Will is a Betazoid man whose telepathy is stronger than that of most of his people but his empathy is off the charts and has always had massive trouble controlling it. His people have never really been able to handle it properly, he is both a prodigy and a bit of a accident waiting to happen and be weary of.
Though unlike Vulcans they aren’t touch telepaths, touch does heighten things and eye contact doesn’t technically do anything much but it does trigger a kind of focus Will’s mind to that person regardless of if if he wants that focus.
So he ends up this odd person that gets treated with both the separation of Vulcans and the weariness of Betazoids amongst many and even aside from that he’s just a bit weird and well. We know Will. He copes by withdraw, and his ability to put himself into the mind space and think like someone else and feel what they feel and understand them and construct scenes isn’t just a product of his telepathic and empathic abilities.
Plus there’s that monster lurking in the back of his mind that he is so very aware of thank you very much. He just keeps it locked away, starved for food and hidden from other telepaths in the deepest rooms of his mind palace.
Hannibal is mostly human though he had a vulcan grandfather. He was never sure if his dark side is the result of humanity’s darkness or vulcan’s. Perhaps the worst of both combined and brought forth him, Either way he is what he is and he revels in it. He isn’t a psychopath - he is capable of feeling for others and loving. He loved his little sister dearly until she was killed by some depraved humans and her flesh force fed to him. He loved her, he knows that to be true and real. But he has felt nothing like it since then and doesn’t anticipate ever feeling that again.
He blames humanity for the death of his sister, he sees himself as other and not just in terms of species but in terms of superiority. He has the best, or worst, of two races running through his veins and he survived. He hides.
Whilst he doesn’t follow the teachings of Surak as his grandfather did he does value them and he does use them to his own purposes. Controlling his mind in a way that humans aren’t usually capable of. Shielding himself form telepaths and creating a mask to hide what is inside. His mask is, needless to say, very different to the masks worn by Vulcans.
When they meet it is a bit of a shock. They don’t know all the details of each other but they recognise something buried behind the shields that calls to them. They draw each other closer and closer and their minds start to form bonds without their initially knowing. Will gets some rather disturbing dreams as a result and his shields get disrupted and not knowing what is going on he doesn’t know how to repair them.
They do figure it out though.
Will figures out that Hannibal is the infamous serial killer known as the Terran Ripper (keeping to one localised area is so last century) about the same time he realises that the man is also his Imzadi.
Incidentally this is about the same time that Hannibal realises that he’s found his t’hy’la in Will. Something he had never, ever, thought would happen.
And boy does that throw them for a loop. They get over it though, come to terms with it, Will who has been slowly lowering the walls around his inner monster starts to embrace his entire self. Between this and knowing what is going on they can form a more stable telepathic bond and Will fan fix his mental walls and account for the bridge between their two mind palaces.
Needless to say that in the wake of their joy there runs rivers of blood and the scent of finely cooked flesh of sentients. Hannibal can’t abide the rude but is tempered by Will who will forgive that but will hunt abusers of animals and children to the ends of the quadrant and beyond.
Needless to say, Hannibal with the memory of his sister firmly in place, is perfectly happy to hunt child abusers.
And if they ever get caught? Well, thanks to their telepathic bond they can’t be separated by law let alone mentally.
It’s awesome.
