Will Graham's limp body, positioned with care to sit in the leather arm chair, appeared to Hannibal an effigy of a king who died upon his throne to be found thousands of years later, ghastly and wonderful.

He looked upon him with a peculiar blend of anger, fear, and idolatry. It shamed Dr. Lecter to acknowledge that he was no longer his own master but to deny it would be more lowly still, beyond the dignity of the vague notions of stoicism that flitted through his mind amid the rapture of sensation; he had woven many delicate strings that stretched out to Will but could not keep him still regardless of the labor and delicacy of the effort. He simply looked upon him and savored the moments of unconsciousness as one would gaze upon a dead beloved's photograph, intrigued by feelings only time and distance could evoke. All the while he was fully aware of the morbidity of something that he could call neither painful nor pleasurable but simply compelling. He gravitated towards the image of Will Graham as to that of a deity, the appearance of which was arbitrary but whose essence was powerful, he imagined its immanent decay and tortured himself with it.

Hannibal felt an uncomfortable sensation as though pressure were accumulating in his skull and pushing against its walls, his hands reached up and his fingers passed roughly through his hair, trying to suppress it. His consciousness was like a nurse flitting between two patients in different states of peril, one fully restrained and howling in pandemonium while the other remained a perfectly insentient mathematician calculating the odds as his feet grew paralyzed. Dr. Lecter could not find within himself an equilibrium that would convince him of his own resilience. He found himself to be both desperate and cruel, the only thing stopping him from ravenous acts was the awareness of how ineffectual his outbursts would be, how fleeting the catharsis that would come, if it would come at all. There was nothing to destroy or create that would bring him pleasure. Hannibal saw the face of his self-love and it was godly.

Will Graham had tricked him and he had allowed himself to be tricked by the fancy that a bond between himself and another human being was possible and he would nurse this pain for three or four years, the mathematician calcuated. All forms of empathy appeared to him as self-love, self-pity, to lay laurels at one's own feet while masking the absurd egoism of it all. Hannibal tasted the words, the bile of them, wondering if they were true.

Nothing seemed particularly true or untrue so he sipped from his wine glass and smiled and pitied.

He looked at himself and his idol from above, as he was prone to do when emotion ventured to overwhelm him, from the vantage point he imagined the satire of himself and Will Graham as well as the thoughts that ought to be thought, the feelings that ought to be felt. Then he closed his eyes, sensing that it was no good. There was no object to strive for and no plan to be devise. There was simply himself and a man onto whom he projected many sentiments, the proverbial symbolic man, rather than a creature of instincts and speculations. He was no different from the symbolic woman or the symbolic child, though for the latter Abigail was better suited. Will Graham was a different sort of lost.

Perhaps he was all three; he likely was, Hannibal concluded at last, feeling a sort of petty annoyance. At that moment he noticed that the pressure that threatened to shatter his skull had subsided as he allowed himself to experience pettiness.

How he struggled to create an Eden for Will Graham, one that welled and subsided in constant waves bringing great pleasures and great pains to awaken both Will and himself. He had tried to be all things to him, perhaps that was where he had failed. To be Eve and the Serpent and God all at once, to instigate inner conflicts and push the hand of fate to his whimsy, creating beautiful myths and heroic figures that could never have pushed themselves up from the grayness of most natures. Not without encouragement, that much he would concede. But these important roles could not be entrusted to inferior actors, all would go astray, it would be a muddle and a farce! Yet there were times when he too had almost lost himself in his enthusiasm and given away the climax, how unbearable it would have been to Dr. Lecter, to be seen as a foolish ostentatious man behind the immaculate mask. No, that would not end him - surely not for his mind was always working and would find beauty in any finale. It made him smile to consider the necessity of wickedness; malice and brutality that create greatness for men who would have otherwise found no opportunity to fashion heroes out of themselves and battle demons long repressed. He was their savior, exorcising them for curiosity's sake.

These thoughts soothed him, the illusion of power was a most reassuring thing for many a man, only slightly dampened if one has seen the clockwork behind it. Yet the familiar figure before him oppressed him still, Dr. Lecter had only to look up to feel the burden that loomed ahead if he let his thoughts wander. He would ache and bleed, imagining the picking and prodding that his life held in store for him now that a beautiful thing had been tarnished. Hannibal knew that he would dissect the memories of himself and Will for many years to come, exploring the imaginary routes that could have been taken.

He knew Will like no one else shall ever know him, Dr. Lecter vented within the auditorium of his skull, it was pitiful, truly pitiful, that more could not be had out of their short time together, much shorter than he had ever anticipated. It pained him to be discarded without a greater struggle. Somehow it seemed to him on an emotional level that there was little that could not be sewn together, certainly it would not be what it had been before, but it was the essence that mattered. The allure of Will's strangeness he would not easily find again and trying would be a distraction, perhaps one that he would urge himself to attempt in order to seek refuge from his thoughts. Something thrilling and damning to make him feel like a monster again.

To be an ordinary man growing old and festering in isolation was a dreadful thing to be, not something that could ever be exhibited. But a monster, that we can exalt! To marvel that such a creature had ever come into being among mortals, walked among them, kissed and caressed them, seducing and beguiled them. There was no shade of blood in his eyes nor decay in his scent as he passed, only grandeur.

Few were aware of all that it took to stitch together such a being, they lacked the confidence. But even such a being was but disposable amusement. It had to be put away at night and during solitary broodings for more serious things, when tailored suits and tailored aphorisms did not suffice to make one feel tangible. It seemed long ago that Dr. Lecter had lost his sense of selfhood, thus urging him to recreate it in others in the faint hope that it would one day be reflected back to him in its perfect form.

He had found that form, found it at last in Will Graham. And if he had not found it, he had imagined it - an almost indistinguishable equivalent.

And even as the object of his desires had sunk into his embrace he knew that he was falling deeper still. Will had left him little else to attribute his melancholy to. The man selfishly forced him to see himself as something ugly and dull. He could not see himself clearly as villain or hero, nor even as a narrator of his own demise. Nor could he acknowledge his self-pity enough to allow himself the role of martyr.

He was a man in perpetual mourning, for something was always decaying.

These thoughts he vented within the auditorium of his skull as it came to light that his meticulous play was coming to its conclusion. There was no applause, no tears, no audience, only a choking that comes from a mind oversaturated with feelings, plausible theories, and a loosening grip upon reality. He could not loathe nor desire, for there were no enemies nor beauties. Dr. Lecter had already abandoned Will Graham the man but Will Graham the idol would always haunt him.

Hannibal's thoughts turned to his own death. Not because he could not bear the pain, he knew that he could. Not in outcry, there would be no one worthy to witness his rebellion, real or imagined. Not even in the wake of emotion, as a numbness and clarity took him in. It was lethargy that drew him away from life, having grown weary of its pleasures and pains and seeing little else but repetitions in his future. He assured himself that he had aged faster and that it was his time. There was pain too, much more than he allowed himself to admit a part of him dreaded it, though it was not foreign to him. It seemed bittersweet to imagine dying in Will's arms, imagining Will had heard his silly wicked thoughts and would hold him still. The two of them were human, nothing else. Nothing else. He chanted this mantra in place of his sterile logic; he remembered logic in his prior thoughts but another part of him knew it was something else, modified by fanciful literature. He desired it, desperately. Humanity and love. No more of the games he had grown used to playing with unwilling actors. No more of the melodramas that he took for reality. At every thought he imagined mocking laughter all the while knowing that they envied him - the proverbial they that one asks questions to in the looking-glass in a pursuit of perfection.

"They envy me Will, they truly do and it's wonderful!" he muttered with sickly laughter, kneeling on the floor next to the unconscious man, his fingers clumsily grasping the other's hand. Dr. Lecter struggled to pick himself up, knocking over a bottle of wine that spilled scarlet liquid over the floor, shards of green-tinted glass glistened reminding him of sapphires, envy, and lying. No it was glass, only glass. He felt like he would vomit.

Hannibal recoiled in his delirium, suddenly frightened by the mannequin he had made of his beloved and the blood that he may have spilled. He wanted to flee from the room but he could not recognize himself in such a figure as the one he was becoming, an unfamiliar role that he did not want. The madman.