"I must apologise, my dear Daroga." The murmur is low, smooth as a caress against his cheek. "It was not my intention to startle you so."
He does not look for the source of the voice, knows that he cannot possibly find it. The candlelight is too soft, the room too dark, and that voice was always too skilled at making its intentions known from a distance. "It matters not," he breathes, feeling his lips move at a distance as if they belong to somebody else, his pen slipping from his fingers. "I am used to such interruptions." If there is a curl in his words the voice does not register them.
Cold fingers wrap around his wrist. He does not see them but they are there, lighter than ever they were before, tips pressed into the line of his pulse. "You should not have to be. I have wronged you terribly. I have been abominable towards you." The voice is thick with tears, and he feels his own eyes prickle hot, throat tight.
"It was not your fault." It was. It emphatically was. But what use is it to apportion blame now, when everything is over? Blaming anyone will not get them anywhere.
"I regret it. So very much do I regret it." The voice cracks, chokes, fingers vanishing from his wrist. "Please. Forgive me, Daroga. Forgive me."
His lips form the words without hesitation, and he nods, swallows against the ache in his chest. "I forgive you." And he does. Truly, he does. Just as there is no use in blame, now, there is no use in refusing forgiveness. It does nobody any good now to do so, only twists darkly inside of him, burning him and whispering those words-
"Daroga, I-"
"Hush. You are forgiven. Rest now." It is as simple, as easy as that to breathe the words that for so long he was not certain he could ever utter. Forgiveness. Yes, it is true. Rest. How alluring, how promising, even for him. How wonderful it would be to rest, to just let his eyes slip closed and drift away, those cold fingers light upon his cheek…
He sighs, and sinks deeper into his chair, lulled by a lilting song he has not heard in so long.
He wakes with his neck stiff, his back creaking. His study is filled with the grey mist of dawn, the candles burned down to stubs, and as he blinks against the scratchy dryness of his eyes his gaze drifts to the mask sitting on his desk. Three long months it has sat there, forlorn and silent since the last night he ventured below the Opera House. Three months-
A shudder runs through him, and he shoots up, half out of his armchair. Three months, and he did not leave that window open last night. He knows he did not. Darius is always reminding him to close it, especially now with the weather so damp, so he did close it he distinctly remembers doing so and-
And it is open, the curtains waving ever so slightly and his heart thuds at the sight, the memory of cold fingers against his cheek, that voice so warm in his ear. That voice that belonged to that face and he-he lifted the mask from it, three months ago, vowing that it need not hide him anymore, not now, not when the dead have no use for masks and-
His eyes burn, hot tears trickling down his cheek, and he gasps, the pain in his chest feeling as if a knife has pierced his heart. He was dreaming, that's all it was, clearly, the bone-deep exhaustion playing with his mind and oh, Allah, oh, Erik, oh-
The keening that reaches his ears is his own, his own alone and he slumps back into his chair, curling tight in on himself as if such an act can protect him from impossible dreams.