Reverie Chapter 1, a phantom of the opera fanfic

I don't make plans to assassinate my character or anybody else's – I take as much responsibility for being wicked as I do for being alive. And though love, unputrid, irreversible love is not an excuse, it serves to explain why I am Erik, the hunter, the leper, the angel of music, and so on and so forth.

First, I must confirm my reputation of being a control fanatic. It is the only verifiable rumor that has been passed around about this opera ghost. I admit it mainly on these terms; that I do not believe in laissez-faire, that I am, first and foremost, a business man before a musician of the Opera Garnier, and that anything pertaining to the well-being of Christine Daae had to be run three times past me; forwards, backwards, and sideways. This is, absolutely, one hundred percent true.

Now you must understand why.

I wasn't always alone. If I were to be born, I must have a mother and father. Whether they loved me or not is unimportant in light of the fact that I had had them. My father, being a middle-class businessman at the time, wanted to be a scholar. My grandmother (on his side) had been an excellent professor of mathematics and had always encouraged my father to "go beyond" his limitations. My mother, being supportive as she'd hoped an education would influence her offspring positively, encouraged him to leave for America.

And so one not-so-particularly dry summer afternoon after I turned the age of three, he propped me up on my bed (and forgive me as I try to remember through my blurred haze) took me by the shoulders and explained to me with great tenderness that he was leaving the next day. And now, as I write this, I realize that my view was not blurred due to poor memory, but to the curtain of tears in front of my eyes as he told me this. My little legs with their knee high socks had kicked and dangled off the end of the bed as I timidly asked my father when he would return. His answer was, "I'll send you you soon."

The rest of that summer was a particularly unpleasant one. My mother, at the absence of my father, began verbally disputing with my grandmother. It was hard to watch as a child as an elderly poised woman whom you respected and admired groveled towards a much younger, erratic version, who, with razor-sharp sensitivity to her own insecurities, could not stand to be number two woman in the household. I, being a child, I learned to recognize the signs of a tantrum and to blanket the outbursts right away, and I was mostly successful. One time, however, I awoke to the a BANG or CRASH (which to my little ears were equivalent to that of a rifle's and a plane's) to discover my mother had dislodged all the bookshelves from the walls and pushed them into the middle of the floor. I sat in a heap of books with her and watch her cry. Even then when she turned to me and said, "I'm doing this to protect you," I knew in my little four year old heart that her web of logical reasoning missed a string entirely and I must nod to avoid further damage. This would explain why I absolutely loathe the sound of a woman crying and sudden loud noises in general.

By the time I was nine, my father had not summoned me as he'd promised. He sent candy, which gave me cavities, and new shoes, which I wore with pride to school. Years later, a rather odious friend of my mothers would tell me that a gift of shoes meant you want the receiver to run away from you. I never wore those shoes again.

I feel a bit guilty for describing my mother in such detail. But she has been poorly represented out of the realm of this particular incarnation that some truth might benefit her and my reputation. She has been "the butt", if you will, of all serious phanthology. Often describe as beautiful, cold, and a-day-short-of-redemption, she was in fact, none of these things.

My mother was never cruel. She did not have the most idealistic physique. She was short. She had small, stubby hands and fingers which she could not spread out completely. She wore her black hair straight around her soft, freckled face, which she powdered without abandon. She was terribly vain, but if she heard you label her such an insulting name, she would lock you in your room until you say just how sorry you were. She did not enjoy the arts, but she did sing for her own amusement and was not always on tune. So please allow me to make this absolutely clear: the woman who bore me held no resemblance to my dear Christine.

Christ.

Christine.

Christ-een.

Was it a mere coincidence that her name evoked the echo of a lost ghost or the glass veneer of a Cinderella shoe, a porcelain egg, a pastel ribbon around the silken gold hair of a young girl; the crisp, titillating syllables of her name passing through my lips at any given moment had a sort of immunity in itself, as if it could cleanse, at once, all the dirty thoughts and actions I'd humored that day. It should be noted that the latin meaning of Christine was "a follower of Christ", and the Greek's "Christ-bearer", both of which project goodness, purity, and god-like abilities of forgiveness.

Was she particularly beautiful (yes) and brilliant (one must say so), she was foremost, an unhinged beauty – elegant and childlike, full of wit and unexpected shrewdness.

I became aware of this immediately when we met. I did not see her first; I heard her, and albeit being an unorthodox way of getting to know someone, I'm glad it happened that way. Tap. The sound of her heel knocking against the edge of the stage, an inhalation of air reaching deep into the diaphram, and then "Ahh...".

A curious sound, resembling rubbing the cheeks of two paper mache masks to G above middle C, lingered in the auditorium.

I often wish I could have captured that sound in a glass sphere and kept it on my person so that I can taste her throat whenever I pleased. Now, my mind has snow-balled the memory to the point of mythological absurdity.

But here is my shameful secret: her physical being intrigued me as much as her voice. Her appeal was odd. It was a good thing because the greatest beauties are often the greatest bores. The beauty of actresses and singers allocated the same thing: fear. One would think that physical perfection breeds bountiful confidence, but not really. The fairer the lady, the more wary she is of aging and her husband's want for someone fairer. The second tier, the lovely girl who may not be an actress but has always been the flower of her class, find too late that once outside the safety of school, she is one kitten in a sea of many.

What separated my dear from other chorus nymphs prancing about in the afterhours of rehearsal was her mood. She was never quite there but always sharply aware. With her pinkish white hands pressed against the floor, her head tilted slightly backwards and her eyes gazing uninterestedly into her lap, she was a benighted goddess, on a stage that became a crescent moon which bent and melded to her slightly slumping back.

Despite all this feminine glimmer, my pet was no flower. She did not wear rouge, use lip ointment, pad her bosom or wear ribbons in her hair. One could categorize her as unremarkable upon first glance because she seemed so unadorned and unpracticed in the wiles of womanhood. But upon the second glance (ah, the cool, second glance) the pallid, limp figure will have sprouted wings and a seraph's glow, which suctioned the eye suddenly to her like a droplet of blood on a sheet of snow. Her aura was so luminous and overwhelming at times that I would see the gold flecks of energy radiate from her, protecting her, and destroying every man's masculinity along its path.

She was mine, and even whilst sharing this description of her with you, I am jealous.

My photographic memory serves me well in the case of our first meeting. Pale, mint green skirts. Wispy, frost-yellow hair. Chapped lips uttering unrefined gold. She whistled. I was curious. I had been on my way down from dropping off a note to the ballet mistress when I heard the cool pop of her heal beat insync with a mild, lovely humming of a girl. I was bored. With only mild interest, I peered down past the balcony beyond the speckled lights. There, half-sitting, half-lying at the edge of the stage, pink feet still taping, the small mound of her knee molding to the gauze of her skirts, sad eyes practically bursting with lashes on a face so pale and gray and melting with loveliness, was my angel.

My hipbone collided against the cool railing of my box, and my mind when numb with a sort of dreadful thump that could only mean I nerves had shut down. I saw that she had been crying. Oh, I would kill the very soul who hurt you, my darling. In my minds eye, my arm had morphed into a black tenticle and stretched to pet her head and stroked her hot cheek.

She looked up.

I held my heart in my dry mouth, suddenly stupid and awkward and immobile. It was better that I was. She might or might not have seen me. Perhaps my black attire would hide me and the dim lights partially blinded her. Perhaps, her eyes were slits because she could not see and she blinked twice because the light was in her eye. She stopped singing.

I shrank back into the shadows with my hand pressed against my face against it. Imagine if I had touched her and my flesh had turned to gold. The Chinese say that upon meeting one's soulmate, the feeling of understanding is so incontrovertible that the reaction is felt in the stomach. I remember this quip when I began to regurgitate.

Tuesday. I remember what date it was because it was pay day, and I had given M. Giry the note to remind Moncharmin and Richard their rent was due. I also remember it as the night from hell.

I had drawn a picture of elle. I wanted to see her every day, and I didn't know how to tangibly have her yet, but I knew I would. In my minds eye she was was a child, and I had sat her on my lap and pinched her cheeks and held her and stroked her chin and told her as I rocked her in my chest, that she was going to be alright.

I don't know why I thought she needed saving. But saving, she needed. She needed hope, and strength, and me. Something I could give her which nobody else could was safety. And I knew it was crazy because I was crazy, and I looked nothing like the man she would call father or husband or friend or savior. I looked like me: a monster.

I was ugly.

But an ugly man falls in love the same way a beautiful one does. He falls. And with that fall, he feels the same intangible agony of hope, of "maybe's" and "never's" and fear of rejection. I knew she would reject me, but I hoped she wouldn't. I knew she would hate me, but I hoped she'd touch me instead. I knew she had to do it. Because I willed it, from the depths of my heart, of my soul–I willed it. And with that will, I believed in myself.

Morning, August 23rd, 1980.

Christine is at rehearsal, dancing on the stage to the Marriage of Figaro. Wanton and lithe, she drew shapes with her arms and legs, pointed her little foot out towards the audience, towards me, twenty-three times.

My heart was beating as I counted. Her gestures had been practiced. She moved to the rules, to the standards of the ballet mistress. Not to me. But I didn't care. With each smooth stroke of her arms, she performed only for me, because there was nobody there. And even when the empty chairs are filled, her dances would be still be mine.

I was as soft and as ruined as an obedient dog.

After rehearsal, I waited in the wings like a big ubiquitous bat in fear. I was so terrified that I could not even make my presence known, for fear that she would see right through me and eat me alive.

But I had to show myself.

I set a trap. I wrote a note to the ballet mistress that one of her students needed practicing. The blonde one with the pale, tawdry disposition. The one who was a bit too tall. The one who danced next to Meg, the little Giry.

And so when the session concluded and the nymphs scurried off stage, my child remained, punished unfairly to practice an extra hour on her own, the poor thing.

And not to my surprise she started singing once alone, and this time using vowels to sing the arias.

I spoke to her.

"Could use more practice," I said.

She glanced upwards, towards the direction of my voice. "Who is it?"

"Nobody," I said.

She ran to the edge of the stage and stretched her beautiful neck out like a swan.

"Oh, really," She said, "It must be the Ghost then."

She waited for a response and when none came, she asked, "Then it is you, the Ghost?"

"I'm not a very scary one if that's the case," I said, half to myself.

"No, not scary," she said, still craning her neck, "Come out of the light so I can see you, please."

Please. She said the word with such sincerity, I actually wanted to obey. Of course, I did not.

"I've been watching you," I said.

Her eyes flicked. "Well that is scary."

My hands crept to my face out of sheer paranoia. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"Nor I to entertain you," she said. "I demand that you show yourself now."

"I'm here to help you."

"Help me, how?"

"Help you sing, Christine."

A funny look came over her face. One of familiarity, of genuine excitement.

"I know you," She said. She left off the stage and ran down the aisle to two rows before my box, and started to climb, like a twelve year old, over the seats until she reached the very bottom to what looked like my very own tower.

"Hello," she smiled up into the darkness, with her hand held out towards my direction as if she expected me to lower a head of hair as yellow as corn so she could climb up to the window. I looked down at her arm.

"Hello," I said, and then, unceremoniously, "Not here."

"Then where?" Her words were pillowed by enthusiasm. Her light eyes unblinkingly cried towards me. "Tell me and I shall go."

It was too easy. There had to be a catch. Nothing in life had come easily for me, and this, certainly now could not be the time for the love of my life to fall into my lap. I knew I was taking advantage of a flaw but I did not know how.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I soon figured it out.

She thought I was un ange. I am not making this up, though I'm sure you're scrunching your nose and coughing "bullocks". It is the truth. I hadn't guessed what was wrong with her was fatherlessness. Pure immaturity. Lack of self-sufficiency. Gullibility. Complete suspension of belief. He had told her that he would send her l'ange de musique after his death, and she waited with the sickening patience of a pup at the door. And even at her age, twenty, which was a ready-time to be married, she believed in nothing more unquestioningly than she believed her father. I daresay she believed more in him than she did God.

I did not know how to deal with this. I did not know whether it was good or bad for our relationship. And as bazaar as the excuse was, I was simply happy to be close to her. How she glowed in glee at the sound of my voice through her bedroom mirror, that should have made me uneasy with guilt. Oh I felt guilt, alright. All the wrong kinds.

The mirror between us played an integral part in easing our rapport. Thank god she could not see me on the other side with my face practically sewn against the glass as to get a whiff of her through the great divide. I could not. But I oogled, pathetically, just the same. Little did I know that there was a surprise waiting around the corner for me. A certain loom of doom, if you will, that came with the first name Raoul, last name de Chagny. So pretty was he that even I was taken aback the first time I saw him twitching his fair moustache.

You see, while I was sitting anxiously in box five, both ears sucking on the melody of her voice, my eyes scoured over the men in the audience (nevermind just bachelors or young lads). I had a way of going about this by process of elimination. Of the ones leaning forward upon the first arousal of interest, two thirds were accompanied next to their wives. Then of the unmarried group, half purely adored her while the other half only leered like teenage boys. Then, out of those ten or so men, two–or if I were to be lenient–three of them would be presentable and brave enough to approach my darling.

Raoul de Chagny was one of three.

I will describe him as fairly as possible. He was young, notably twenty, translucent skin, blonde head and eyebrows, a set of "just bitten" tangerine lips below a pointy, unaristocratic small nose and big watery blue eyes. He had an innocent face. The first time I saw him up close, he'd burst into Christine's dressing room (uninvited, that rat) with his tall hat in hand and fingers trembling with a bouquet of roses, the darling. He was always pale, always nervous, always concerned, and had a strange look in his eyes like he needed to be petted. Good dog, I wanted to say. Sit. Scram.

He was money. He clearly did not dress himself for no lad of such nervous decree would be able to concentrate on coordinating his jacket with his pant-legs. Also, he was the younger Chagny. The older frequented the Opera and was wildly famous for his debonair yet salacious conquests. Debonair being him, salacious being everything else.

Well big Chagny did not approve of Little Chagny's obsession with Christine because Big Chagny had also a bigger brain. He took his dates with no intention to bring them home, but Raoul–I knew since the first moment he saw Christine, he was trapped.

It did not occur to me that perhaps my sweet and Raoul had a history. I thought he was enamored, lusting, even, but not awakened by some prepubescent dream. When he showed up at her dressing room that night, as she was about to speak with me, he lapsed into a form of familiarity that disgusted me.

"The red scarf?"

"Oh, Raoul!"

I shall never forget the way her voice glowered at the vowels of his name nor the way she threw her arms violently around his neck and let him kiss her cheek. My hand had been pressed so tensely against the glass that I would have broken it if I were allowed to.

So he had been part of her story. He had known her father as I never had, and he had know her as a babe, a blonde child in the sea, dancing around the fire with her, listening to violin and sharing chocolates and ghost stories as innocents and all the while accredited with rescuing a bloody red scarf from the sea! Such heroism, such courage! How could I compare to thee.

Well nevermind, I have her now, you see. I was still the ange de musique, the mystical creature sent from heaven by her father to rescue her from the mundane life of dancer, about to transform her into a star, and you are just getting in the way! Well move aside, now, I thought. You've had your year and now I must have mine. Besides, I love her so much more than you do because I've loved her before she came into the light. I loved her alone and dawdy and weak on her knees. I loved her at first hum and second blink and ever ever humlinks. I win because she was always, before she even knew it, mine.

Still, he came into our lives like a cricket, chirping away, every still second.