Upon A Starless Sea
By Kryss LaBryn
Author's Forward: All right, my dears. First off, please let me make one thing perfectly clear: So long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, I don't care in the slightest what you're doing, or with whom. It is not my business in the slightest how many people are involved, nor what genital configuration you have. Fussing about whether or not two people who love each other have the "right" configuration of genitalia in a partnership makes as much sense to me as fussing about whether or not they have the correct configuration of skin colour, or eye colour, or hair colour, or anything else equally irrelevant. It. Does. Not. Matter.
Hell, for that matter, it doesn't matter for casual encounters either (in case by mentioning that whole thing about "two people who love each other" you thought I meant that LBTG sex was only okay if you were saving yourself for marriage or some such twaddle). Why should straight folks have all the fun of one-night stands or casual flings or what? Be responsible, make sure everyone's a legal adult and wants it, and have at 'er.
Nor do I have any particular problems with slash, although I have to admit, making two canonically-straight characters wildly OOC in order to have them have sex for teh pretty just seems, well... well, if you basically have to write entirely new characters to make it work, then why not simply write something original? Okay, I know that a bunch (most?) of the hotness is because it's Character A and Character B, whom we all already know, rather than OC A and OC B, but still, if you have to change their personalities so completely, is it still CharacterA/B?.
Anyways, I'm drifting off my point, which is this: E/R. Yeah. There's a bunch of it, and while I can't really speak for all of it (not being able to claim that I've read anything like "all" of it), there's a certain amount, at least, which tends towards the "Oh, Raoul/Erik, never mind about Christine; it's you I've wanted all along." Which I find... implausible.
So I've been wondering for quite some time if it would be possible to keep them all reasonably in character (as much as with any fanfic, at least), and still end up with E/R. Kind of. In a manner of speaking. Well, at least to get them into bed together, which is the best I think I can hope for, I think, given the characters involved. And I came up with a plot that seemed to me to be at least reasonably plausible (or at least not wildly unlikely, I hope), and now I've... yeah, well, okay, look, I never said I wouldn't write slash, okay? I simply didn't have any particular reason to.
Until now. So, yeah, this is the fic. And yeah, it goes there. So I guess the whole point of this absurdly long and rambling Author's Note is this: If ya don't like slash you probably ought to stop now. Also, the point of it is the story about these two characters, not specifically these two characters having hawt makeouts and sexytiems, so if you're only interested in that then you've got a looooot of reading to get through first. ;-) Also, if manipulative bastards are a trigger for you then you should probably stop now. I hate to go into details in trigger warnings because it can so totally give away the plot, but yeah, there's triggers ahoy. Proceed with caution.
Enjoy!
Chapter One
"Ah, Monsieur le Vicomte de Chagney! It is so good to see you again!" Maurice de Cousture-Therrier beamed warmly as he shook Raoul's hand. "It has been far too long, mon ami! Oh, but I forget myself; you are le Comte himself now, are you not? I was so sorry to hear about your brother. Such a terrible accident!"
"It was; my thanks for your concern. It is good to-"
As ever, Cousture-Therrier rushed over his words. He always did seem to be in a terrible hurry, Raoul recalled fondly. "Ah, but I must not keep you! The performance will be starting shortly! Indeed, I would have missed you myself had I not- but tell me, where are you sitting? Will you not join me, you and your lovely wife? The rumours are true? You did marry that pretty little singer?"
"I did, but she is not here. She- stayed in Sweden." He still could not speak her name easily. Thankfully, Cousture-Therrier did not seem to notice. "I am here briefly on business. And I am afraid my seating arrangements cannot be easily changed."
"Ah, well, ah, well. Another time, perhaps. You will look me up before you leave town? You can reach me in all the same old places. -Oh! They're starting! Excuse me, please! My wife will never forgive me for not being by her side when the lights went down. It's a good thing we're in a box and not the middle of the stalls, eh?" He grinned and scurried off, leaving Raoul alone.
He looked around, lost in something akin to wonder, if of a darker hue. How could the place be the same? After all that had happened within these walls- the violence, the deaths, the mortal terror- how could they even be standing, let alone be so unchanged? He stared up the great expanse of the grand staircase, memory seeing for a moment a malevolent flicker of red. Surely the whole thing should have been left a smoking ruin. But nothing had changed since that terrible night that he had fled with her across Paris to the train at the North Gate, fled all the way to her homeland. Nothing had changed at all- except him.
He permitted himself a heavy sigh before he squared his shoulders to his unpleasant duty. Given his druthers, he would never have come back to France at all; he would have gone to Germany, perhaps (where they still had a healthy respect for noblemen, even foreign ones), or perhaps Belgium. Not France. But he had promised her, hadn't he? He could never have denied her anything, and de Chagny's always kept their promises. Always.
There had been no further outright incidents with the "ghost" that his discreet enquiries had been able to discern; but the rumours that Box Five on the Grand Tier was haunted persisted, so, unfortunately, there was a chance that the bastard was still alive. Or perhaps he truly had kicked off, but had failed to find peace and was now a ghost in truth. Served him right it he was, Raoul thought. But when he was active, the ghost had always appeared each opening night in his box, halfway through the first ballet. And if Raoul was to deliver his message, that would be the best time and place to succeed. Whether he would or not, whether Erik would be alive and present to hear him, whether he would respond if he was, Raoul did not know; but no one could say that he hadn't done his utmost. A sealed envelope with a brief note rested securely in his inner pocket; if he had no answer he would leave it on a seat. He knew the box would be unoccupied tonight. Theatre folk love their superstitions, and the ghost that haunted the Palais Garnier was a fine one. Most nights the box was rented without incident; but each premiere, the box was left empty. For luck. For the ghost.
Surely the ballet would begin within ten more minutes. Ten more minutes, at the outside, say one more to steal down the hall and dart inside the door (assuming the box keeper was not about), another minute, maybe two, to deliver his message.
And then five more minutes to reach the rented cab waiting for him around the side, and then straight to the train station. He would retrieve his bag from the porter, and he would quit Paris on the 22:50, and never, ever return.
There- that must be the start of the ballet. One could recognize the type of music, after a while. He peeped through a little window in the door at the back of the auditorium. Yes, the ballet. Good.
Raoul strolled away a little and lit a cigarette, to while the time until the ballet was over, and to provide the excuse should an usher see him out of his seat. At the sound of applause, he stubbed it out in a nearby receptacle and made his way leisurely to the Grand Tier. Box One, Box Two, Box Three, and he turned casually to see if anyone was about, Box Five. He slipped inside.
It was empty.
On the stage, the opera continued, the cast in fine voice. Raoul stayed at the back, in the shadows, not wishing to disrupt the performance; he kept his voice low.
"Erik... Erik. Are you here?" No answer. "Well. I have a message for you. From... Christine." He swallowed the lump that speaking her name always brought to his throat. "She wanted you to know. She was most... insistent."
Still there was no reply.
"Well, if you aren't here to hear me, I'll leave you a note," he continued, ignoring the error in his logic. "But, well- Well. Christine is dead. She wanted you to know. Her constitution was never very robust, and she never fully recovered from her ordeal here." He paused. Still nothing. "Consumption, you know. I suppose it popped up from her father. She might have carried it forever, I suppose, except that..." He stopped, overcome with emotion. Eventually, he continued. "In any case, she died very peacefully, at home. Her home, in Sweden. Her family had had a little farm there, did you know? Most of it had been sold off, bit by bit- her father wasn't a very good farmer- but we did manage to buy the last bit with the house. So she died in the bed she was born in. She liked that, I think."
Raoul bowed his head, fighting back tears. He would be leaving soon and didn't want to have to explain away red eyes. Besides, he thought, he had done enough crying in his life. He wanted to be done with it.
At first, he barely noticed the voice that murmured, "So I have truly lost her, then."
A moment later, however, it registered, and Raoul's head shot up. "'Lost her?' 'Lost her?' You never had her, you bastard! Even when her 'angel' forbade her the company of men, she complied so she wouldn't lose her angelic tutor, not because she had any regard for you!"
"Guard your tongue, de Chagny," the voice said coldly. Did it come from that chair? He did not bother to face it.
"Guard my tongue? Or what, Erik? You'll kill me? And what do I have left to lose, eh?" Raoul's voice he kept under control, fierce, but a whisper; but his hands clenched and to his extreme annoyance he wept. "My mother and father I lost long ago, my sisters won't speak to me, and you have already killed my brother and my wife. You killed her, Erik, you with your damnable dungeon home and fearful face and your terrorizing of a- a child who deserved nothing but to finally find a little happiness in her life! What have you left to threaten me with? The very worst thing you could do to me would be to let me walk away and live a long and healthy life without her."
There was a silence so long that Raoul thought he had left, and he was about to turn and leave himself when Erik spoke. "I killed her? I? I loved her, boy; I would never have harmed a hair on her head! It was you and your meddling that spoiled everything! Don't blame me for any of it. Your brother came seeking you, not me, and I did not drag her halfway across Europe!" He paused, but Raoul could hear him panting. "How dare you blame me for her death when she was in your care!"
He was quiet a long moment more. Raoul turned to go, his message delivered and his duty discharged, but Erik's voice- his Voice, stopped him. "Venez! Et croire en moi... I sang that to her once, you know."
Fists clenched, Raoul grated out, "I know."
"I shall never hear that song again without weeping." The sadness of an Angel lamenting the fall of man suffused his voice. "Did she- did she ever speak of me?"
"Upon occasion. Mostly she sighed. Sometimes, at night, she screamed."
His golden tones were of utter despair. "Ah, the poor, poor child. May she find rest with her angels at last, in truth. I never meant her the slightest harm, you know."
"So I gathered." Raoul's own voice was dry; he was determined to be unmoved by Erik's tricks.
"If only I could have been her angel in truth. But alas! I am nothing but a man." He sighed.
"Indeed." Raoul stepped to the door.
"Wait, de Chagny! Please- if you must leave, then return, I beg of you. Just once. Just here, to this box. I would- I would speak once more with one who knew her whom we both- both loved."
His voice, his accursed Voice, enfolded Raoul, enveloped him, and he left, his final words muffled and dull- human- in his ears as he closed the door behind himself. He would return, curse him. He had said that he would, and de Chagny's always- always kept their promises.