Erik saw it, then - the quiet that had come over Hannibal. Yes, Erik knew that moment, the solace of surrounding oneself with the ghosts that haunted them, and then inviting oneself to dance with them. It hurt, but sometimes.... sometimes, at least in the moment, it was enough.
Yes, it was enough.
Erik swayed on his feet, caught up in the same macabre dance. Behind all the grief and pain, there was also love - and that was what compelled life into this composition. That was what compelled life into anything. For all the times he'd railed bitterly against the human race, against the ones that had treated him as less than a beast, he forgave the entirety of the species -- because it had also given him Christine. And that love, he would carry within him for the rest of his own life.
His friend knew; of course he knew. No one could play this music and not know. They together were united in this dark knowing - that through loss and mourning, they also revealed a love more powerful than the lives they'd been leading had immediately revealed. This was the tribute that their loves deserved. Erik nodded in approval. He had been wrong. Hannibal had been right.