A/N: Alright, I would like to apologize first of all to those of you who may have come from my Arrow fic. It is on hiatus. Not permanently, but unfortunately as you can tell I lost all motivation for that particular story. I will return to it though, so never fear!
Now, as for this new story, I would like to say a couple things before it starts. 1.) I noticed while looking up some other fanfiction that someone else had named the girl Charlotte. Apparently it is popular, so please do not come in here and alert me to that. 2.) This is movie-verse, perhaps with some hints of the musical. I debated for several days which setting I wanted this in and I decided on movie. Sadly this means no Nadir. That man doesn't receive hardly half the credit he deserves. He might get mentioned in Chapter 3 though...
Anyway, on with the story!
Chapter 1 - Damien
The shadows were long, void-like as they stretched forth from where they were cast by the whitewash light of the moon.
A single figure, cloaked in black, moved slowly down the cobblestone avenue. Their steps measured, the click of the heels of their shoes on the pavement was set to a beat unknown to all others. It was a slow tempo, and the depressing ambiance of the slightly fogged empty street spoke without words of loneliness. If it weren't for the evening patrol of the night constable, anyone else might have awoken and been filled with dread at the eerie sound.
However, the figure moving at a leisurely pace down the street was not the night constable. Had any of the people living in the flats that lined the road had the presence of mind at the early hour of 2:45 in the morning to look at the clock, they would have realized that. The night constable would not return to their part of his beat for another thirty minutes.
Rather, the person who had seemed to make every effort to remain unnoticed aside from remove his shoes was a visitor the people didn't know quite as well but should have expected in any case. The turned up collar of the cloak and the hat brim pulled low to obscure any possible view of the person's face probably gave away more than intended.
Erik was out for an evening stroll. Since the fire, Antoinette had visited him more frequently and that evening had informed him of the nice turn toward chilly that the weather had taken. In fact, she had all but outright suggested that he take a walk. He had rolled his eyes while she wasn't looking and grumbled and growled and complained about it up until he had stepped out of the back alley entrance to the Opera Populaire and into the crisp night air.
By now, judging by his pocket watch, he had been out alone with his thoughts for three hours. Believing himself to be sufficiently aired out for the time being, he thought it about time to return to his home. There were things to be done, new scores of music to write, and threats to be made. Rarely did he sleep as it was, though Antoinette all but force fed him three meals a day. If not for anything else, he ate to save himself the annoyance of having to face her wrath. In this world or another.
Admittedly, he wasn't certain why Madame Giry had stuck with him all the years she had. It wasn't until recently that he had begun to see just what an ally he had in her. Their friendship from times' past when they had been children was unrepairable. Especially since he had hardly noticed all she had done with her life since that time; a great rift had formed between them. She had gone on to become the ballet mistress of the opera house above and have a daughter, while Erik himself had simply become the Phantom, the Opera Ghost, that haunted the world above day in and day out.
It had taken many of her visits for them to reconcile to one another, his temper having only added to the ocean. Her unyieldingly staunch attitude toward him and his outbursts had been his saving grace time and again after that. She knew he would never hurt her, as did he. If there was one person Erik could claim loyalty to that had been and could very well be reciprocated, it would be Antoinette Giry. He owed her his life, though she would never mention it, and she remained with him for reasons beyond his understanding.
Of course, he had yet to officially meet the "little Giry" as he called her daughter since Antoinette refused to allow the young ballet rat downstairs. And, since the departure of her best friend, her child's curiosity had been seriously dampened. She did remain a spreader and inventor of stories and wild tales involving the Phantom which he had had the chance to hear on one occasion or another. It generally put him under the impression that she knew more of her mother's "relationship" (if one could call it that) with him than she let on.
In any case, his patience with the elder Giry, though vast as the ocean, had its limits. While he would never even consider harming her or her daughter in any way, there were occasions when he did find himself annoyed at Antoinette. When it got to the point where he no longer wished to be subject to her motherly discipline, he found that things worked best when he either listened to her or completely ignored her. Though the latter was often a last resort as it proved to have adverse effects over time.
This situation was one in which he applied the former. He allowed himself to listen to the harsh-sounding but well meant words of the single person on the Earth that he trusted more than himself. Thus resulting in his presence in the outdoors of Paris that evening.
Fortunately, the night had been clear enough and he had had enough to get done back in his abode that this one little semi-pleasure was not tainted by Christine.
Cursing himself for thinking it when he had been having such a fine time, he instantly felt his mood darken and clouds storm over head. His footsteps quickened and became heavier, echoing his mournful fury. He turned his sea green eyes up for the briefest of seconds to take a glance at the world around him. The Opera Populaire, his one and only home, was just in sight. It seemed he couldn't reach it fast enough.
His strides lengthened until he was closer to stomping than walking. From then, it didn't take long for Erik to find himself in the looming shadow of the opera house. He made his way around to the Rue Scribbe entrance at the back and headed for the door.
With his hand wrapped around the handle, he might've missed the cry if he'd been moving any faster. In that moment, he gave pause. He unleashed the handle from his oppressive grip and flickered his keen eyes around the surrounding alley.
There it was again.
Just a faint sob. A whimper really.
But he knew that sound. He'd issued it a thousand times himself. It gave voice the last dregs of the hurt felt by someone abused and in pain. The last slivers that could be felt before one reached rock bottom and could feel no more. His hand dropped to his side completely and he shifted slightly to look about.
He scanned the rubbish and supplies filled alley until he spotted a pile of rags and soot sitting in a corner wedged between a cart and some crates of supplies for props. Narrowing his eyes warily, he swung himself around with a graceful swish of his cloak, exposing his sword hanging at his side. The quiet whimper turned to a wordless outcry of terror accompanied by the sound of appendages scrabbling against surfaces for purchase.
He made no move toward the stranger's location until the dark material around him had smoothed to stillness and there was once again silence in the alley.
For a long series of moments, he merely stared at the greyish form of a small person huddled in the corner. He could feel a pair of terrified eyes fixed on him from the spot on the ground his steely eyes observed.
From experience, he knew that any sudden movement would result in a fight or flight response from the person adjacent to him. Cautiously, he stepped forward, setting one foot precisely in front of the other with the grace of a giant cat until he stood above the cowering figure below. Crouching beside the small being, he could see everything in the moonlight as an obscuring cloud disappeared.
He could see the quick rise and fall of the the too thin chest.
He could see the bruised skin, darker beneath the thin layer of dirt.
He could see the large bloody horror a weapon of some kind had unleashed upon a face.
He could see it was a child.
The sight of the terrified little boy before him pierced him through like a lance. He was altogether much too thin, and besides that, the were the bruises. Already an outstanding basis for accusations of child abuse.
And then there were his bloody wounds.
Oh god, they were bloody. There was no feasible way to even hope that he would be left relatively unscathed. The scars inflicted upon this child would be sure to rival his own once they indeed formed into scars. Half his face-save for a fortunate area around his eye-looked like minced meat.
He was not one given to pity. Ever. But, on this occasion, he couldn't help but feel a massive welling of pity for the boy. He had long thought that pity, and its sister emotion compassion, to be something he was beyond being able to show. However, the feeling of anger mixed with an unfounded despondency would not dissipate. Rather, with each look from the petrified boy beside him, it only intensified. A part of him wished to mourn the fate of this boy he had only just come across, and another, darker, part wanted to burn those who had inflicted this pain on something meant to be beautiful.
But then, when he combined the two feelings into one, he felt something deeper. He wasn't sure what, but something. He wanted, no needed, to do something. He would not allow this boy to suffer the same cruel fate he had. But how? How would he do it? It was an infernal question.
You could take him with you. Bring him up as yours, a voice in the more thoughtful recesses of his mind conjured. Initially he waved it off. But then it began to make more sense. Antoinette was too old to take on another child herself. And her daughter, the only other person Erik was willing to bestow his trust upon, was much too young to be imposed upon by a child she didn't want.
It made sense to him.
But now he had to actually help the child.
"Can you stand, little one?" he inquired, his smooth voice somewhat less gentle and soft than he had intended. The boy scrambled backwards away from him-pressing himself into the wall at his back-and spewed nonsense, as though he hadn't been taught to speak. Erik frowned, less out of annoyance and more from disappointment.
Under normal circumstances, he would have burned the person scorning him with his rage. However, it seemed that this child's fear was less of Erik himself, and more of adults in general. He had to find away past the shell of fear that the child was encased in.
Slowly, very slowly, he extended his hand out to the child. The boy recoiled slightly, but then seemed to relax slightly as Erik began to hum. It was a haunting melody. One he himself had heard as a boy in the Gypsy camp a great many years ago. The old Crones and fortune tellers would sing it to enrapture the minds of young children before they showed them their tricks. He wasn't sure why this particular song had remained with him all that time, but it had. As the lyrics came back to him, he began to sing them quietly in his deep, gentle voice.
"Come Little Children, I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment," he began, "Come Little Children, The Time's Come To Play, Here In My Garden Of Magic." As he sang the Gypsy lullaby, it seemed to soothe the boy. His breathing became slower and deeper and the fright in his eyes seemed to calm. Pleased with the results, Erik continued.
"Rest Now My Children, For Soon We'll Away, into The Calm And The Quiet," he sang as he watched the two silvery-blue orbs glaze over and disappear behind a pair of eyelids-both fortunately somehow undamaged. Carefully, he inched closer, never stopping the song, and reached out to the boy. The rise and fall of the his chest was deep and steady now; the child was asleep.
Erik hummed for a moment, trying to remember the final verses of the song.
"Come Little Children, I'll Take Thee Away, Into A Land Of Enchantment."
He lifted the boy into his arms.
"Come Little Children, The Time's Come To Play, Here In My Garden Of Shadow."
Straightening up and continuing to hum the dark melody, he held the small frail body of the child close, and with as much tenderness as he could muster. He opened the door and moved carefully into the darkness of the entrance. Much to his surprise, the tiny body in his arms snuggled even closer to him, causing him to pause and look down at where the boy would be in the darkness.
He wasn't being shunned.
He wasn't being pushed away.
Rather, it was quite the opposite.
The child, though having needed help to warm up to him, had indeed warmed up to him and was not showing great fear.
He was pulled out of his reverie when he felt something wet and sticky dampening his shirt where the boy's head rested. Worry suddenly creased his brow and he moved quickly and fluidly down into the lair, all the while his mind on another task entirely. The boy's name. if he didn't have one, and it was likely that he did not, then Erik would have to name him.
Damien, he thought, little Damien.
Remember, as another wise writer in the BH6 fandom often says: "Coffee keeps me awake to write, but good reviews keep me motivated to write!" :D see ya'll next week!