Chapter 1
A/N:
Well this has been resubmitted.. hope you enjoy it this time guys!
Hello fellow Phanatics. Just to clarify, this is not a crack fic. I promise to finish this one ;)
Now, I thoroughly suggest you approach this questionable work of fiction with an open mind. It is by no means fluffy in the first few chapters and heart breaks are an inevitability when Erik and Christine are involved I'm a sad to say. But please bear with my narcissistic ramblings and enjoy the Phantastical power of Erik and his under shorts of evil. DUN DUN DUUNNNN.
Disclaimer: I do not own Erik. A fact I curse the gods for at least twenty times a day. I blame Loki, he looks sneaky.
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"Are you sure you're quite all right, Christine?" Meg Giry asked her friend mildly, her pale blue eyes filled with concern.
Christine Daae set her cup down on the little round table with more force than necessary, sending tea sloshing over the rim. Her slightly bloodshot eyes narrowed as she looked back at Meg. "I'm fine. Perfectly fine. Never better. Why do you ask? I mean, what would even make you ask a question like that, Meg? I simply can't imagine why—"She jumped slightly when Meg put a hand on her wrist, and more tea splashed into the saucer.
"Well, two hours of sleep a night for the last three weeks doesn't quite sound like enough to me, somehow," said Meg. "I tried to get by on that amount once, when mother kept us up practising that scene with the flying horse every night. Admitted we did grasp the steps but after staying awake for a whole week straight, I believe I saw the horse actually take flight and mother had put me to bed for nearly two days. I do hope you haven't seen anything like that."
"No," Murmured Christine. "I haven't seen anything of the sort. What I have seen for three weeks solid is Eric sodding Desslar." Night after night spent in his ridiculously expensively decorated music room in the depths of the theatre looking down his oh-so-aristocratic nose at her and proclaiming how every single note was missed, pitch offset and lyric mispronounced. She pouted into her tea like a petulant child. His normally melodic voice, tainted by frustration and impatience spun round her head. How dare he say she was "not yet up to acceptable standards"? How on earth could he expect her to be if he denied her sleep night after night until the small hours of the morning? "I swear to you Meg, if I hear once more , just once, that I will never achieve anything when singing like a street urchin, then the next opera is going right up his aristocratic arse!"
"It's a very nice arse, though, isn't it?" Meg stated, as if gathering Christine's opinion on the blue willow pattern on the teacups.
"I hadn't noticed!" snapped Christine. She decidedly had, every single time she had been called into his dark underground lair since she'd unexpectedly received the lead role in Hannibal.
.
She sighed dejectedly and collapsed onto the table, resting her head. "I suppose I should've expected it," she mumbled to herself.
Meg had become momentarily distracted by a young stagehand and hadn't heard Christine.
She had to snap a few times to regain the young blondes attention.
"Sorry, Why?" asked Meg.
Christine raised her head a millimetre or so. "Because he's an evil impulsive murderer who hid his way out of trouble, extorts money from the opera managers, this probably takes a huge chunk out of our wages by the way, and he won't let me sleep. I know he acts all reformed but he's still spending all of his time hatching evil plots to take over the world and strangle puppies. I can tell, Meg. It's got something to do with those trousers he wears… they're tucked just so and they're really tight in back, I notice it every single time he calls me into that evil dungeon-y lair thing he has..."
"What?" asked Meg. "The Opera Ghost in tight trousers?" It had taken Meg long enough to believe the infamous ghost existed, let alone that he was Christine's instructor. But now that she did Meg had very unfortunately jumped on the team Eric wagon. She had even held a short conversation with him demanding to know where her friend disappeared to every night.
Christine rubbed her face with her hands. "Don't pay any attention to me. I think I'm delirious."
"You know," Meg said thoughtfully, "whenever I have trouble sleeping nowadays, I'll have a nice cup of chamomile tea."
"I've tried that."
"Or a relaxing hot bath with lavender oil, and some soothing music."
"I've tried that."
"Or a nice, long, shall we say escapade with Louis. Something that lasts about five and a half hours. I never have any trouble falling asleep then."
"I'm not going to try that!"
"I didn't mean with Louis," said Meg. "But there are an awful lot of other men out there. Your Vicomte for one"
"No," said Christine. "I have told you time and again that Raoul and I are no more than friends."
She slumped back on the table, growling something below her breath about the utter unfairness of life. Suddenly her head jerked up and a strange smile came across her pale face.
" Meg," She began, the wheedling in her tone evident. "remember that strange concoction your mother used to give us when we had two shows in one night?
"I wouldn't recommend that dear, do you remember when Celine took a dose to many and practically started bouncing off the walls?" said Meg. "Anyway it's just concentrated amounts of caffeine mixed with methylenedioxymethamphetamine."
"Sounds perfect," said Christine. "Do you have it?"
"Err… yes," said Meg, taking a small vial out of her pocket, "but I really don't recommend—"
"Give. Me. Now—" said Christine, but she broke off when a hand slammed down a sheaf of papers on the table about one inch from her nose.
"Who is that?" asked Christine without moving. "Oh, why am I even bothering to ask? I already know! It's—"
"The Sandman, come to tell you that bed time is over," A sharp voice pulled both girls to their feet, standing attentively waiting for orders. Madame Giry eyed the girls with distaste. Christine knew that if there was one thing she simply could not stand it was indulgence, and the two young dancers were thoroughly indulging in their Sunday afternoon off.
"Up, Marguerite. You've yet to show me a performance in which you don't yawn half way through the high C, which I suppose shouldn't surprise me by now."
Meg stood and shooting an apologetic look at Christine, scarpered for the door.
"And Miss Daae," She continued, turning her head towards her young charge, "Do you not have a lesson?"
Christine pouted again, desperate to slump back to the table and sleep for roughly a week.
"Yes Madame." She murmured wearily.
"Then what are you waiting for?" The stick clumped against the ground and caused Christine to jump. "I suggest you move quickly, teachers do not like to be kept waiting."
Christine caught the strange tone in her voice and looked up quickly to catch her Ballet Mistresses eye. There was an indefinable emotion there, just for a second, burning through the austere mahogany orbs. But then it dissolved and Christine looked away. The look might have been admiration, but it was laced with something else, some terrible sadness that weighed on her chest like a boulder as she hurried through the rabbit warren of passages and corridors to reach her quiet dressing room.
She trudged into the room, slamming the door and locking it behind her, then stood scowling at the mirror. A faint chuckle met her ears, making her scowl more pronounced. Christine folded her arms over her chest.
"Are you going to let me in then?" She inquired.
Silence hung in the air for a few moments before the tell tale click of the mirror receding back into the wall, revealing the dark tunnel. Christine ignored the gloved hand extended towards her from the darkness and stalked forwards, her arms folded about her chest like a child, nose in the air. Promptly she bumped into a wall and ended up sprawled in a pile of petticoats and skirts on the cold floor. The man above her chuckled yet again his hand softly grasping her upper arm and helping her back to her feet.
"Your grace and poise never fail to amaze me child." His melodic voice echoing around the confined space.
Despite the darkness she sent him a look so dark it could kill a tiger.
Eric chuckled lightly, the half of his face uncovered by the mask of pure white porcelain breaking into a wide grin. The lines of his body became slowly clearer to her as her eyes adjusted.
He took her palm in his own and led her slowly through the tunnel. Dark musings filled her mind, if he tried to bully her this time she would slap the handsome side of his face into next week and strangle him with a string from his beloved organ and then make him sing an entire opera at four in the morning.
Within about ten minutes they reached the lake. Finally Christine thought grumpily to herself chance for a nap. But it seemed she had only just closed her eyes when he was murmuring her name. She resisted the unlady like urge to bite at his hand and pulled herself unceremoniously to her feet.
The cavernous room flickered with candle light, spilling across the floor and the heavy mahogany furniture. But Christine payed more attention to the beckoning swan bed in the corner. She groaned and imagined a few hours buried in its warm depths sleeping off her brutal headache and fuzzy vision. But no, the key cover being drawn back snapped her attention to the tall man at her side.
"Shall we get on then? Or would you like a few moments to sort out, well, that." He lifted an arm to flick a lock of her hair.
Christine's hand shot up to her head, she groaned when she felt the huge knot that had formed during her nap. Torn between the desire to look presentable and the urge to get the lesson over and done with so she could sleep. In the end sleep won out so she plodded her way to the curve of the piano and awaited her teacher.
In her heart of hearts, Christine had to admit that she did understand why he practised her day in day out. The man standing over her and impatiently drumming his fingers on the polished piano top was talented to a degree that oughtn't to be allowed, should be prohibited by law, and definitely should be enforced by a special team of Gendarmes whose only job was to follow Erik around and watch for infractions that would lead to imprisonment with no musical interactions of any kind. The way he played, the way he sang was sinfully good. Not only his voice, but the way he moved was beyond words. Damn him. If she had not seen him in action she would be surprised at the ease with which he negotiated the secret passages and rafters of the theatre.
Her head felt light and airy again as he turned around to pick up his sheets, which was either due to her tiredness or the remarkably well-tailored trousers, she could never decide which (maybe two hours of sleep a night really aren't enough.. she thought blearily.)
The mask caught her eye as he turned back to face the keys, it was so white under his neatly groomed mop of hair and olive skin. It fascinated her, the frozen expression lining the harsh cheek bones and deep eye socket. More than once now she had wanted just to reach out and run her fingers along it. But he would never allow it. She huffed, he never let her do anything.
Christine tried to forget that first time she had pulled his mask away, the painful horrors which lay beneath, the thin, translucent skin, the twisted upper lip, the scars that twisted away around his eyes. Initially she had been terrified, not by the face itself but by the horror it told of, what sort of life had this man known? Since then her angel had been so distant with her, although now she found once she had gotten over the first shock, it added enormously to Erik's appeal. A sort of mystique, if she was to be honest with herself—and it seemed rather hard to be anything else when in the midst of such severe sleep deprivation—there certainly was a great deal of appeal.
The Opera Ghost, by reputation alone, had a way of turning any female under the age of approximately a hundred and fifty into a melted puddle of goo. As Christine had witnessed innumerable times in late night dormitory discussions between her and the other dancers. They whispered his name with fear and excitement It wasn't necessarily easy to say why that appeal was so devastating; at least, Christine could never quite figure it out, because he wasn't handsome in the way that other men were handsome. He was thin, almost too thin, and his hands and feet always looked too large and lanky for his slender frame (although that did tend to make one wonder if those stories whispered in the girls' dormitory at three in the morning about boys with big hands were true, thought Christine. Oh dear. I wonder if I should try some sort of drug?I've heard that opiumis good. Wait, isn't that an antipsychotic medication? On the otherhand, thatmight be just what I need…) His hair was still a deep ebony black, delicately sculpted without a hair out of place. Nobody had hair like that, or if anybody did, it ought to be a girl, (because thatcolour'sgorgeous, not right for a boy at all, and I thought it the first time I ever saw him. His eyebrows were too dark in his pale face, his eyelashes were too long, his eyes were too big and too silver-green, and his face was altogether too pretty. He wasn't handsome; he was beautiful, and men were absolutely, positively, not supposed to be beautiful. It was just too unsettling.
Christine raised her head and glared at Erik. "Well, let's begin before I fall asleep."
Something in her voice had finally started to pull at his short temper.
Erik bent down to shove his face disturbingly close to hers. "Miss Daae, correct me if I'm wrong but did you not tell me not so long ago that you would do anything to become a diva? Did you not say that your life revolved around your music and you would give it every moment you had?"
"I've sung the entire Opera at least ten times!" said Christine hotly. "You keep finding fault with every little detail. Everyone else thinks my voice is fine."
"Well, 'everyone else', whoever they may be, has no sense of artistic taste," said Erik. "If you've been showing them to those idiotic girls in the ballet, for instance, they've likely told you that they're the epitome of class because they do not know talent. But a certainly sensitivity to the difference between high art and just another voice in the crowd is my job, Miss Daae." He looked at her keenly. "And the aria in act three is still decidedly below par. Wouldn't you agree?"
Christine looked away. Erik was right, and she knew it, and she didn't want him to see that she knew it, even though she was afraid that he already had. Her rise in the musical art world had been meteoric in the last four months, ever since her performance in Hannibal it had been all the way up. Right at the beginning of her stay at the opera house, when she was only nine years old, Christine had spent every moment alone in song. When she danced, when she prayed, at one point she began to sing in her sleep. At this young age all she knew was an old folk law her father had taught her as a young child.
I walk alone and wander here,
Looking for my friend.I walk alone and wander here,
Looking for my friend.Look, I meet him here,
He, who my heart holds so dear.Say if you will dance with me,
As you did before?
After the horrible event of her father's death she had gone to Paris, enrolled in the ballet school, and learned everything they could teach her, soaking up knowledge like a sponge, but she always came back to that same song.
As the next months had gone by, she had begun to realize that singing wasn't enough. She had tossed and turned in bed, retreated into herself completely and barely talked to the other girls anymore. She'd spent the entirety of that cold winter alone and singing to herself between sobs.
He had visited her first one night, so long ago it seemed, nearly eight years, under the guise of the angel of music. Young Christine has been delighted to have this strange new friend to confide in and to teach her, he made her feel good again. He did not give compliments freely but with just a word or an approving silence would trigger a compulsive smile that she could not for the life of her get rid of. She couldn't possibly have imagined that her beloved angel and the infamous Phantom were one in the same.
His years of tutoring had been by no means simple, she would toil hour after hour on the stage as a chorus girl then come back to her little chapel and be expected to perform at maximum quality until the lesson had finished. But yet he never showed himself to his protégé, she had begged him many a time, pushing his short patience to the limit with her thirst for knowledge. But he never caved in and in time, she learned not to ask.
Then came that fated day, the new managers, Carlotta's temper tantrum and resignation (or over exaggerated sulk) from the lead and Christine's unexpected promotion. Oh she had no doubt who was behind this particular event, after all, what the phantom wanted, the phantom got. She found herself that night on the stage singing from the heart in front of the crowd, she had never felt safer, more at home or, strangely, more loved at any time in her existence. She had been an instant sensation, and so had the opera house.
Raoul De Chagny had unexpectedly attended that night as well. She had known him as a child, their parents had been reasonably close and they had spent a summer on the beach in Sweden. Obviously at the time the older, much more privileged boy had seemed impossible to resist and she had been shamelessly infatuated with him. He had visited her that night in her dressing room, interrupting her teachings from the angel, but things had always been awkward between them. They'd walked along the river or visited the market or even his chateaux together once or twice, they'd sat in her dressing room and talked a few times, but they had never been able to recapture what Christine had once thought was between them. When she saw Raoul's face looking at her when she sang, he had been bored, Christine realized that it was because there had never really been anything between them at all. Raoul had known what Christine meant by what she'd done, and from that day on, things were over between them, once and for all.
She blinked. Erik's voice was breaking in on her thoughts. And it's a voice that you just can't ignore. Sort of dark and rich and creamy… like hot chocolate…mmm…. I'm rather hungry, when was the last time I ate anything? Or is it more like a chocolate-covered cherry? 'Cherry' and 'Erik Destler' in the same sentence, I really don't think so…
"And is Monday, or is it not, the twenty-fourth of May?" he asked. "And still no improvement?"
"Melted chocolate, the really dark kind, that's it," said Christine, without thinking.
Erik's eyebrows shot up even further, until Christine was sure that they were going to hit his hairline with its perfectly shaped widow's peak. "Child, I do attempt to make allowances for the artistic temperament, but you're trying my patience severely."
Christine took a deep breath and stood up straight. "Look, Erik, you'll get what you want, and so will the audience." She took a folder from the portfolio at the side of the table. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have other things to be attending to. And since I'm here, I may as well show you what I have practised so we can get this done and I won't to take up any more of your oh-so-valuable time."
"Fine," said Erik. "We might as well get this over with." He sat on the piano stool and leaned forward, waiting.
She began with the aria she had been practising, a short but tricky piece that she had had such great difficulty in mastering.
He moved his hands with incredible elegance as he watched her, and that was part of it too, Christine decided, because Erik always moved that way. Even his most mundane actions were graceful. I'll bet when he's undresses and unbuckles his belt, that's graceful as well, except that Phantoms wouldn't undress, would they… so I suppose he'd have to be unbuckling his belt to do something else… oh, I really do need to get some sleep. Perhaps if I hit myself over the head with a hammer repeatedly, that would work…
"Not good enough," Erik said bluntly, cutting her off mid note.
"What!" Christine exclaimed. She'd been keeping her temper for two weeks running, but she could tell that it was about to break through now. "That's what you've been saying every single time! Would you mind telling me exactly what you mean, oh phantom?"
"Well, the first verse makes you sound vaguely like a wailing child, to begin with. The chorus sounds soppy and fatuous. And on top of it all, you've forgotten the eighth line again," said Erik.
"Dammit," mumbled Christine.
"Yes, well, it is a bit of a problem," Erik said testily.
"I can do that again. I can do it right now. See? See me doing it right now? Oh! What are you doing, Erik?"
Erik took her hand firmly in his and looked her straight in the eye. She tried to remember if he'd ever actually touched her before in all the time she'd ever known him, since she was eleven years old and he was twenty-five. She didn't think so. She'd always been sure that he would feel icy cold, but his fingers seemed to burn hers; it was the last thing she'd expected. I wonder if his skin feels that hot all over? His arms… his neck… his face… what about his lips? Too late, Christine realized that she was staring at him as if hypnotized; he was saying something, and she hadn't heard a word of it.
"You've got the talent, Miss Daae; that's not the question," said Erik. She could not help but savour the way her name rolled of his tongue. No Christine, naughty! "I've always known it. I've always seen it, when you were a young child, barely even nine, you used to come to the roof every night and sing something, in Swedish. I never asked you what it meant, I could never get the cour- I mean, well never mind. You used to sit in the Cradle of Apollo's lyre and look out over Paris, and your hair would blow in the wind and get in your mouth, but you never noticed because you were so intent on singing your charming little folk song—"
"What? I didn't know anyone saw me do that." Christine felt badly confused, and had a sudden, irrational desire to crawl under the table at knowing that someone had seen her in her most intimate moments, at her very weakest.
"Never mind," muttered Erik. "The point is, it's not a question of talent. It's that there's something missing in your song, at least when it comes to this particular Opera."
"How can you say—" Christine began.
"Because you know it's true," said Erik, his tone becoming increasingly impatient. "You need something that you haven't got yet. Some sort of maturity. I can't put my finger on it. But you've got to branch out, you've got to experience more than sheltered life under the thumb of your stern ballet mistress. You know it. There's something… I'm not at all sure what… some sort of experience that you need to have. Some sort of.. Passion that is missing from your work."
He was looking at her altogether too keenly, Christine decided.
"That's it!" Christine pushed back from the piano and tried to walk away her. Erik's hand on her arm restrained her. He examined her face. Could there be a trace of concern in his eyes? Christine wondered. Now I know I really am delirious!
"Child, when was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"
"What do you care?" she snapped. "And I am not a child. I am seventeen years of age. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going home, and I'm going to sleep for a week. The sooner these are done, the sooner our little forced association will be over. Then we'll never have to see each other again as long as we live, which I'm sure will be the happiest possible state of affairs for both of us!"
Erik 's face hardened instantly into a beautiful mask of indifference, and Christine decided that she'd certainly imagined that trace of concern.
"That," he said in measured tones, "would be perfectly delightful, I assure you."
"Fine."
Christines hands were clenched so tightly into fists that she was nearly shattering the little vial still clutched between her fingers. She examined it for a moment, shrugged and downed it in one defiant gulp. Then she strode out of the lair into the dark tunnels, ignoring Erik's cries for her to return and not to be so foolish.
The darkness in the tunnels was absolute. Christine blinked at it trying desperately to see her way as Erik could, wishing that she'd thought to bring a lantern. She didn't feel the least bit more awake, either. Well, maybe the vial didn't work instantly. Her stomach rumbled loudly as she began to in the opposite direction to Erik, reminding her that she wasn't at all sure when her last meal had been.
"For crying out loud, Child, I don't want you dying on me," said Erik, his voice materialising out of the dark. "Then you'll never get that opera done. How about some dinner?"
"Erik, I thought I told you that I didn't want to see you again!" said Christine between clenched teeth.
Nothing answered her but the faint sound of dripping.
Hmm, strange. He's probably just trying to scare me again.
Christine breathed more freely. However, the food didn't sound like a bad idea at all.
Surely they serve food down here somewhere right?
She saw a lighted room up ahead and made a beeline for it, sure enough a small restaurant was inside.
The waiter was not yet present so she seated herself and started flicking through the menu.
"May I take your order?" drawled a familiar voice. Christine gave a violent start. She looked up to see Erik looking back at her in a chef's hat. He pushed it back from his forehead and lazily closed one eye in a wink. She gave a shriek and threw the menu up in the air, turning and pushing her way out of restaurant, passed the door and ran smack bang into Erik, who nimbly plucked the menu from the air and handed it to her.
"Going somewhere?" he asked.
The dark, cold tunnel looked perfectly normal. Christine slowed down to a brisk walk, still whipping her head frantically from side to side at intervals. For the sake of her continued sanity, she finally decided that it was better to believe that she'd imagined the entire thing. It could have only happened because she hadn't had a decent meal in so long, as Meg would doubtless have been more than happy to tell her, Christine thought sourly.
If she got lost in the tunnels and died of starvation, she would never have to see Erik and his ridiculously tight trousers again. (but, wait, if I never see him again, then how am I ever going to figure out exactly how his tailor manages to cut his shirts so that they somehow fit over his really broad shoulders and then taper down to his really slender waist, and then snuggle perfectly into the remarkably tight front of those extraordinarily evil trousers… Christine! Stop it!)
Christine wandered further into the maze of tunnels, thankful that had finally stopped following her, she slumped down against a wall and rested for a moment.
"My, my," drawled a familiar voice. "Resting already? However do you expect to achieve your dream if you cannot walk for five minutes without needing a nap?"
"Gah!" She cried and jumped to her feet, and ran out of the shop and down the street as fast as her legs would carry her.
Dear lord, I need medical help.
Helpfully at that moment a doctor's office appeared in the wall next to her.
"The doctor will see you now," said the receptionist.
"Thank you," Christine said stiffly. She turned her head. Then, even though she knew that she shouldn't, she couldn't resist sneaking a look back. The brunette witch who had been sitting behind the desk a moment ago had, of course, turned into Erik. He gave her a snarky look. She ignored him.
"I really appreciate your seeing me on such short notice, Dr. Veruckt," said Christine from her position on the sofa.
"Mm-him," said the doctor, writing busily in a notebook.
"It's just that I'm not sure what's been happening to me. It doesn't make any sense. I've never even heard of anything like this."
"Mmm-mm," said the doctor, still writing in the notebook.
"No matter where I go, no matter what I do, all I see is Erik… dozens and dozens of Erik's… everyone looks like him… everyone sounds like him… and they're all wearing the same sort of really tight trousers…" Her voice broke in a sob. "Doctor, I'm afraid I'm going mad. Just tell me if I am. I'd almost be glad to know for sure!"
Scribble, scribble, scribble, while Christine gnawed at her fingernails in an agony of suspense. Finally, she could endure the silence not one moment more.
"Oh for the love of Christ!" She yelled. "What kind of therapeutic technique is this?"
Very slowly, the doctor lowered the notebook to reveal his face. Erik smirked back at her. "Really, Miss Daae do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"
"Augghhhh!" Christine ran screaming from the office and back into the tunnels.
"Really, Child, it's not as if you've got anywhere to go," observed Erik.
"You're only running from yourself, you know," called another Erik. Another Erik nodded his head in agreement as he walked by.
"No… no…"moaned Christine, spinning round, trying not to trip but the cacophony of Erik's rose and swelled from all sides of her like a bad chorus.
She felt a dark suit in the darkness and grabbed him viciously.
"You," she snarled at the Erik's as they stepped out to block her passage, "you will simply not leave me alone will you?"
They laughed.
"We are not now Erik, we are Erik from four years ago.
"What are you talking about you idiots?"
The Erik's exchanged a hurt glance with one another.
"That's a fine way to thank us for beating out rhythms to perverted sexual fantasies about you every single night for the last four or five years," said thirty-one year old Erik.
Christine blinked, a hot blush appearing in her cheeks. "What?"
Thirty year old Erik nodded. "Oh, yes. Well, twenty nine and twenty eight always did imagine you a bit older, until you grew that lovely pair of tits when you were about thirteen and a half years old.
"And I'm supposed to be flattered by this?" Christine demanded.
"Of course," shrugged Thirty-one year old Erik. "After all, it's us we're talking about."
"Out of my way," snarled Christine, pushing them aside. "And you!" She stabbed a finger into Thirty four year old Erik chest. "You're much worse. They were just complete prats, but you…"She couldn't finish her sentence. If he hadn't dropped the scenery on Carlotta then she never would have been forced to sing and then deprived of sleep for a week straight. Then Joeseph Buquet never would have died. She preferred to hold onto her anger at Erik , and her blame.
"You did terrible things," she finally said.
"I did," he said.
"And you never even wanted to not do them. You never wanted to be better than you were, that year," she said. She knew that wasn't fair, even as she said it.
He shook his head. Then he took her hand and laid it against his face, the side uncovered by a mask, and closed his eyes, and said, very softly, "If I'd had you, that year, Christine—if you'd been to me what you were to Raoul—I could have been better than I was. And I wouldn't have left you, or given you up. Even if I hurt you, I suppose. So it was better for you that I didn't, really."
"What?" repeated Christine. "Wait a minute—the you's from a few years ago just said that you's were touching yourself every night when you's thought about me, which ought to be only disturbing but is actually shamefully arousing, by the way, and now you're saying… well…" She faltered.
"Understand, I'm not saying that the bringing myself to the point of ecstasy to fantasies about taking you stopped; I think the pace actually picked up," mused thirty-four year old Erik. "Especially over the summer, when you went away for a month with the blonde one, It was like a part of me had died, been ripped from my chest. I do wish you'd been close to hand, Christine, so I wouldn't have been forced to make do with, well my hand. But no, you where perfectly happy with, him."He growled now, she felt herself shiver a bit.
"Me and Raoul, have never been more than friends Erik."
"As if you saved yourself for me that year," sneered Erik. "Did you ever have the slightest idea that the entire Opera was referring to you as 'The Vicomtes play-thing'?"
"Look, that's not the least bit fair- I never did anything like that with Raoul, and you can believe me or not, I don't care—" exclaimed Christine. But she was arguing with thin air. Thirty four year old Erik was gone. She kept walking.
Twenty five year old Erik stood at the side of the tunnel bathed in a soft glow. She groaned. "Oh, God, what do you have to say? I never even saw you all year long!"
"Once, you did," he said.
"When? I don't remember it!"
He shrugged, his hands in his pockets. "You wouldn't. It was when you first came to the Opera house. The other dancers despised you for the attention you received from their mistress, not one of them had a word to say to the little girl with the beautiful voice who cried all the time. I was there hidden in the walls, wondering why I even bothered with my existence. No one would, or ever could really love me. I was a monster, a terrible beast. And my face, oh Christine my face was a torture no man deserved to bear. Then I saw you, crying, mourning your dead Father. I wanted to go to you, Christine. I wanted to comfort you. I wish I had." His voice was very bitter. Looking at him, she realized that she did remember. He was thinner than the Erik of the present day, haggard, in fact, tired and worn and broken-looking, and she wondered what he had suffered that year to make him that way. She had never known, and she had certainly never asked.
One corner of Twenty-five year old Erik's mouth turned up in a cynical half-smile. "Oh, loads of things, Christine, and I doubt that most of them are anything you'd want to hear. In Persia the Shah used me to torture his prisoners, for a start—"
Christine took off at a blind, stumbling run, her vision swimming with tears. Child Erik's called out to her to pick them up, holding up their chubby arms, and babies in carriages with Ebony black hair started crying and waving their hands, tiny masks adorned their faces. She only sobbed harder and ran faster, her breath coming in short, desperate pants, until finally she tripped over something and fell flat on her face. Strong arms started to help her up. She fought against them.
"No! No!" she wept, struggling. "Let go of me—I'll call the police, I'll call the Angels—oh, no, except I suppose they'll all look like you-"
Her rescuer was, of course, Erik . Christine looked at him and began to cry in great, hiccupping sobs. His dark brows drew together in a frown.
"Christine?"
"Which one are you?" she mumbled.
Erik's eyes narrowed as he helped her to her feet. "Miss Daae, why did you run off on your own in a dangerous myriad of tunnels?"
"Oh," she said in relief. "It's you. It's the real you." Now that she knew she was actually face-to-face with the actual Erik , she wondered why she hadn't seen instantly that it had to be him. She stood up, smiling at him brightly.
"Err… yes…" He spoke in careful, measured tones. "Are you quite all right?"
She cocked her head to one side. "Hmm. I thought it was the real you, anyway. But I'm not sure if the real would have asked that. You'll have to prove it. Otherwise, you might be the Thirty-five year old you, or the Thirty-sixth.."
"Child" asked Erik, "exactly how long have you gone without a proper night's sleep?"
"Oh, ages," said Christine, "but that's really got nothing to do with it. You see, Erik, the problem is that there are just so many of you. And you're everywhere. Everywhere I look… everywhere I go…" She sighed contentedly. "It's such a relief to tell someone about it; you can't imagine. But now there's only you. The rest are gone."
"I think we've got quite enough interesting comments to go on with at the moment," said Erik. "Damn it all to hell, that means we should take you back to my home."
"You didn't used to talk like that," Christine said suddenly.
"What?"
"In your Thirty first… and your Thirty-second. You didn't say things like that, or at least I found out that you didn't always. You liked to make everyone think that you could hide your emotions, but you couldn't always… you said that you wanted to be better than you were, that you could have been, if you'd only had me…"
Erik stopped in his tracks. They were in an alleyway between two shops, and he pulled her into the darkness for a moment, his silvery eyes scanning her face. "What?" he demanded. "What the hell did you just say to me, Child?"
She passed a hand over her eyes. "Nothing. I don't know."
He took a deep breath. "Look, what I was just saying is that I don't believe there's any decent alternative to your coming with me to my rooms. I don't know if you're sick, or drunk, or if you've gone mad, or simply sleep-deprived, or what, but I can't leave you out on the street like this. Now come with me." He grabbed her hand.
She looked at him owlishly. "Not until you turn round."
He looked at her blankly.
"You have to turn round first," Christine insisted. "That's the only way I can be sure that it's you."
Erik sighed. "Perhaps the hospital would be a more appropriate place to take you, but in the interests of cutting this insanity short, I'll turn round. There. Satisfied now?"
"Yes." Christine sighed happily.
This definitely had to be the present-day Erik, she decided. After all, he was wearing those tightly-tailored trousers. Perhaps it was her imagination, but they didn't seem as profoundly evil as before.
Wait! Alarm bells went off in her mind. This is it. It's got to be! He's somehow got me to believe that those trousers of his aren't evil anymore—that's the sinister plot I've been trying to find out! Yes ,yes, yes! And now he's ensnared me into his lair… oh, dear, oh dear… But it was too late; that was her last thought before feeling the odd pulling sensation of fainting, slumping to the ground and the next thing she knew, she was standing in her room at Erik's, or rather swaying groggily and having a great deal of trouble keeping on her feet.
(A/N) I would just like to make a few things clear,
methylenedioxymethamphetamine is the scientific name for ecstasy, admittedly something not often used in nineteenth century Paris but meh. Erik is a genius, for all we know he could have had a bat cave down there with helicopters and talking sheep.
Erik's decidedly evil trousers will play a decidedly pivotal role in this story, as will the undershorts of evil. (DUN DUN DUUUUUN)
Yes I am aware how wrong a twenty five year old man obsessing over a ten year old is, but don't judge, let the story develops and things.
The song used is an actual Swedish folk tale translated into English by the lovely people of mamalisa a website on Swedish things. The song is called Ensam går jag här och vankar and if you google it hard enough I'm sure you can find the tune.
Ok, well the first six chapters are written and will be up this week, please tell me what you think! I love you all.
