Here's a tiny ficlet I wrote last weekend, in a wild attempt to procrastinate on studying for my Latin exam. I was actually as drunk and bitter as my buddy Raoul is in this fic (as you're about to find out) when I was writing it, so make of that what you will. I wrote drunk, I edited drunk (I really did), and I sure hope it turned out okay. Any inconsistencies in plot, vocabulary, and the like, can be attributed to the whiskey. I blame you, Old Fitzgerald. You taste hella good tho, so I forgive you.
Please R&R ^_^
It's well past midnight, and the Vicomte de Chagny is choking himself in a bottle of absinthe and his own ruminations. And he can't decide which is more toxic to his well-being.
"Phil-Philippe..." He calls out in the darkness of his chambers, but Philippe has been out of town for two days now. The maid told him the moment he stepped into the mansion this very evening, but the 73% alcohol solution managed to erase the memory from his mind. He was ashamed to admit, had the maid not told him, he wouldn't have noticed.
Well, he would-
No, he wouldn't. Because all that occupies his mind is thoughts of her. He is so keen to completely disregard the absence of his own brother. Still, his brain is wrapped around the way she had plaited her hair today, exposing her neck to the sun and to him. He was ashamed to admit, he had probably stared at it for longer than the fiery star that was gazing down at her at all hours. He had hence declared the sun as his rival...
Infuriating, this sentiment. So tender in feeling, yet so agonising in nature. Exquisite. Bittersweet. Drug-like. The absinthe paled in comparison to this.
How did it even find its way into his heart? One day she was but a memory, the next she was back into his life, a memory enkindled, and the day after she was the memory - the only memory. And so she had remained to this moment.
During the daytime, memorising her face had become his favourite activity. Once the skies grew dark, however, this activity became his damnation. Every night, without fail, thoughts of her tormented his mind, and there was nothing he could do about it.
La douleur exquise, the poets call it.
He wants nothing more than to rub away all memories of her face from his head. To let go, to forget. He pleads with his sense to see her in the street and barely notice her, give no heed to her presence, as if she's just another stranger, a common representative of her sex, and nothing more. He wishes for her name to disgust him. He wants her gone.
But at the same time, he doesn't.
He wants her to always be there, present in his mind's eye, lurking on the inside of his eyelids. He holds on to the image of her, standing by his side on the street, their hands entwined in a tight embrace of digits and a meeting of palms. He wants their lips to follow. He yearns for her name to be his prayer, always on the tip of his tongue. He wants her near.
But she's far.
How can she manipulate his mind like this, when he can barely control it?
He's at his wits' end. He wants to hate her, has to hate her. God knows, he has tried to hate her. God knows, hating her is so much easier than loving her.
But the pain is addictive. Having her hurt him is infinitely better than nothing at all.
She knows how to rob people of their distractions, and claim their hearts and ears for herself. She does it on the stage, every night, and she always succeeds. Ever the experienced thief that she is, she added his own heart to her prized collection of trophies. And she took his mind with her, just for the fun of it.
What hurts the most is the fact that he knows he has granted her permission to hurt him. He gave her his heart consensually for her to poke holes in and twist in her hands. But, for the life of him, he can't remember when he did it. Was it the first night, when he saw her on the stage? Or was it in her dressing room? Or was it by the seashore when they were young and innocent?
It feels as if it has been like this all along. And maybe, it has. Maybe the spell was cast when he touched the scarf, before he had even turned around to catch a glimpse of its owner.
"Did you smile when I had my back turned on you, when I was in the water, Christine? Did you grin and think 'I'll make this one suffer'? I bet you did."
She had, by a long shot. But that's not the name of the game.
The point is that he can't be cured, he can't be free. Never, in the span of a thousand eternities, will he be free.
And the worst part is, he doesn't want to.
He can't blame her.
And he knows he shouldn't.
But there's no way out of this, the only ailment to his turmoil is her. His head is killing him, he can see her now. He sees her face, floating in the alcohol. The glass falls from his hand, the green liquid spilling all over the carpet.
He'll be here when he wakes up in the morning, alone and hungover. And he'll rise and go back to the ceaseless process of pushing this rock that has become his heart up the hill - his own personal conviction.
It's only then that he is the keeper of his heart. Only then, when he has to endure the pain it causes him.
"Ah, Christine…" he chuckles as he dozes off. "I let you have my heart that first day, and you kept it all along. It would be such fun… to see you hold it now. Now that it would crush you, just as it does me."
One moment her form is waning from his gaze like the moon shining through the window, the next he finds himself staring right into her blue eyes as if she's standing a mere inch from him in the bedroom.
He'll lose consciousness any moment now, his lids are growing heavier by the second. He can't feel his head. Somehow, the omnipresent pain is still there. He feels as if he might die from all the love that's trapped inside him.
He can only hope that when he eventually falls deep into his absinthe-induced slumber, he won't dream about her, just as he has done every night this past month. If he does, let this dream at least be less vivid than the others.
Should he like to be overly ambitious, he would pray that when he vomits the alcohol in the morning, the sentiments will leave with it. That is the sole relief he can wish for. There is not much else that he can hold to, or do to stop the pain.
For indeed, there is nothing to be done about a heart furtively stolen.