Perhaps she never wanted the beautiful boy at all. She doesn't know for sure. What she knows is this; Erik needs her more. From the moment she kisses him, fear for Raoul – not love – coursing through her, she understands. She is in not-love with either of them, truth be told, but Erik is the more pitiful, the one who has to be saved. She doesn't love him, but she doesn't love Raoul more.
So she stays. She stays, under the opera house, and in his den. Raoul didn't understand. She doesn't care.
Erik doesn't understand either. He watches her and she lets him. He expects her to run, so she stays. He expects her to cry, so she doesn't. Erik does not know the power he has given her, she who has been so without it her whole life. He has given her anything but captivity.
He has given her freedom.
So she stays and stays and waits and waits, sings for him and reads his books and smiles at him, sometimes. And he forgets to watch and he is kind and polite and so painfully shy that it turns her heart. She is not made of stone. She remembers how to feel. Her heart aches and she wonders, is this love? No, says a voice, it is not.
Not yet, says a new one, one who has not spoken up before.
And weeks pass, months pass, time goes by.
Erik takes her on walks, moonlit walks, and she begins to see his world. A world of darkness, yes, but also of secret beauty. Who knew that Paris looked her very best from the rooftops at midnight? Only Erik and the stars themselves.
Things are not always what they seem, says the new voice.
One day, they argue, ferocious and fierce, and she pulls the mask from his face and flings it into the fire. The first time was for curiosity, the second time for fear. The third? The third is for…rage. Unspeakable rage, born from his not trusting her, after all that time.
"I want to see", she screams, "All of you, all of the time."
"You do not want this," he hisses, thrusting his face into hers, "You can't want this."
So she kisses him, as she once did, and thaws his temper and calms his nerves. She can undo him with a single caress, she knows. He will never rule her when she knows such a thing.
And the mask is gone, when they are alone. As simple as that.
He is easier to read, without the damn thing. She wonders if he knows this. She wonders if this is the reason he wore one at all.
It is strange, the new voice says one evening, as she watches him read aloud to her, but he does not seem so monstrous now.
The mask hid his smiles.
Lop-sided smiles. Smiles that, on a whole man, would be beautiful. Smiles that would take her breath away. Smiles that still did, if she looked at him quickly.
And he blushed. Her Angel, her maestro, blushed sometimes, if her hand brushed his, or if she laid a hand on his shoulder whilst he played.
He's so innocent, the voice muses, he's done terrible things, but he is so, so innocent.
And one day, she looks at him and she realises that not-love has changed its face. She could love him.
She already does.
He doesn't understand why, on that day, she stays in her room, refusing his company. He thinks he has done something wrong and he slinks away, and she hears him hammering out his frustration on the piano. She isn't being fair to him, she knows, but Christine Daaé has always needed space to do her thinking, and he will know the truth soon enough. It burns through her, thumps with every beat of her heart. I love him. I love him. And she knows what she must do.
She cannot deny him a moment longer, when he has been denied his whole life.
Her power over him has led her to this.
So she emerges late that night, into the darkened house. Erik broods before the fire and he is wearing the mask again. The barrier is back up. The message is clear.
So is hers.
She takes the mask, more quickly than she has ever snatched it away before and drops it to the floor.
"Christine-"
She kisses him. The third kiss she has ever given him. The third kiss he has ever had.
She sits beside him and strokes his face, both sides of his face, and his breath catches in his throat. She leads, he follows, and when she lays a hand flat against his ruined cheek, his own trembling hand comes to cover it.
He has such beautiful hands. She is glad that his deformity has only touched his face.
She breaks away to breath, and he cannot look at her, although he desperately holds her hand against his face.
"Erik," she whispers, "Look at me."
"I cannot. You will not be there. I am dreaming, am I not? Just another dream."
"No dream. Look up."
So slowly, he drags his eyes to her face, and they glisten with tears unshed.
A lifetime of tears.
"I love you, Erik."
He is shaking his head, no, no, no.
"You cannot love Erik," he moans, "Erik does not deserve Christine. He would be her friend and nothing more."
"It is done," she says, "And you will not tell me what I can or cannot do. If I want to love you, then I will."
So they marry, whispered vows before the roaring fire, and who needs a priest? They have never been normal.
And then Christine takes his hand and leads him to her bedroom.
She is as new to this as he, but she at least knows the joy of human contact. She must lead him here, as she will need to lead him for the rest of their lives.
She kisses him, again and again, until he relaxes a little, and then she kisses his broken face and he begins to cry.
"Oh Christine. No one…Erik's mother could not kiss his face. How can you bear it?"
"I love you," she murmurs, "I love all of you, even your face."
She traces his eyebrow and sunken eye socket with her lips, and she mouths at the papery skin of his cheek. The skin is soft, not hard and twisted as she had imagined, and his swollen lip she takes between her teeth and nibbles. He grasps at her, hands that are normally so confident so anxious and unsure.
She allows him to undress her first, because he will not be able to stand being more vulnerable than he already is. He savours it, daring to touch her a little but holding back.
She does not mind. This is his night. There will be time to teach him later.
Then she undresses him. The sweet agony stretches on. One button at a time, an eternity for each. He is thin, impossibly thin, and covered in scars.
She kisses each and every scar, runs her tongue along the length of them, and he is a sobbing mess by the time she is done. She crawls up to him and just holds him as he cries and cries.
When he is finished, she moves gently to his waistband and loosens his trousers, pushing them down with her feet and she knows that, even now, she must step first.
With more confidence than she is feeling, she reaches for him and takes him in her hand. He gasps and it is not long until he is ready, and is already waiting.
It does not last long, that first time, but she knows that it should not. There is time to learn, for the both of them.
And then she rocks him to sleep, in her arms once more, and she makes a whispered promise, that as long as he belongs to her, no harm with ever come to him again.
That is the least she owes him.
A/N – This story covers a lot of the aesthetic I want to put into further Phantom stories, so this is kind of an exercise for future works, or so I hope.