AN: This story has been revised and rewritten from the (beginning) of a story I posted on my old account, rewrittengirl. I decided that since I rejoined the Phantom community, I'd continue the story! This will be a very lengthy multi-chapter fic. Please Enjoy!

Update 3/20: This prologue has been mostly rewritten. Parts of the next chapters will also be rewritten, as my writing style has improved since the last time I wrote content for this story (which I had only edited for the first publication). Hope you guys will take another look! :)

March 1871

There was a pale girl, with a strong jaw and hair braided in gold, who held tightly to her father's hand as they passed by devastation.

Paris was burning, at least as far as her small eyes could tell. She walked closely huddled to her violinist, his calloused hand offering her comfort as they made their way across the streets under the watchful eyes of guards. Beyond the cloudy sky, she could see birds flying to victory, away from smoking roofs and harsh cries of orders. She marvelled to herself at how birds could always find their way home, even through ashen skies.

Her father coughed beside her, and she looked up at him from underneath her little green bonnett. He wiped his beard with a kerchief, stuffing it into his pocket as he pulled her under the awning of a small shop, miraculously still open during this dark time. The place sold bread and cheeses, and he spent the last sous he had, dug from the little pocket in the front of his coat, for a slice of both.

"Christine," he began low as they walked back to the outdoor café to sit. He folded the cheese into the bread and put it in her hands, speaking to her in Swedish. "We will have all the breads and cheeses the world can offer once Madame Valerius returns home from London."

"Yes, papa."

"Do you know why she's in London, min kära?"

"Because she's bourgeoise, and the Commune people don't like that."

He knelt beside her, hugging her close and tickling her ten-year-old cheek with his whiskers. "Now where did you hear a thing like that?"

"Raoul told me before we left Perros. His brother said that they had to go away to London too, so they would be safe. He said bourgeoise means swine to some people. Is Mama Valerius swine?"

"Oh, no! Of course not! Bourgeoise… It just means that she can take care of herself, that's all. So can Raoul, and his brother. And we'll take care of each other."

Gustave Daaé held his daughter close as she ate her bread and cheese.

Soon they began to walk again, hand in hand. Christine licked the crumbs off of a set of fingers. "Tell me a story, papa."

"Which one do you want to hear?"

A bird flew by, this time close to the pair. She watched as it landed on a lamppost, where a cloaked figure and two small creatures huddled in the chilled weather of March before the door opened to warmth.

"The one about the Angel of Music."

"Ah, I knew you'd pick that one. Do you know that Mozart received the Angel of Music, Christine?"

"He did?" she said excitedly as she looked up to him.

"Indeed! Right there in his cradle! He was touched with grace the moment he opened his eyes. The first thing he ever heard was music."

"Was it the Angel singing to him?"

"Yes, sweet one. The Angel knew that he would be one of God's greatest instruments, but it also knew that his life would not be long. So it went to him, still crying in the bassinet for his mother's milk, and gave him the gift of song so that he may not waste any precious time without it."

The little girl, as she listened, looked back at the where the three figures were. The street was empty now. "But I didn't hear the Angel of Music when I was a baby."

"Oh, but you will, Christine. You see the Angel doesn't come to everyone when they are little. It comes precisely when it is most needed."

They arrived at their hotel, a shabby place that had only a cot for a bed. It was all they could do until the Valerius house was no longer occupied by the Commune. That night, as Gustave sat next to his child in bed, he sang her the dearest lullabye, wordless but perfect to her little ears. As she began to sleep, he turned an unbraided curl around her cheek.

"Christine, you will hear the Angel of Music someday. When I am in heaven, I will send it to you."

Nadir Khan hadn't slept in weeks, and it had everything to do with the Paris Commune.

His complaints where three-fold. First, he had not been able to leave his flat for some time, and he was beginning to achieve new levels of cabin fever, which he surmised was driving his stone-faced servant Darius up a fine damask wall. Second, he was fearful for his life, as though he held international immunity there was no telling what rules a rebel government like the Commune would and would not follow. And lastly… his newest obsession, the delicate French macaron, was sorely missing from his life while Ladurée, the bakery which sold them not two blocks from his door, was closed down during the siege.

Reason said he should be more worried about his life than never tasting a macaron again, but a former Persian chief of police couldn't be picky about where his will to survive came from, and those pastel pastries had been getting the better of him since he'd stumbled upon the mint colored shop edifice several months prior.

As it stood, he was laid out lazy and pensive on the divan in his small living room, a fire crackling on the hearth and a plate of scones in his lap. They were a poor substitute for macarons, but there were far too many left over from his Muslim committee meeting several days before. He had hosted, in his cramped living room, like the fool he was- though it was better to let others be more foolish by leaving their homes than he leaving his. He was starting to feel the effects of age, and he had no business risking his life now that Erik was no longer a part of it.

His ears burned to think about him. It had been two years since he last had contact with him. The moment he'd come to Paris he could feel as though the very air was controlled by the movements of that mysterious man, and sure enough, Erik had found him and smuggled him into an opium den disguised as a more civil hookah lounge, where the ghoulish man had accosted him with displeasure. They had come to an agreement, eventually, that Nadir would not intervene in Erik's life as long as he continued to lie low and keep to himself. Any flagrant displays of his many "talents" would incur Daroga's retired wrath, and as much as the old trickster adored being a nuisance… a change had certainly come over him at the time. He was more subdued, more inclined to agree that any behavior resembling his former notoriety should be snuffed.

It had not escaped him then that his friend's reluctance had as much to do with his loneliness as it did his survival. Nadir thought he should seek out those solemn eyes once Paris had calmed. Invite him for tea, a game of cards… He had not worn his mask at that last meeting, instead opting to hid his disfigurement in layers of makeup and a false nose. Perhaps this meant that he was adjusting to a semblance of normalcy after all.

Nadir had been thinking of Erik when his eyes finally started to close, a scone half eaten in his hand and his breathing evened out to a smooth rigour.

He felt the first fuzzes of sleep overtaking him when suddenly the pounding of the oak door bolted him upright, the tray nearly clattering to the floor if it hadn't been for his protective hand on its metal handle. He whipped his head toward the banging, causing a terrible ache in turn. Sugar deprivation, he told himself. The knocking didn't stop.

"Darius!" he cried, shifting his aching legs over the side of the divan and gripping the side of his head. He set the scone tray to the side. His manservant appeared, with a neutral frown and clean linen folded over his arms. "Go out there and tell them again- the Commune has no business here, I am protected by the Persian government!"

Nadir's palm swallowed his careworn eyes. He heard Darius shuffle to the hall and open the door, and in a clear voice he said "I do not know you, sir, and it is late. Kindly leave my master alone."

Another bang! slammed into the door, and the devil spoke of himself: "I am not the bloody Commune! Daroga of Mazenderan, come and meet me!"

The gentle ache that had settled in his temple sharpened into an Erik shaped migraine. So much for thinking he'd "adjusted."

"Don't make such a ruckus!" he called out. Before Erik could barrell into his house like a maniac, Nadir forced himself quickly into the hall, taking his cap from the rack and setting it on his head, to cover his early balding (or perhaps the throbbing vein at the top of his forehead).

When he caught sight of a very much masked Erik in the stairwell of his building, his immediate thought was that those fiery eyes had been dragged kicking and screaming from the fields of Persia. This was not the reserved gentleman who had found him two years prior, but rather the one he had long sought after in Siberia. His posture, set coiled like a cobra, was alert and defensive, as though even a look from Nadir would set off the spring. The Persian feared for his throat.

But suddenly, though his gaze was certainly locked by Erik's, a little voice of laughter broke out and blushed his cheeks. A child's laughter.

"Is that a ferret on his head, papa? How peculiar!"

Nadir's eyes dropped down, where shrouded by Erik's billowing cloak and behind his knobby knees, two pairs of hands and two sets of eyes dipped curiously into the light.

Allah help me, Nadir gasped to himself, his eyes flitting from Erik to the tiny children gripping his gloved hands.

Erik gripped the girl's shoulder and shook her abruptly. "Not now, ma petite…"

The abundance of color in the Persian's face was draining. "Erik," Nadir began with slack jaw and chilled spine. "What is this? Whose children are these?"

That slender smirk, peeking out from underneath the mask, was one of impatience. He was familiar with that look. "You heard the girl. She called me 'papa' did she not?"

Daroga gazed long and hard at the demon who tapped his feet impatiently on his doorstep. He looked down at the little foreheads that barely reached his kneecaps, and at their sallow little lips. Thin, gangly, but untouched by God's wrath: two equally dainty noses on two smooth, thick-skinned faces. The idea that Erik produced them seemed absurd, even uncanny. It was winding him. "If I find these children have been taken from respectable parents, Erik-"

He started to push past Nadir, pulling the children along with him, but a resolute hand stayed him. Erik's glittering, reflective eyes disappeared briefly in a roll. "Excuse me, Daroga, but the Commune just ransacked our home, and your little international immunity bubble," he said in Persian with a mocking pitch, "is the only damn place I can think of that isn't occupied. Kindly save your accusations for another time."

Inside they all went, breezing past Nadir with a draft following them. The man shuddered, though cold air from the hall was not the only cause… He shut the door reluctantly behind them.

"Master," Darius spoke up behind him. His face, usually stoic, held the faintest traces of terror. Nadir had mentioned Erik to him when he signed on to be his manservant at the outset of the Daroga's emigration, but it was apparent he should have included more… particular details about the quality of Erik's person.

"Gather the leftovers from the committee meeting and bring them into the living room for our guests," he said. Darius dashed off immediately after his customary nod, and for the moment he was alone, Nadir summoned up his courage to enter his den.

The monster had quickly rushed those angels to the fire, where the girl curled up to her knees immediately. The boy, who had not yet spoken, sat down slowly beside her, as though he was afraid he'd lose his balance. Nadir stood silently in the doorway, although a small smile could not be tamed in his face. When the boy settled into a small crouch, he began sucking his thumb.

"What have I told you about that?" Erik said breathlessly in French, batting his hand away. He sat behind them and took off his cloak, wrapping it around their small bodies. He continued to address him in Persian, a language the children could not understand. "Imagine! Late March in Paris, and it might as well be Siberia. You would think with the amount of buildings they are burning the city would warm!"

Nadir was shaken out of his trance. "I-I have hardly been outside these past weeks. Darius tells me-"

"They cannot touch it… they won't touch it!" Erik interrupted. Nadir couldn't figure what "it" was, even as he whispered variants of the phrase repeatedly into the fire.

The Daroga sat numbly beside them on the lounge chair, content to observe while he processed the scene before him. The little girl held out her hands as an adult would, rubbing them together and smiling with pleasure. Erik stroked the boy's dark curls, his other arm wrapped around him to hold him close. Nadir heard him singing to them quietly, his long arm patting the girl's head every so often.

What a sight! In all his years of knowing this man, he had never known him to hold another human being this close, never even function properly with mention of physical affection. He recalled their reunion in the streets of Paris those two years prior, where Nadir had attempted a kind of friendly embrace and he'd vehemently recoiled from the gesture. Now, he held these ducklings as closely as Nadir recalled him holding his most prized possession- his time-worn violin.

"Erik," Nadir said, at a volume only just above a whisper. "Explain. You told me you wanted nothing to do with me when I came to Paris, and now you have brought your troubles back to me as though years have not passed. What has happened to you?"

The masked man was quiet until he turned his head, his breathing having returned to normal. He laughed joylessly. "An accident," he said, gesturing to the children. "The stork brought them when I was sleeping. It was punishing me for all those times I said I hated children."

Bushy but groomed eyebrows raised in exasperation. "Be serious!" he demanded, though it was a fool's errand where Erik was concerned. Hands shaking, Nadir leaned over the side of the lounge chair and poured tea from the samovar into his half empty cup from earlier in the evening. He poured another for his guest and offered it to him, who took it without looking up from his babies' forms.

"Fine," he muttered, gulping down a gracious portion of the drink. The little girl looked up at her father and smiled. He smiled back at her and pinched her cheek gently, though when she turned her head it was gone just as quickly. "1869 was quite a year for me. You and I reunited in that dismal little lounge they had the gall to call hookah - you know it's been closed now, nearly a year! - and later that night I found out they were my twins. I also finally started to lose my hair. It was only a matter of time-

"As I recall you dragged me to that lounge-" he started, though that little word sandwiched between smart-mouthing caught throat. Nadir downed his entire cup and poured another. "I'm sorry, twins? Your twins?"

He was obviously continuing this charade. The suggestion that the children sitting on Nadir's authentically Persian rug were truly born out of a union between this man - who had denied woman after girl after wife while under the command of the Shah, who Nadir couldn't imagine touching the bare skin of the fairer sex, let alone kissing or satisfying! - and a real woman was utterly unbelievable.

"I'm afraid you'll have to prove it to me."

"Of course I will. You will never take Erik at his word will you?" He sighed. In lieu of any real explanation (which Nadir imagined he would never receive, at this rate), he changed the subject entirely. "By the way, this is Astrid, and Nicholas. I did not name them, but I have come to find that they are suitable." He spoke in French, "Astrid, darling, say hello to oncle."

The blonde girl perked up her head from watching the fire, waving a tiny hand to Nadir.

"No, no, didn't I teach you how to greet somebody properly last week?" She rolled her eyes in just the way he had done numerous times over the course of their acquaintance. It was almost uncanny, right down to the way her honey colored eyes shimmered metallic as they finished their orbit.

She took her time standing up, but still gave a decent enough curtsy in her little blue dress. "My name is Astrid, I'm very pleased to meet you, mon oncle."

"Very good," Erik said as she impatiently sat back down.

"Uncle?" Nadir whispered with shock in Persian. "Am I family now, Erik? Really? "

"What else should I have them call you? Booby? Pea-brain? I don't need to like you, but they certainly do."

This last comment made him uneasy. What was this 'they certainly do' supposed to mean? He gave a small chuckle to appease his defensive friend, and joined them on the floor. "And... your son does not extend the same courtesy as your daughter?"

Erik's body stiffened. Nadir could always tell when he had asked precisely the wrong question, and this was one of those times. He pulled the boy closer, the child playing with the red pom-pom on his jacket. "Nicki doesn't speak." His words were clipped, an end to the discussion.

But Astrid filled in the gaps, for both brother and father. "He can't speak, Papa. That's what the doctor said, Uncle."

"Oh… Oh I see," Nadir began, taking Erik's empty cup from his outstretched arm. He maneuvered behind him to the table to refill it, though thankfully another pair of brown hands caught it.

Darius had appeared with a platter of finger sandwiches and scones. This he balanced on one hand while the other took the teacup from Nadir. The Persian flashed his servant a grateful smile, though it seemed like Darius was looking at a ghost, because his wild eyes were locked on the back of Erik's head.

"Ah, yes. I held a committee a few nights ago for my fellow Muslims in the area. These were quite delicious-" Erik spun so that the two foreigners saw his illuminated eyes through the mask in guarded curiosity. Nadir noticed his servant now stood stock still, apart from the tray slightly shaking in his hand that is… "Set the tray by the children, Darius."

The manservant snapped to attention, coming quietly and obediently where the three huddled on the floor. His eyes never reached Erik, who continued to watch him with amused anticipation lurking at the corner of his thin lips.

Darius backed away slowly from the scene to approach the samovar. Nadir's attention went to Astrid, who wasted no time in devouring one sandwich, and then another. She hardly ate like the lady Erik was teaching her to be, but her supposed "father" seemed to be distracted. Nadir heard the teacup rattling against the saucer ever so slightly while he watched Erik take a scone and give it to his son. They both watched as the boy picked it apart, critically examining each piece before it entered his mouth.

Astrid grabbed a scone too and broke it in half, giving the other piece to her father. "Papa, you must eat too," she said. He laughed lightly, placing the scrap of bread between his thin lips and grimacing when she turned her head.

A crash off to the side.

Nadir sat up straight, and then upon seeing his servant quivering behind the table where the samovar sat, he bolted up and went to him. "Darius! Get a hold of yourself."

The younger man-really a boy, who had yet to experience the grievances of a life with Erik in it- pulled his master aside, and Nadir caught the tail end of a trill of baritone laughter. He scowled.

"That is not a man! He is a demon!"

Nadir sighed. The boy's face was ashen, and he held himself without the normal composure befitting a capable servant. It appeared he would have to play parent yet again, to two men who acted like children. At least this immaturity-and superstition- was understandable.

"What did he say to you?"

"H-he… he whispered things… into my ear, like he was behind me! Breathing down my neck! He knew my name… my father's name, and my mother's!" Darius wept openly now, and made signs of warning against whatever spirit was sitting in the parlour.

The Daroga fought the urge to roll his eyes. Erik had rifled through his possessions on more than one occasion, and this particular information was most likely filched on their last encounter, when he and his servant's immigration files were stashed carefully and supposedly secure in his luggage. There was no telling when the man had snuck into his flat and perused without a trace...

"He knows of their deaths! He told me exactly how they died!"

This information was interesting to Nadir. He would confront Erik later, demanding a response to his actions toward this innocent young man. But for now, there were two more important things on his mind, and they were eating his leftovers. "Darius, retire to bed for the night. I can manage the rest of the evening without you. Do not fret… The man will not be staying."

Wiping his eyes with a gold embroidered kerchief he'd fished out of his pocket, Darius bowed as nobly as he could and disappeared into another part of the house. Forehead pulsing, Nadir re-entered the parlour.

"You should be able to afford thicker-skinned servants, Daroga," Erik's voice floated to his ears, though it didn't come from the fireplace. "The Persian government has certainly been paying you enough for the assurance of my death."

Nadir bent by the samovar table and picked up broken pieces of china. His gaze followed the trail of breadcrumbs which lead from the fire to the sofa on the other side of the room. It trailed up the lanky, inky black legs of the enigma before it settled upon the sleeping faces of the children on either side of them. Erik was adjusting his cloak across Nicholas's body, while Astrid was curled into a ball underneath the afghan throw which had draped the back of the couch.

"You know very well my allowance is paltry, you twit," Nadir snapped, placing the broken pieces next to the samovar and sighing. "And it's all because of your godforsaken behind! If I had never met you, I wouldn't be in Paris to begin with-"

"Don't they look lovely, Nadir?"

Against his better judgement, he moved closer to the trio and stood not a foot from their sides. He kept a hand at the back of his neck, just in case.

"They couldn't possibly be mine, could they? Who would believe that?" Erik's arms were folded across his chest, his chin resting in a pensive palm. "You certainly don't."

So. His friend had interpreted Nadir's body language correctly. Times, it would seem, had not changed. "Why did you bring them here, Erik?"

"I told you... our home was vandalized. My bank account has been cut off. The opera… my opera house has been taken over by the Commune."

Nadir recalled parts of their most recent conversation, including the notice that Erik had, in fact, gained legal employment as a contractor of the opera house. At the time he had been grateful for this news… But he could tell this story would not end well.

His lips itched with frustration. Crossing to the mahogany cabinet by the door, he found his pipe and the various blends of plants he smoked from it, contained in little jars labeled in the Persian language. He returned to Erik after having packed the pipe with sweetgrass and tobacco. "So... you were turned out of your home. Then what? Do you expect me to take you in? I could never house you of all people, Erik."

The man rolled his eyes. A trick of light caught Nadir's, and he looked down to see the little girl was still awake, watching her father intently. She giggled and copied his eye movement. Yes, it wasn't too hard to believe based on that little look, and the strange aura radiating from the boy. Odd little children, to be sure. Still… he was not totally convinced, as although he hadn't read of any kidnappings in the papers in the past two years, there probably thousands of orphans which wandered Parisian streets who could easily be plucked by cunning, lonely men.

As if defying Nadir's accusatory thoughts, he bent to shake out the girl's curls and pulled the afghan further over her face. "Go to sleep, child," he whispered with exasperation. She wiggled around to face the couch almost offensively.

That attitude, Nadir thought to himself as he sucked in scented air from the pipe. How very familiar…

Its source of familiarity stole away to the fireplace, where his arms folded across each other on the mantle. His bent posture, where he dug his masked forehead into his arm, resembled that of a question mark. That little notation hung in the air around them…

What plan was Erik concocting in that sordid mind?

He read his thoughts, as always. "I am well aware of our special situation," his voice croaked, still mercilessly beautiful even as it was drained of energy. "All I am requesting is…"

Realization was dawning. Nadir joined him at the fire, passing him his pipe for some sort of comfort. Erik inhaled deeply from it, and and when his lips parted he could see they were chapped. And there, suddenly dripping from underneath the black fabric, were the kind of tears Erik only shed when his heart collapsed. He knew them well.

"You want them to stay here."

Erik responded with choked laughter. "I thought you to be too obtuse to figure it out. My pride for you you, Daroga, is boundless." He shoved the pipe back into Nadir's hands. His deflective sarcasm made the Persian's face heat, with both anger and worry.

"For how long?"

"As long as eternity. Or… until they become adults. Don't try and marry Astrid off, though, she won't appreciate it. She may even strangle you, if she's really my daughter."

Nadir's face was aghast. The worry dissipated, and out came the fury. "If she is your daughter, then you should be the one to care for her!" His voice, apparently too loud, was clamped down by the vice grip of the former assassin. They both peered to the side where the children slept. No limbs stirred. The Daroga, cap askew and fuming, squirmed out of the man's grasp just enough to warble, "You cannot keep relying on me every time you get into trouble!"

Erik's glowing eyes were so close that he could see, for once, the eyelids that encased them - they were raw and red along their hideously sunken creases. His hand left Nadir's mouth, lifting instead to the top of his head, where it shifted his Astrakhan cap into its proper place.

"Do you know why they took our home from us, Daroga?"

Nadir stepped back, although Erik's mechanical feet followed. The yellow gaze would not let go of the green. The other man quietly shook his head.

"I was developing the opera cellars when they found me and my crew. The men under me fled, cowards that they are. I alone stayed to protect all that Charles and I had sweat and bled over. And you know, some did bleed that night…"

The Persian swallowed. Erik's eyes no longer saw him, though they still looked intensely in his direction. He was watching another play, another terrible scene.

"When I returned above, I saw spit, semen, excrement on my marble floors and red paint spread across the bosoms of the Muses. I… I don't know what happened, but more men were upon me, and in the ensuing fight my…." he flinched away from Nadir, as if he were the one inflicting this pain. His fingers reached up and curled over the cheek of his mask. "They saw me. All of me."

He knew very intimately what things they might have discovered about the man. But somehow, he must encourage him. "To me, you are both an eighth wonder and the tenth circle, Erik.* What did they see in you?"

His friend barely registered the half-compliment. "The freak, of course," he spat. He started to pace in the usual way, hands clasped behind his back and long legs stamping on to the rug, as though they were eighth notes composing a new symphony. "I hadn't experienced ridicule like that since before my time in Persia. I would have killed them… if Charles hadn't been nearby.

"They found out who I was and where I - we - lived. Not only was I ordained a blemish on human kind, as always, but I was also discovered to be what they call bourgeoise." As quick as he'd been pacing, he crouched down by the fire and heaved heavy breaths. "I had been living in a house my father had built, years before I was born. It has been destroyed."

Erik had never breathed a word to Nadir about his family. This was the first he had ever heard about any father, and the fact that he, too, was a mason colored in another gray area in Nadir's knowledge of Erik's past.

As if hearing the sympathy playing on the Persian's breath, Erik looked up at him with expectant eyes. "I have to disappear again. This time… Perhaps permanently. It was only a matter of time." His ease of words now left his voice lush and soft. Defeated, even. He shifted his gaze from above to behind, landing warmly on the children. "I hope that one day, they may be able to understand."

"Erik, you mustn't-" Nadir started, but a raised hand halted him. He would not, however, continue to be a third party in this one person conversation. "You cannot walk away from it this time, you know. If they really are your children, then you are no longer responsible solely for yourself. I hardly can believe you of all people would consider abandonment a viable-"

"Do not think you can begin to understand!" The masked man would not stay in place. He hopped up from the fire like a grasshopper, hands gripping Nadir's arms and twisting him around to face the sleeping children. His voice, though not above a whisper, was passionate and aggressive. "Look at them! You recall what Erik looks like, do you not? Well! Can you imagine what it would be like to continue on? A certifiable monster as guardian to perfect children? Anywhere we go, they would be ripped from my clutches by citizens of God, of man! If it is impossible for you to believe that they belong to me, me!, then it will be for countless others. They will never know a moment's peace! They will never know the normal, beautiful life I have craved all this time, and yet their faces prove they are destined for it!"

The hot breath seeping into his neck was spiked by tears. The hands, once so hard and cold, fell limply from his arms as their owner turned around. After several seconds of waiting, Nadir turned cautiously to face where he had gone: to the window to stare at the sepia haze of a city practically on fire. He forced himself to quelch the gasp itching to leave his throat.

His back was turned to the children, and the mask was held between fidgeting fingers. More tears slipped down. Nadir had only seen the monstrous face at moments of tragedy, and he was certain that if he were to follow through with this choice, it would be another heartbreak from which his friend would never recover.

"They do not deserve to be taunted for the rest of their lives, as I have. They are not safe associating with me."

Nadir maneuvered as close as an unmasked Erik would allow. "O-of course they need you, Erik." He could not believe he was saying these words! A sane man would never let innocent children be raised by someone so… so… He could still scarcely believe that their angelic faces, peacefully dreaming, had sprung from a demon, and therefore was it his moral obligation to protect them from living in a shunned man's hell?

But if it were true, then Nadir had no business keeping them from their creator. This man who had, for all intents and purposes, risked life and limb to bring them to the safest place he could think of. This man, who clearly loved them. The very idea that his hardened heart had let that emotion inside should be good enough for Nadir. He must trust that this was true.

He lay a gentle hand upon a black shoulder, which crumpled under his touch. "I cannot pretend to imagine how they came into being, but it is clear you are their father, either way. I cannot in good conscience rip them from your arms. That would be..." He came around to see the slope of Erik's hollow cheek billowing out, where hot breath descended onto the window and fogged its glass. "Cruel. For them, and for you."

"No… No Daroga! They are meant to be above ground, in the light! Running, playing like good little children. They should never know that their father is made up of death, it would be unkind. I must retreat into the earth, where genuine corpses belong." His tears flowed more readily, as though they mimicked the rain during a storm. His head fell into his hand. "You must keep them safe, for me, please! You're the only p-person I… trust."

That was a simple little word. Trust. It should be uncomplicated, unmarred by doubt and prejudice. But hearing it from Erik's lips, knowing that his vulnerability rendered it true… He had to pause over his next words, for fear that trust would disappear.

"What about... their mother?" Nadir swallowed.

Erik's spine straightened into an arrow. He shook his head as wiped his sinuous hands over his eyes, replacing his mask as though to erase emotion from his person. It worked, too. He was another man entirely, now.

"She is dead."

He gripped a strained and fidgeting hand against the window pane. Nadir had suspected some such tragedy, though he still could not comprehend such an unholy union. He lowered himself onto the bay seat, pressing his back against the cool glass. "I am so sorry, my friend."

"Don't be," he laughed hoarsely. He rubbed at his chin, contemplating his next words very carefully. "It was raining the night that I met her. That same night I left her in it, wet and cold…"

He seemed to whisper and spit her name at once.

"Priscilla."

* I looked up what the equivalent of "circle of hell" would be in Islam and I wasn't quite sure how to interpret their system. Since they are speaking in Farsi, assume that this is translated accordingly. I've done a lot of research for this fic but I struggle with the Persian sometimes. Please forgive me.

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