Raoul was prowling.

Or rather, he was trying to prowl. Somehow he had made his way to the Phantom's lair, despite the fact that Erik would definitely have found and killed him long before he could get there.

"What are you doing here?" Erik's dark voice came quietly from the shadows.

Raoul gulped. "Um. I wanted to, um, find you?"

"Right," Erik said sarcastically. "Well, I'll just have to kill you. Pity, it's so hard to get the blood out of this particular shirt."

"Wait!" Raoul squeaked. "I'minlovewithyou," he said quickly, the words tumbling together.

Erik remained hidden in the shadows. "That's just creepy."

"What?"

"I'm not interested. At all," Erik said. A flash of movement appeared in the shadows and it had looked suspiciously like rope twisting around. "If I'm in love with a beautiful, talented woman like Christine, why would I want to hook up with a fop like you?"

Raoul paused. "I have great hair?"

"Really."

"Yeah? It's, like, all golden and stuff."

"…you say you have great hair."

"Yup."

"…great, let's bang."

"Yay!"

The lights flickered and all of a sudden, Erik was standing next to Raoul.

"I like things kinky, so I'm going to tie you up," he said.

Before Raoul could do anything, Erik had tied him to the metal grate. Stepping back to eye his handiwork, he turned on his heel and walked away.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Raoul called after him, struggling fruitlessly against his restraints.

"Now that you're out of the way, I can go hook up with Christine," Erik's voice echoed after him.

Hours later, people stamped through the tunnels, torches held high as they hunted furiously for Erik.

"Can you let me down?" Raoul asked the people. They stared at each other before turning away from Raoul. "Nah."

"Why not?"

"You're not very interesting."

"In fact, you're rather boring."

"And irritating."

"For God's sake, man, stop crying randomly throughout the book!"

"And honestly, what is up with the whole 'skin like a young girl's' thing?"

"Besides, you're a fop."

"A boring fop."

"Which is why you don't deserve to be rescued."

"At least the Phantom does stuff instead of pestering Christine all day long."

"What did the Phantom do to get us down here anyways?"

"I don't really know. I think we're supposed to be looking for him."

"Why?"

"Um… Do you know?'

"Nope. Do you?"

One of the men holding a torch nodded wisely. "It's a plot device."

"Ohhh, okay. Anyways," they turned back to Raoul. "We're not going to free you because you're an uninteresting, irritating fop."

"Would it help if I offered to pay you?" he asked.

The mob held a whispered conference.

"We have a better idea."

And with that, they knocked him out and stole his money.

A/N: …um, yeah. All I can say in my defense is that I fell asleep listening to The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack (Original London Cast) and heard Erik say in my dream, "Great, let's bang," in Michael Crawford's sexy, sexy voice. Hence, this fic. Please leave a review on you way out! Thanks for reading.