You Must Love Me!
By The Lark
Disclaimer: I don't own Phantom of the Opera. If I did, I'd be rolling in my money pile instead of writing this junk.
Erik pulled on his hat and cloak. As much as he hated the idea, he was going to have to venture out of his lair tonight to pick up a few things. He was all out of his hair dye and that "English Leather" scented aftershave Christine was so fond of, and he didn't want to be looking like a slob if he happened to bump into her one of these days. Taking a quick look around the lair, he made a mental note to do some straightening as soon as he got back. Should Christine decide to drop in, he didn't want her to know that he now spent his days eating chocolate, crying into her old wedding veil, watching the Lifetime channel, and then eating more chocolate.
He sighed sadly, climbing through the Rue Scribe entrance into the cool night air. Who was he kidding? She wasn't coming back. It had been almost a year. It was time to move on. He'd been neglecting his work for too long. The stagehands were walking through the halls with impunity, the managers had stopped taking their tranquilizers, and the poor ballet rats were about to die of boredom.
As he closed the passage behind him, he tripped over a dead body sprawled face-down in the gutter. "Damn it, not another one! Stupid Mafia," the Phantom griped. "I don't know who started that rumor that the Opera Ghost eats corpses, but when I find him, I'm going to have to cook him in my giant oven. God, where did they even come up with such an absurd, utterly groundless idea anyway?"
"I'm not dead, idiot," the corpse grumbled weakly, rolling onto its side.
Erik gasped in awe, for he could see now that the corpse was actually a beautiful girl of nineteen or twenty, with a head full of silken, fiery red curls and stunning lavender eyes that held fathomless depths of sorrow. And her skin was very pale, but in pretty way, not a sickened, frozen, emaciated way like you would have expected from a sick girl lying in a gutter.
The Phantom's heart began to flutter, so he reached into his pocket for his heart medicine and took a sip. Then he realized he was just in love, and spat it back out.
He knelt down beside the new object of his obsession and took her reverently into his arms. She was stunningly beautiful, much prettier than Christine. Well, aside from the heart medicine he'd just spat all over her face, but you get the idea. When she began to tremble violently in his arms, his face flushed beneath the mask. "Mademoiselle, really, how can you be enjoying the touch of a hideous monster like me?"
The mysterious stranger rolled her eyes. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe I was shivering because I've been lying around in the middle of a blizzard all night?
"Oh…uh…I knew that. I just wanted to…uh…" The girl fainted, sparing us from having to hear whatever lame excuse Erik was about to stutter. He picked her up, prepared to carry her to his home. Then he remembered the chocolate wrappers and Lifetime movies strewn all over his floor, so he sat her down and went home to tidy up a bit. Then he came back, scraped his new girlfriend off the pavement, and carried her back to the lair.
He tucked her into the bed in Christine's old room, then went into the next room and began to mix one of his old Gypsy medicines. Creeping into her room, he placed a funnel into her mouth and poured the medicine in so he wouldn't have to disturb her rest.
His efforts were wasted. The moment the concoction hit her throat, she bolted upright and began to choke and gag. "GAH! Ugh! What's the matter with you! What was that?"
Erik gently put an arm around her shoulders, helping her back into bed. "It's all right, dear. It's just some herbal medicine I made to speed you on the road to recovery. The ginseng will help your body to regenerate, and the eucalyptus will ward off pneumonia."
"Then what was the horseradish for?" The mysterious girl searched her pockets for a mint.
"I just thought it could use a little extra flavor." He shuffled his feet awkwardly. "My name's Erik, aka, the Phantom, aka, the Opera Ghost, aka the Angel of Music. What's yours?"
"I'm Comtesse Annette-Suzette-Lucie-Marie-Belle-Giselle-Andree-Renee Delacour. But everyone calls me Raven."
Annette-Suzette-Lucie-Marie-Belle-Giselle-Andree-Renee. What a beautiful name. He made a mental note to write a poem about it, but first, he was going to have to buy a lot more ink. "Charmed. So how'd a gorgeous noblewoman end up in the gutter next to an opera house, anyway?"
The fathomless depths of sorrow in her eyes intensified. "Don't tell anybody, but I'm on the run from my abusive fiancé , Raoul."
Erik gasped. "Raoul? But he's married to Christine! How can he be cheating on her already? They seemed so in love."
"Not Raoul de Chagny, Erik, a different Raoul.My creator doesn't know very many French names," Raven explained. "But we don't have to worry about him. He thinks he already killed me, but it was actually my identical twin sister, Felicité-Desireé-Eugenie-Ophelie-Angelique-Monique." She began to sob into her pillow. "Why, God? Why Felicité-Desireé-Eugenie-Ophelie-Angelique-Monique? She was perfect! Why couldn't he take me instead! WHY?"
"I'm sure you're just as perfect as she was," Erik soothed.
"No, I'm not." She lowered her fathomless lavender eyes shamefully. "Don't tell anyone this, but…" She burst into tears once more. "I've got a disfigured pinky toe! Waaaaaaaaah!"
"Don't feel bad about something trivial like that. Look what I have to live with." Erik removed his mask.
Raven began screaming bloody murder. "AAAAAAAAGGGGHHH! Oh, what a horrible sight! I think I'm going to be sick! Put it back on! For the love of God, put it back on!"
Erik sniffled, feeling hurt. "But you're superior in every way to that dull little Christine girl I used to like. My face isn't supposed to matter to you."
She gaped at him incredulously. "You've got a rotting skull for a head. Do you expect me to think that's hot or something?"
"Well, you're my new true love. I just didn't think it would matter to you."
"Woah, woah, woah, hold the phone a minute there. True love? I've only known you for five seconds. There's not a whole lot to build a lasting relationship on here yet."
This just wasn't going the way he had planned.
Erik kept Raven in his lair for the next couple of weeks, tenderly nursing her back to health. She was very grateful, but his frequent proclamations of undying love continued to go unreturned.
"I'm sorry, Erik," she apologized one day. "You're kind of sweet, in a creepy, angsty sort of way, but I'm just not attracted to you."
"But why?" Erik protested. "I'm mysterious and artistic, and I'm good at fixing things, and I dress really well, and--"
"You're also more than twice my age." She pointed to his hair, where his graying roots were showing. He never had gotten the chance to pick up that hair dye. "Plus you're an insane murderer, and an extortionist, and a kidnapper. And you have a really violent temper. With my violent, abusive fiance, you can imagine my aversion to that sort of behavior. Then there's the matter of your drug addiction, and that obsession you have with your cat. Plus, you're that pale, skinny Kay phantom. If you looked like Gerry, I might try to look past all that other stuff, but…"
"Hey, a lot of women find me attractive!" Erik defended. "There was that creepy "khanum" lady in Persia…and all those Phan-girls…did I mention the creepy "khanum" lady?"
"Let's not bicker this way. I still like you as a friend. Now, let's go and sing for a while. That'll cheer you up." Raven, naturally, had an angelic singing voice much more beautiful than Christine's.
But Erik didn't give up so easily. One night, as Raven was sleeping, he strapped a bomb to his chest, plucked her from her bed, dressed her in a wedding gown and chained her up in his dungeon. "Now marry me or I'll blow us both to smithereens."
Raven just yawned, rubbing her eyes sleepily. "Erik, you've tried this tactic before. If you're going to try and charm me, you could at least be a little more original about it."
So the next day as they were singing together, Erik switched in the middle of the song to "Point of No Return" from Don Juan Triumphant. His richly seductive voice would be sure to melt her where she stood.
Right around the "what sweet seduction lies before us?" line, he noticed Raven rolling her eyes at him. "What?" he demanded. What was wrong, here? She should have been all over him by "abandon thought and let the dream descend."
She shook her head, trying unsuccessfully to keep from laughing. "Erik, I'm a Mary-Sue. If I can be immune to poison, stab wounds, and lycanthropy, I can certainly shrug off the effects of your voice."
Then, remembering the words of a love advice columnist he had seen on Lifetime, he decided to try making her jealous. A few mornings later, just before she emerged from her room, he undid the many locks on his front door. Several screaming Phan-girls rushed inside, but he pushed most of them back out. "Sorry, girls, I only need one right now."
At that moment, he heard the door to Raven's room click open, and hastily pulled the remaining girl into a heated kiss. But there was no indignant shriek, no angry footsteps stomping away, nothing. He frowned. Maybe if he tried again with a bit more feeling. He reached for the girl again, only to discover that she'd just slid into a puddle on the floor. With a shrug, he opened the door and pulled a second girl through, slamming his mouth onto hers.
After several minutes, he decided to turn around to see Raven's reaction. He released the girl, and she fell to the floor with a dull thud. "So, Raven, what do you think about that?"
Raven was busy thumbing through the mail, and hadn't seen any of this. "Hm? Oh, sorry, Erik, I wasn't paying attention. Were you trying to impress me with a cartwheel again?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!" Erik howled in frustration.
"Ooh, look, ten cents off on chocolate milk!" She picked up the coupon page and wandered off in search of some scissors.
Finally, a novel idea occurred to him. Why not just try the old school approach? Be sweet and thoughtful and romantic and all that rot? It was crazy, but it just might work.
So that night, he came home toting a giant stuffed bear with red hearts printed all over it, two dozen red roses, and a box of chocolates. (Well, half a box. He got a little nervous on the way home.) "Guess what, Raven? It's the two and a half week anniversary of the day we met, and I thought we could celebrate by going to the carnival and taking a ride down the tunnel of love. Then we'll stop by the jewelry store on the way home and get personalized ID bracelets."
Raven groaned. "You know, this was kind of cute when you were just trying to seduce me with your bad boy persona, but this fluff angle is just plain scary. I'm out of here!" Annette-Suzette-Lucie-Marie-Belle-Giselle-Andree-Renee Delacour fled into the night, never to return.
Erik chased after her for a while. "Raven, wait! I was going to save this surprise for after our date, but I strangled your husband for you! Come back and see! I even took him to a taxidermist and had him stuffed for you! This is the part where you're supposed to cry 'my hero' and fall into my arms! Raven? Raven, come back!" But it was no use trying to keep up with her. Raven had been born with super speed and the ability to fly.
Dejected, Erik shuffled back to his lair. "I can't believe she dumped me. If something as cliché as that can go wrong, I don't know what to what to believe in anymore." He wearily pushed his front door open, only to find…
Christine de Chagny standing in his front parlor, holding a baby and looking disheveled. "Erik, my love, thank God I've found you again. I've left Raoul! He suddenly turned evil for no apparent reason yesterday and tried to kill me. You've got to do something, if not for my sake, then for that of our secret love child!"
Erik breathed a sigh of relief. All was right with the universe again.
THE END