Hello, and thank your for choosing Unsung Love Storyfor your ErikxMeg needs! I'm Katu, your author, and in this brief Author's Note, I am going to-Oh, nevermind. Just wanted to cheer you up a little before exposing you to the extreme angst that is Erik's life.
To all n00bs: Erik is the Phantom. Read the fricking book.
To everyone: I adore critiques, though blatant bum-kissing is also appreciated, and flames will be used to burn down my local Opera House. That said, on to the story!
Chapter 1: Longing for Death
It had been nearly four months since the Opera Populaire closed. The insides had been scorched out, leaving little but the charred remains of both luxury and toil as audience to the operatic echoes that never completely died away. The House was declared condemned, no one was allowed in, anymore.
That was why Margaret Giry, Meg for short, was clad entirely in dark colours, covering her fair skin and hair, as she picked her way through the blackened, rain-eroded detritus inside the ruined Opera House. She knew where she was going...she'd been there once before, and her memory was good. The charred dressing-rooms and crunching glass-shards soon gave way to dank enclosure, solid stone passages that had remained untouched by fire.
Her mother had always expressly forbidden her exploring the catacombs beneath the building, but all the same had warned her to keep her hand at the level of her eyes. Meg was unafraid, however, because cupped in her small, cold hand was her ticket through this area. The white of it glinted in the dim torchlight.
Many of the passages had caved in to one extent or another, and the going was less than easy, for limber as Meg was, she was wearing women's clothes, and her skirts tended to get caught. As she cautiously climbed down a particularly large slope of rubble, her footing gave way, and with her legs sliding out from underneath her, her arms windmilled, and the smooth, white skull of the mask in her hand flew away across the floor. Upon landing, and with little thought to her aching derriere, she immediately rushed to the mask and lifted it gently. It was unscathed, much to Meg's relief. Its demise could likely mean her own.
She gazed at it, cold and beautiful in the flickering firelight. It was not her mask. This she knew, and yet she still felt somehow cheated to have to return it to its rightful owner. She had saved his life, after all, had declared him dead and brandished the mask as proof. She'd kept it as a sort of token, something to remember her life with the opera by. She'd intended to keep it. But he'd found her.
It was no secret that the Phantom preferred to remain alone, hidden, in the catacombs of the Opera Populaire. And there he had been, for the past month, scarcely leaving his organ to eat or sleep, letting his bitter tears mingle with the ivory keys beneath his fingers, to sweeten the love's reqiuem he was composing. Love was dead to him, now, even more so than it had been before Christine, and he was dead to it. Certainly, he should just end what remained of his meagre existence, for without power and without love, he was without purpose.
He struck a dischord, and threw himself violently from his keyboard, making little effort to stand as he did so. His knees buckled beneath the weight of his sorrow, and he fell into music's altar behind him, overturning hundreds of candles in various states of decline. Paper and unlit candles fell around his sobbing form like leaves in the fall, but he paid them no heed. Indeed, when a rather hefty candelabra chose that moment to lose equillibrium, landing heavily on the Phantom's face, he barely cried out, and made no effort to move it.
"Christine..."
An hour later, he'd decided. Tonight was the last night of the rest of his life. His cloak hung about his broad shoulders in a familiar way, his mask clung comfortably to the side of his face, his wig lay in place for the last time. Tonight it all ended.
But not without certain...arrangements. The Phantom knew, through and through, that he could never find someone to love him; the doors to a woman's heart were closed to him forever. This thought pained him, but it made his concession easier. He could never have emotional love...but for a price he could buy a more physical love. It wasn't as if he needed the money, after tonight. He could afford to pay handsomely. As he would no doubt have to do, for his face was not half so handsome as his wallet-book.
Thus endowed with conviction, mask, and money, the Phantom ventured out into Paris.
He could afford the best, he knew. The Moulin Rouge, if he wanted. There were no limits placed on him...but he could not bring himself to immerse himself in the glitzy throng of somewhere like that. Despite his desire for the best that money could buy...his instincts begged him to choose someplace more private.
But where? He'd never attempted a night out before, and hardly knew the best places to go. In desperation not to have his final plan fail, like so many of his others, he chose randomly from the series of merry-looking establishments on the street. He stepped in through the door and, to his pleasure, hardly anyone even looked up. He stood still for a moment, unsure of what to do. Was he to be seated? Was he to seat himself? Should he remove the hood that shrouded his face in darkness? Was he allowed to let it remain? Did going out for a drink or a bite to eat always present such a dilemma? If so, why would anyone bother?
Before he could make a bewildered movement, a busty young blonde...well, bustled up to him and led him kindly, if absently, to an empty table. She didn't say a thing about his hood, so he felt it safe to assume that it was fine where it was. This relieved him...he didn't want to risk being identified.
"Someone will be with you in a moment," the girl said, smiling at him in a way that made his pathetic stomach flip. If she only knew what she was smiling at...
In a moment, she was gone, but her face lingered with him. She seemed almost familiar to him, but he could not quite place her features to a name. He shook his head; it was highly unlikely he would know a serving wench of a pub he never frequented. In front of him there was a drink. How on earth had that gotten there? He looked up suspiciously, and another woman was standing beside him, with a slightly less wholesome smile than the blonde. Having a different woman present every time he glanced up was a rather new experience for him, and he was slightly unnerved.
"Evenin', stranger," she said, shifting her weight to her other hip, "Anything else I can get you?"
The Phantom looked at the mug before him. Amber liquid with a fluffy white head on it was still sloshing around the inside. Beer. He'd never had the stuff. Well, he thought to himself, taking the handle into his cold fingers, might as well try once before you die. He took a drink, and expelled it violently just afterwards; it was disgusting! This display caused quite a few heads to turn, and a round of laughter to start up. His face burned crimson in the privacy of his hood, and he rounded angrily on his serving-girl. Laughter, shock, and apology were all fighting for supremacy in her expression.
"Take this away," he ordered gruffly, shoving the glass to the edge of the table, causing even more of the foul liquid to spill out onto the floor, "I'll have a glass of champange, if you would."
"Nothin' to eat?" the woman asked, still trying to contain her giggling.
"No," The Phantom scoffed, "No food. Just champange."
"Well, then. Any preferences?" she asked, brushing her hair behind her ears and regaining some composure.
He exasperatedly pressed a few notes into the wench's hand, eager to gain some privacy, "The best. I trust in your taste." And with that, the woman went scampering off. The Phantom heaved a great sigh. He'd been around people for barely ten minutes and all ready he wished he was alone again.
Beer. What sorts of common, foul creatures were men, that they could drink the stuff? It had no style, no class, no dignity of any kind. It was merely the poor man's bridge to inebriation. Horrid.
His thoughts were interrupted by a lady's backside passing close beneath his face. He looked up with vague disgust until he saw that it was the little blonde, again. He cleared his throat, intending to speak to her - for it was her that he had decided on, this night - and at the sound, she hurriedly turned. She immediately backed away, blushing.
"I'm so sorry, Monsieur," she said quickly, in a voice so mortified it was almost a whisper, "I didn't mean to offend, I didn't see where I was - "
He waved a silencing hand, and the girl's mouth shut immediately. What a sweet, obedient young woman! A smile, invisible to the girl, spread itself unconsciously across his mouth, though its smirking tone carried into the words he next spoke. "You're a sweet girl," he said, reciting the lines that he'd been rehearsing all night and hoping it was the correct thing to say, "Might I request your company tonight? I assure you, I can make it worth your while."
The blush deepened, and her blonde eyebrows furrowed. The apologetic, rueful smile that had been on her lips only moments before was suddenly gone, and he could have sworn he saw her eyes roll.
"No, Monsieur," she said, with a politeness so sharp that it cut straight to the Phantom's dying heart, "I am not interested in company of your sort." And she was gone, to that nameless void where serving-girls disappear to when they are not at your table-side. And just then, he realised why she seemed so familiar. That must have been Mme. Giry's little daughter, Meg. Well, that would explain her reaction; Meg was a good girl, kept on a tight leash by her formidable mother. She was the little girl who'd taken his mask. Well, she could keep it, now...and much good may it do her.
Still, he was so disheartened by her whole-hearted rejection that the Phantom made no effort to drink the champagne he'd so fastidiously requested, when it arrived. She'd smiled at him, she'd blushed for him...and he'd ruined that. Well, he thought to himself, he'd have felt bad, anyway, forcing his monstrosity on that innocent young woman. Perhaps it wasn't to be. Perhaps he was simply meant to die, never knowing love in that basest, carnal sense...
"You look lonely."
The words shot through the Phantom's unhappy musings, and his head shot up. The third female of the night stood before him, her long red hair hanging straight down past her pale shoulders. She was thin as a maypole, with a handsome, if not beautiful, face that was sprinkled with freckles so densely that it looked as if she'd been sprinkled with chocolate powder. Her breasts, such as they were, were pushed violently up into small, aesthetically pleasing half-spheres by her tight bodice, and her legs were half-bared by her bound-up skirts.
"Ah," he said, offering her a half-hearted smile, "As a matter of fact, I...Well, take a seat." He gestured to the empty seat on the other half of the booth, and the prostitute (for he now knew her to be that) accepted his offer graciously, sitting down and leaning forward licentiously, exposing even more of her less-than-ample cleavage.
There was a moment of awkward silence, before the woman before him smiled, as if remembering herself, and spoke. "My name is Genvieve."
"A lovely name," the Phantom responded, and said no more. The silence accosted them again.
"Aren't you going to tell me your name?" the prostitute prompted, with an encouraging smile. How old was she? Barely more than twenty, by the looks of her. The Phantom shook his head.
"No," he said, simply. Strange, he thought, for he'd always assumed that acquiring a lady of easy virtue was a quick, silent task. He didn't know you had to talk to them first. Well, he thought, he'd might as well make it easy. He took his as-yet-untouched champagne glass, and downed it as if it were vulgar whiskey. Then he immediately called the waitress over and ordered drinks for the both of them.