lmao so i just got done with our fall play, and everyone on crew is obsessed with poto so you can imagine thats all we discusses (along with how gay we all are but that's beside the point) quick note, raoul is 21 in this, and my french isn't the best (/thanks poppa/)

anyways, this is kind of a quick angsty/fluffy preview for a larger story im working on. it just introduces the main character, characterizes him a bit so the story isnt as confusing. this is a strange mix of self insert and oc, because im trash. enjoy.

The endless sea of swirling greens and reds and golds that swallows the foyer of the opera is enough to make any sober person dizzy. The horrible mix of absinthe and wine doesn't help at all. It makes one stumble around in the middle of a storm of bright colors feeling sick.

Many, though, are flushed and partaking in the dancing, one man who can hardly make sense of anything to begin with, got caught in the middle of it, trying to stop his glass of wine from staining his light golden frock coat.

He is giggling madly, enjoying the madness he is caught up in. A few women, and drunk men, catch him in their dance. It isn't until an arm wraps itself around his waist that he is pulled out from the chaos, and into a dimly lit room.

Through the few candles lit and his drunken haze, he manages to make out the concerned and mildly scornful face in front of him. He ignores the glass of wine he held in his hands and lets it tumble out, but the vicomte manages to catch it and set it on a nearby dresser.

"Oh my sweet little Raoul! I have been meaning to come and see you!" He wraps his arms tightly around his neck. His red cheeks feel warm against Raoul's, and the smell of absinthe on him is so heavy that if you could turn smell into a liquid, there would be enough alcohol to kill a drunkard.

Raoul chuckles and hugs him back, awkwardly patting his back. "Yes, Clair, it has been a while, hasn't it?"

"Too long. You've gotten taller. I don't like it, it means I have to stand on my tippy toes now," he murmurs into the vicomte's neck. "And your hairs gotten longer. How long has it been anyways? I can't seem to remember anything clearly..."

"It's only been a few years, ma grosse, nothing longer."

Clair pulls back and lightly swats his nose with a playful frown. "How rude! You can no longer me that!" He proudly pats his stomache. "Or shall I strip for you to prove it?" He unravels his arms and removes his coat, and loosens his bright red cravat before Raoul's hands stop his.

"There's no need for that, I promise!" Raoul laughs at his pouty face. "Would you rather me call you mon râleur? I think it fits you perfectly."

Clair can hardly keep a straight face and starts laughing, and hides his face in Raoul's chest.

"What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing." He snorts and wraps his arms around his waist.

"Come on petite chou, you can tell me."

Clair looks up at him with a strange passing of seriousness. "I would prefer you call me mon dieu de sexe(1) again..."

Raoul pushes him away with his eyebrows furrowed and a frown etched across his face. "You buveur! I thought I told you to never mention that again!"

"Bah!" Clair sits down on a box. "You called me dieu de sexe, l'amour de ma vie, raison d'être, plaisir quotidien, shall I go on?"

Raoul's expression grows darker, and he squares his shoulders. "You ought to stop now," he says through gritted teeth.

Clair stands up violently, the pile of boxes tumbling backwards. "Je était votre tout! Je t'aime plus que la vie elle-même! Vous avez utilisé pour ressentir la même chose aussi... Qu'est ce qui a changé? Ai-je fait quelquechose de mal?" The tears spilling down from his face feel cold on his burning cheeks. His wavy brown hair starts curling up more and more.

Raoul's face softens and he cups his cheeks in his hands. The corners of his eyes start to prick. "Clair... I'm sorry... Je suis tellement désolé."

He laughs, it sounding as light as a bell. "Look at me. I'm, what, four years older, non? I saw you and Christine. If there was anyone other than me you loved, I'm glad it's her. I just thought... I- I needed closure. Thank you, Vicomte de Chagny, I'll leave you alone now." He slips from his grip, and exits the room.

The gust from the door blew out the few candles lighting the room that felt entirely too warm now. It leaves Raoul in complete darkness and turmoil. "Bon sang!" he curses, storming out of the room.

;~;

Who knew that an opera house could be this confusing?

Clair thinks he is heading for the roof to cool off at first, and then when his vision starts swimming, he tries making his way back to the coat room to... is it the prop room, or the costume room? The more he tries to remember, the more confusing everything becomes, and the cold, damp hallways he finds himself in don't really help.

Now that he thinks back on it, maybe the way back to Raoul isn't through a slightly crooked painting he tried to straighten.

He leans against the wall, the mossy stone making his green and gold embroided vest dirty and cold. He slides down, crying out of frustration and embaressment. What he would do now for bottle of wine. "Merde! Quel imbécile j'ai été!" he gets out between sobs.

His nose is starting to run, and his sobs turn to hiccups that make him feel like he wants to throw up. How could he have said all those things to man he is in love with? But how could Raoul say those things back to him?

If he had that bottle of wine right about now, he would have finished it off and thrown it at that figure he saw strolling at a rather rapid pace up to him.

Wait.

He's been drunk enough before to hallucinate, but the sound of his heels clacking against the stone, and his cloak trailing behind him seemed all too real to him, and as he got closer, he could make out a porcleain mask that adorns half of his face.

Ah shit.

He can't bother to try to escape. The only person he could imagine being in this labrynth would either be another drunk like him, Madame Giry, or the ghost who lurked inside the bowels of the Opera Populaire. Since it is obvious he isn't Madame Giry, or a drunk, it only left one option that sends a shudder down his spine.

It is the Opera Ghost, and he has been caught in his domain.

Clair feels the tears, which he thought had dried up, spill uncontrollably again. He is going to die, he knew it, and it was going to happen without him appologizing to Raoul.

;~;

The Phantom can't believe the headache he is suffering from, but what could he expect from the loud and gaudy party that always occurs the night before Christmas.

Out of all the parties and masqurades and galas the opera threw, the Christmas one is always the worst. Full of loud and horrible holiday music, and throngs of inebriated guests so thick a man would almost certainly mistake you for his wife from behind.

He would often sit there the day before the party thinking of how he could send the guests scattering so he wouldn't get a pouding hedache like this again.

But Christine and Madame Giry usually attend the party, and he never felt like unnecessarily upseting them, and instead he would play away at his organ in attempts to rid his home of the horrible music coming from five floors up. Honestly, who knew it was that hard to mask distant music?

Erik stops playing, though, when he hears an unusual sound. Crying, which in itself wasn't odd. Guests often cried at the Christmas party when they were drunk, but this time it sounds oddly loud. Like...

Damn it, the Phantom cursed, not this again! It is always some drunk who managed to find their way into one of the secret enterances. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it is always extremely frustrating trying to figure out where they come in from. Last time, it happened to be a sleep walking Vicomte de Chagny who stayed over to visit Christine.

It was a very interesting experience, but he'd rather not go through it again.

Once over the lake, he starts at the most used enterances first, in case he left them slightly ajar by accident.

Lo and behold, less than a dozen meters into the hallway, there is a crying man sitting on the floor, and looking at him.

When he sees him, he bursts out into tears again. It's one of the reasons he never drinks, drunks were always so emotional. And this man sitting in front of him only proved his point further. He looks young, far too young to be drinking. He hates handling the crying drunks, but it must be done.

"What are you doing?" he asks him, nudging him with his shoe.

The moment the boy looked up at him, he starts crying even harder. "S'il vous plaît monsieur, ne me tuez pas! Je ne veux pas mourir!" he sobs, getting up onto his knees and clutching his cloak.

What confuses is that he was begging for his life even though Erik hadn't showed him his face. He focuses more on his face, and saw some similarities to his dear Christine. Hadn't she mentioned to Meg that her cousin was coming to visit?

He shakes his head. That can't be right, this boy seems like he's Christine's age, at most. He distinctivly remembers her saying her cousin is at least seven years older than her, most likely closer to nine.

The Phantom clutches the material of his waist coat and pulled him up to his feet. "What is your name?" he hisses, jostling the boy.

"C-Clair Réau, monsieur fantôme," he whimpers.

He sets him down, and lets out an irritated groan. He convinces himself the only reason he grabs him by the wrist and marches towards the enterance is because he is a relative of Christine, and he wouldn't want to make her sad because he dissapeared.

"Mon-monsieur?" Clair asks as he gets dragged along, being ignored by Erik. Not getting a word from him, he tries again, but louder. "Mon chouchou(2)?"

This gets him the response of being slammed into the wall.

"What makes you think you can speak to me in such a way?" he seethes, keeping his grip on Clair's shoulders.

He is shaking so much that there was no way Erik is ever going to get a response out of him any time soon.

The Phantom sighs and lets him go. He points towards where the painting is. "Go, get out of here!" he snaps.

Clair only stares at him, wide eyes. His cheeks are still bright pink, and you could see his mind trying to process something. He seems to be past crying and distracted by something entirely. That is another thing the Phantom hates about drunks, they have the attention span of a rat.

"But how can I leave such a handsome man without knowing his name?"

The Phantom's heart nearly stops right at that moment. Handsome? Is he hearing this correctly? He knows he is wearing his mask and wig, he has to touch to make sure. Being called handsome is something that he isn't used to.

"Get out of here."

"Non, give me your name first."

When did this cry baby get some nerve? "I said leave, or do you have a death wish?"

This makes him stop for a moment, but nevertheless, he continued on. "And I said, give me your name."

The Phantom rubs his temple. The music and shouting is starting to get to him again. He knows if he shoves him out, the boy will just come back, and it will be an endless cycle of him coming back, and him throwing him out.

Unless he hung him, but he can't do that to Christine, no matter how much she makes his heart ache. "Fine, just come with me." He yet again grabs his wrist and drags him into the depth of Opera Populaire.

;~;

Clair honestly feels a little smug when he gets the Phantom to lead him deeper into his lair. He is asked to sit in a gondela while the Phantom rows him to the other end of the lake.

They are met with candles, so many candles, and an organ with papers scattered everywhere. There is also a strange abundance of mirrors. It feels homey, but a little creepy. Something about it unnerves Clair deeply, like he shouldn't be here.

He takes the hand that was offered to him. He is being led somewhere, but the brunt of the alcohol he had drank earlier has really started to kick in, so to him being led past all of the candles and draperies and mirrors feels like he is back at the party. Clair has to hold onto the Phantom's waist to keep himself from toppling over, but it makes him stiffen up, so he has to stop.

"Erik," the Phantom says.

They had stopped? How long have they been still? Clair barely takes in what Erik said because he has been trying to figure out where they were. More importantly, if there is a bed, because he is only getting hotter, and the Phantom has gently settled his hand on the small of his back, and it is driving him insane.

"Er...ik?" he repeates back, unsure of if he got it right.

Erik nods down at him.

Looking at him now, he starts getting more distracted by his features. He has a jawline that could kill, and hair that makes his skin seem creamy and smooth. He only wishes he could see the other half.

"You called me handsome."

"Yes... I did." Clair isn't entirely sure if he should have answered that.

"Why?"

"Because you're handsome," oh God Clair is going to end up regretting this. "And I would like to get to know you in an intimate way."

Erik has to pause for a moment. Intimate...? Did...? It isn't very often that it happened, but a blush forms on his face. "A-are you offering-"

"Yes, I am." Clair answers in such confidence that there is no way that it can misconstrued in any other way. He knows that Erik is too unsure, and isn't going to initiate, so he takes matters into his own hands by leading him over to the nearby bed, and sitting him down.

He lifts his hand and caresses the right side of Erik's face, and his other hand on his knee. He pulls him down to his level and lightly pressed his lips to Erik's.

It startles him, and he jumps back, away from the man sitting in front of him. His fingers shakily touch his lips. There's no way he can go through with this, he has to save himself for Christine! It doesn't matter if she thinks she is in love with that vicomte, they are going to get married once he professes his love to her.

He looks back to tell him he isn't going through with it, but Clair is out cold, his chest rising and falling gently.

;~;

Raoul has been looking for Clair for the past two hours or so. He checks is watch, and the fact it says 1:30 does nothing to comfort.

Christine was upset when he went to go check in on her because she hadn't gotten to sit down and talk with him, but Meg took her away to get dressed for bed.

He rounds yet another corner, and finds nothing. He feels like tearing out his hair in worry. Who knows what happened to him. The brief, passing thought that the Phantom got to him makes the anxiety in his chest raise higher. The few glasses of wine he had drank didn't help either. He rushes backed to the party, in search for the coat room where he is certain his sword was.

But on his way back, he sees Clair. Propped up against the wall, near a window. Even though he has passed it what seems like a million times, Clair has never been there before. But now here he is, peacfully snoring.

Raoul is filled with relief, and scoops him up in arms. All he is concerned with right now is getting him out of this cursed opera, and to somewhere safe.

He rushes down the stairs, and out of the front enterance, never feeling the piercing blue eyes watching him from afar.

His carriage is already there, and he rushes so fast that he almost forgets to grab their coats. He runs back in to grab them, and darts back out again.

When he gets there, there is a single red rose in his hand with a black bow tied around it clutched in his hand, and a small smile on his lips.

Raoul frowns and slips it from his grasp, throwing it out the door. He wraps the coat around his shoulder.

As the carriage sets off, the vicomte stares out the window at the opera. He can just barely see a dark figure standing on the side of the side of the building. He wraps his arm around Clair and tries to ignore the unsettling feeling building up.

remember kiddos, erik's a virgin. a lot longer than i planned it to be.

(1) mon dieu de sexe is my sex god... soooo... yeaaaah nice going raoul

(2) mon chouchou, according to my poppa, means my favorite or blue eye boy/girl. you can see the mix up :)