Thanks for clicking and I hope the following pleases you. This is primarily Leroux-based but there are extremely small Kay influences.
Disclaimer: I do not own "Phantom of the Opera"
Blood. The smell of roses and blood and sweat and steel. Nadir wonders about the color of a rose. The Persian shakes the thought from his mind as he lets the magician's arm drape across his shoulder. They walk slowly down the corridor, slowly past the Shah-in-Shah's gardens, slowly past the pink roses, dyed shades of blue by the night sky, dyed red by the Frenchman's blood.
It feels like forever before they reach Erik's chamber. Nadir can feel Erik's blood sticking to his clothing, hear the other man's labored breathing, see the crimson dripping and dripping and trailing and leaving. It feels like forever before he gets Erik to lie in his bed.
Erik's apartment is messy and organized in its own strange way. Strange instruments and inventions and creations of beauty and terror and sheets upon sheets of plans and music and drawings and paintings and sketches and documents and puppets. Everything is scattered yet reachable, visible yet hidden. Nadir takes a chair and leans backwards- heaven help him if he dared to tamper with Erik's objects.
It is an eternity before the medic arrives. In truth, little time passes. Nadir doesn't talk as the other man tends to the trapdoor lover. He doesn't talk as wounds are sealed and stitched and rubbed and cleaned and bandaged. He only nods as the other man asks him to help remove the sheets for they are stained and dirtied with red. Nadir wonders about the color of a rose. Erik's mask is never removed.
The night passes slowly. It is twilight by the time the medic leaves.
Broken ribs and deep slashes and cuts and bruises and stabbed flesh were used to describe Erik. Nadir reminds himself to tell the magician of that in the morning. He sighs and wipes the sweat off his brow. He knows the sultana would never let the trapdoor maker die, he knows that she finds him far too entertaining for that. He knows about the performances of torture and death and mental illusions and violence and disturbances of every kind. He knows of the monstrosities that occur.
Erik does not stir and Nadir finds himself growing tenser by the second. He admits to himself that he does not want Erik to die.
He hates the torture chamber and illusions and assassinations and executions and disturbing tricks and irritating temper and unneccesary insults. He hates the monster. He does not hate the wry comments and the dry humor and the neverending talent and the unsatiable curiosity. He does not hate the young man he brought from Russia. He does not hate the annoying magician who plays juvenile pranks on him. He does not hate the trapdoor lover who always shoves his plans in his face. He does not hate the the young man's excited chatter over a new creation and he does not hate the fact that the daroga was always the first to know of these things, not the Shah, not the little Sultana. He does not hate the brilliant youth.
Erik is his friend. A very odd friend. A temperamental companion Nadir feels the need to control, a naughty son he feels the need to scold. The daroga removes the mask, gently undoing the strings, and almost cringes upon seeing the face. But he notices the relaxed mouth, the soothed expression. And he isn't sure whether or not it was because of the moonlight streaming in or the lack of light in the small apartment that caused his revelation.
The trapdoor lover is not a demon. He is not even a man. He is but a boy.
Nadir drapes a cool cloth over Erik's face; he knows how upset the other would be it he knew the mask was taken. The Persian rubs his eyes- the magician is barely a young man. He must be no older than the head servant boys. And a twinge of pity and horror and sorrow touches Nadir's heart.
He finds himself staring at a painting of a Persian rose. Nadir wonders about the color. It is shaded pink with hints of red. The shadows are black. Nadir wonders about black roses. His eyes trail to another sketch, a very detailed drawing of an European woman. She is beautiful, even by the dim candlelight. The lines are etched too soft and too deep. With pain.
His mother
That is Nadir's instinctive thought and he believes it is right. Erik does not talk of the past. Everything the daroga knows of him has slipped up by accident, a casual comment with no meaning, a phrase escaped in a moment of security. The only woman he has ever heard Erik mention is his mother. It was during an argument.
When Nadir first found out about the torture chamber, he had gone to the magician with a look of disgust and the words "this is a contraption from hell" and "be quiet, you great booby" and "your mother would be so proud" and "my mother hates me" and "of course, just look at this" and "look at me" were exchanged. Nadir remembers another conversation.
Erik never visits the harem, never even touches the girls the Shah sends to him. Nadir once asked him why. "They wince when I touch them" and "this face prevents anything" and "I shouldn't taint beauty" were the answers. Nadir remembers asking what Erik thought was beautiful. "The sultana" and "those paintings" and "some of the harem girls" and "the palace" and "my mother."
Nadir wonders what will happen tomorrow- he does not care to find out. He continues to muse on his strange friend. He notices the vivid petals in the painting, how the seem to close around one another. He pieces the bits of Erik's life together.
An unloved child. He has arrested children before- the daroga did not like it but it had to be done. He remembers the pleading eyes of young skinny theives. The death of his own son must be punishment. Nadir forces himself to surpress the memory as his chest squeezes. His own son once threatened to run away because Nadir was not home often enough. Unloved children have no home. Nadir feels his eyes burn.
He first met the Living Corpse at a Russian fair. Fairs move from place to place. Nadir imagines a deformed boy leaving home. He imagines this boy, lost and lonely, stumbling upon a fair. He imagines this boy enduring life's cruelty. He remembers once asking how Erik thought of the name; the answer was "I didn't" and "a gypsy did it for me." He imagines this boy displayed by a gypsy. He remembers Erik once saying "before today, I've only killed one man, Daroga" and "because I had to." He imagines the horrors the gypsy put the boy through.
It it not hard to imagine. Nadir can see the scars mapping Erik's prone form.
He imagines the gypsy dying vividly at the boy's hands. He imagines the boy leaving again and being humiliated and gawked at and displayed again and again because he has no other means of survival. He imagines the boy growing, scared and broken. He imagines the boy traveling with the fairs, gaining fame from wasted talent. He imagines a Persian meeting the boy and taking him to the Shah-in-Shah.
Nadir's eyelids begin to droop. He imagines, remembers, this Persian being put in chare of the boy. He imagines the boy playing malicious tricks on this Persian- and this Persian chastising him on every turn. He imagines the boy developing a strange attachment to this Persian. He recounts their arguments and conversations and walks and idle chatter and insults and meals together. He imagines the boy strangling a man with catgut. He imagines the boy executing others in a ring of death. He recounts this boy's stamina wavering.
He remembers this boy falling. He remembers the heavy blows and stabs and cuts that fell on the boy. He remembers the boy winning regardless, stabbing the other man with his own sword. He remembers the boy staggering and covered with blood. He remembers the boy falling forward into his arms.
Nadir wakes up. His clothing feels moist and stale. He feels sluggish and clumsy. He does not move.
The daroga glances at Erik and feels strangely relieved when he notices the latter's chest rise and fall. Nadir always thought that there would come a day where he would have to stop Erik from harming others, where he would have to defend someone else from his friend. He is a pessimistic man and he knows that maintaining a friendship with Erik would have its consquences.
But tonight, Nadir realizes he is not protecting anyone from Erik. He is protecting Erik from everyone else. He knows Erik is not popular among the other men and Nadir is afraid of what would happen if he did not stay in the chamber.
Erik is a paradox himself. He is horrifically immature for one who acts so old and a perfectionist for one who writes so horribly and uncharacteristically kind for one who commits such monstrosities and too composed for one so broken and too hideous for one so fixed on beauty and too brilliant for one so young. Nadir muses bitterly on the irony. It is almost as if Erik was born to be broken. He creates to destroy. He lives to die.
The daroga smiles softly, green eyes etched with sorrow. For now, he would keep the broken boy safe. For tonight, he would stay by the trapdoor lover's side.
There are many colors to a rose. Nadir knows it is pink and red and black and at times purple between the shadows. There are many sides to a man.
This turned out to be more of a character study than a plot but I think it turned out rather well. Besides, the Persian deserves more text. Hope that was enjoyable.