Even though an alarm still blared in Will's mind when he thought too long about it, Hannibal and Will had grown closer during the nearly two years they'd spent on the run. Will had justified it to himself in all sorts of ways. He won't stay if I withhold too much. It'll give me more leverage over him. It's better than not having anyone at all.

So Will had let him in, and had been let in, in return. They knew things about each other now that Will was certain no one else knew – no one who was still alive, anyway.

But after that night at the bar, Will saw how much of himself Hannibal must have been holding back. Their lives weren't any different. But everything was different. Hannibal was so open with him now. Before, whenever he had spoken to Will about killing, there had been something declarative in it. Something almost defensive. This is who I am. See that you don't forget it.

It wasn't like that now.

He'd avoided Hannibal for the rest of the day after that breakfast conversation, finding things to do around the house that required his full concentration. He had needed to just not think for a while. But he'd actually been relieved when Hannibal had found him at his workbench in the early evening and asked him, as he often did, to come and help with dinner. It had been too tense, just avoiding him. It was hard to be standoffish with the only person you knew.

It started off ok. Hannibal had Will chopping vegetables for a mirepoix, and he was pouring him a glass of wine.

"Thank you for your help, as always," he said. "But I have to admit, I often have an ulterior motive when I ask for your assistance with dinner."

"Oh yeah?" asked Will, more flippantly than he'd meant to. "Is it the pleasure of my company?"

Hannibal smiled and handed him the glass and made sure to meet his eyes.

"I like to watch you use a knife," he said.

And he put his hand so gently over Will's hand, the one resting on the counter, the one the knife was in.

The way he said it, the way he meant it – Will couldn't help but see it. The broad blade turned sideways to fit between the ribs, the resistance from the cartilage and the screaming, the spasm and collapse as both of their hands slid the knife out together, enameled from tip to handle with bright blood. Beautiful.

Will wanted to pull his hand away. Or he knew he should want to. But Hannibal was still looking right into his eyes.

That was what it was like now.

Now it was all smiles and glances from Hannibal, delicate touches and barely coded references from Hannibal, like the fact that they had killed was a private joke between the two of them, a joke Hannibal was constantly being reminded of.

Now Hannibal's shining eyes followed him whenever he left a room, and Will could not tell what he was thinking.

Now it wasn't 'can I kill him?' anymore. It was 'can we kill him?'

And now, when Hannibal eyed a would-be victim in some public place, when he placed his hand on the small of Will's back and leaned in close to ask in a slow whisper if they could kill him, it did not feel at all like a game.

Will still said 'no.' He still meant it.

But he wanted to ask him how he would do it. He wanted him to tell him.

And thudding just beneath his consciousness was the thing he had begged himself over and over again to stop wondering.

Why not?

Why not?

Why not?

And a part of him, tiny and insistent like a rock in his shoe, wanted to say yes.

He didn't know what it would do to him to kill an innocent man. Could he live with it? Would he lose his mind for good this time? Or would he finally come to his senses and turn them both in? Or finally kill them both?

Would he even care?

It horrified him that he didn't know.

It occurred to Will that he could ask Hannibal to stop asking him the questions, to stop talking to him about knives. To stop looking at him that way. But he didn't.

That's why he wasn't like this before. He was waiting until he knew I wouldn't ask him to stop.

What would he be like, if we just…

Hannibal's patience was maddening. Despite everything else he was doing, he hadn't once tried to convince Will to change his mind. He was accepting the 'no's as tranquilly as he always had. Will thought Hannibal was perfectly capable of waiting years for him to break.

No, Will wasn't being pushed.

These were lures.

Hannibal was luring him. It was almost funny.

Hannibal had once made the nearly fatal mistake of underestimating Will Graham. He had let himself be deceived by something that, in retrospect, he should have known Will would never have done: he had let himself believe that Lounds was dead. Had been so eager to believe it. So sure that no one could understand him as deeply as Will understood him without becoming like him.

He had been so drunk with being seen that he had failed to see. To see Will as he was, rather than as Hannibal had hoped he was.

Hannibal knew now that he could not force Will's becoming. So he would not push, although that was his first impulse. This required a delicate touch. He would wait.

He knew that Will was making a decision.

Hannibal was well aware that Will was strong enough and determined enough to defy him; putting pressure on him now would only push him farther away. But when Will was called upon to defy himself, the results were far less predictable.

He had to be ready. When Will's decisions came, they came suddenly, and they sometimes involved plans for Hannibal Lecter's death.

But in the meantime, there was no reason to disguise his delight.

It went on for weeks - the lures, the flirtations. And for every day of those endless weeks, all Will could think about was what it would be like to give in. How good it would feel, how horrible. How easy.

Why had he done it?

Why had he opened the door?

It wasn't just that night in the bar, although that had been... he had not felt that way in a very long time. No, this had been building. This was the inevitable conclusion of making no choice, of doing nothing, of existing in Hannibal's orbit.

Will had seen so much pointless suffering that any peace or beauty he could find in the world was precious to him. Unable as he was to stop feeling, not just for himself but for everyone, he sometimes felt like the balance scale of the world's suffering, with horror all heaped on one side and joy on the other. And he had felt very unbalanced for a very long time.

So unbalanced that the joy he knew he would get from giving in to Hannibal was starting to seem like a cure.

Will didn't believe that there was any one true moral foundation. He had seen into too many minds operating on too many different sets of rules to harbor any illusions about that. He believed instead that a shared morality is simply the framework we hang a society on. It's convenient to agree on the broad strokes of what's right and what's wrong. It makes things simpler.

But everyone modifies that shared morality to some degree, to suit their private needs. Most are too unimaginative or too timid to do more than make minor adjustments. But others dare greater changes.

They were both just waiting for Will to decide to change his rules.

People who are afraid of heights often say that they aren't afraid of falling, but of jumping. It would just be so easy, and so irrevocable – hop a guardrail, lean from a window, and that's it. Who with any imagination can avoid thinking about what it would be like?

Why had Will done it? Because he wanted to let himself fall. Had not stopped wanting it since the cliff, since before then, long before then.

Things couldn't stay the way they had been because he had done exactly when he'd aimed to do. He'd woken up the Ripper and asked him to play.