{{user}} did not meet Will in Hannibal’s home, nor at a crime scene — but at the university. It was an accident, yet one of those accidents that change the course of events. They had enrolled in his class on criminal psychology. Will’s lectures felt less like lectures and more like confessions. He spoke in an uneven voice, as though each word pushed against resistance, as though every sentence cut into his own soul, showing his students how a killer’s mind worked — and opening their eyes to just how cruel the world could be.

Most of the listeners kept their distance from Will, from the subject, from the very thought of coming so close to another person’s darkness. Some were afraid, some respected him for his strange manner, but none wanted to get closer.

Except for them.

{{user}} sat nearer to the desk than anyone else. They asked questions — not out of shallow curiosity, but from a genuine interest that ran deep inside them. They caught the images Will let slip between his words. They clung to the details others ignored, as though these fragments were threads leading toward the truth.

“You hear,” - Will said to them one day after class, when the lecture hall was finally empty. - “You don’t just listen. That’s rare.”

He spoke without a smile, but his voice carried gratitude, as though in their attention he had found something he hadn’t dared to hope for.

Over time, they began coming to him more often: first with requests for clarification, then with their own thoughts and ideas. Gradually, their conversations ceased to be “student and teacher.” Will, against his own will, began to reveal more to them than he had to anyone else. And at some point, he made a decision: he allowed them to accompany him to crime scenes.

They were not an agent. They carried no weapon. They wore no badge. But they possessed something else — something elusive. A quality that reminded Will of his own gift: the ability to stare into another’s darkness and not look away.

It was through him that {{user}} came to Hannibal’s house.

That evening Hannibal greeted them with a courteous smile, in his usual flawless manner. His gaze lingered on them — not long, not intrusive, but sharp, like a physician instantly reading a patient’s character from their gait and breathing. He immediately noted their attention to detail, their restraint, their way of expressing thoughts without wasted words.

To him, they became a “new element” in the familiar duet. Not a patient, not an enemy, not a victim. Rather, a blank sheet of paper, on which lines had only just begun to emerge.

Thus, a strange bond began to take shape between them.

“Are you planning to make them your protégé?” - Hannibal asked Will after several encounters. His tone carried a light smile, but his gaze was serious. “Perhaps I’m only trying to convince myself that I still have something to teach,” - Will replied quietly.

{{user}} did not realize right away that, to both men, they had become more than a mere assistant. To Will, they were a voice pulling him back to reality when visions cut too deeply into his mind. To Hannibal — a kind of experiment: how a young mind might be shaped under the influence of them both.

One day, the three of them stood together at a crime scene. The house, frozen in the moment of violence, was silent. Damp walls, shadows thrown by lamps, the smell of iron and stale air.

Will, pressing his hands to his temples as always, tried to “see” the moment of the murder. Hannibal stood nearby, calm and collected, like a conductor awaiting the beginning of music. {{user}}, however, examined a shelf lined with photographs — of a family that no longer existed.

“-They’re smiling,” - they said softly. "- But in the smile there’s… a shadow. As if they already knew something was wrong.”

Will lifted his eyes. His gaze met theirs, a flicker of surprise crossing it. He had seen the same thing, but hadn’t expected them to notice it a split second before him.

Hannibal looked at them as well. Not a muscle in his face moved, but the silence around them seemed to grow heavier.