughing up what felt like gallons of water, desperately emptying his lungs until he could draw a deep, frantic series of breaths, greedily >

< inhaling and exhaling and only slowly calming down.
Life. He lived, and Will lived, thanks to whatever mercy either of them deserved, but most importantly Will wanted him to live, he was the one who saved him, woke his heart back up and >

< gave him life. It was hard to think, let alone to move very far, but he had to see him. With a wince, he pushed himself onto his elbow and turned his face upwards, letting go of his knee and grasping the front of his shirt as if he were >

< still in mortal danger and only clinging to Will would save him.
"Will," he rasped, more of a grisly, dry growl than speech, but it carried more emotion than the most eloquent speech he could have worded, his chest still heaving heavily, >

< his lips cracked and his face bruised and beaten. We are alive, was all he could think at this moment.