InsaneJournal

New Voices (Mag)
Erik's impending aria for love was something Hannibal wished very much to embrace for his own uses. He knew that he would not, however, because it was the opus of his friend and his friend's pain. The loss of River Tam was a weight upon the chest of the boy doctor, he knew it too well. He had, until now, suppressed it in the face of the needs of others. Alone as he was in this moment, it was difficult to not think about.

He had loved her. He still, of course, loved her, though it was difficult for him to think of her in a present tense, as she was no longer there to encourage it. She was the past for him. A thing that had once been. Hannibal ached for her and wished to find a way to bring her back to him. Selfishly, he wished that she could be summoned from wherever she had been sent, even if it was home.

There was that part of him that longed to use Erik's notes to express his loss, his sadness. He could do naught but perhaps turn to Wagner or Beethoven to pour his heart into. Not now, though. Now he had other things to focus on. Arya Stark. Erik. Getting them both back to health and into the world.

Getting Erik to let go of this ridiculous notion of suicide.

He had given the other man instruction to meet him at the mansion to say goodbye to Arie in person. Arie. The girl whom would be raised a killer, a skilled one at that, by Hannibal's hand. By Erik's, too, if he could be convinced out of his funk. It was a part ruse that Hannibal hoped to use to waylay Erik for a time.

Now he just had to find the key component. The voice. He needed somebody who would stir Erik out of his mood, who would awaken him to the world once more. Hannibal had auditioned every soprano currently in the opera's employ and had found none who could match Christine. The voice was the only thing that would stay the Phantom to see his opera come to life. Hannibal's hope that after that was accomplished, Erik would see his own folly and come back. He needed him to.

Disgusted with his lack of success thus far, Hannibal was headed toward his favorite coffee haunt when he heard it. Lilting at him across the wind. He glanced around but nobody else seemed to be hearing it. Hannibal followed his ear down the street, where an open window called to him.