A/N: I want to dedicate this chapter to operaofthephantom because she is a shining light in this fandom.
They kiss. They kiss so many times that Erik's lips are left tingling and swollen and Christine's are the same, her lipstick smeared. He does the gentlemanly thing and wipes it away, then leans in and kisses her again, half-pulling her on top of him, and it does not matter that they are on a bench in a public place. It is after dark and besides, nobody walks this way unless they are somewhat under the weather or otherwise distracted. It'll hardly matter to them.
They kiss, and then they walk, their fingers entwined, and Erik longs to kiss her again, to give up breathing just so he can keep kissing her. He never really liked kissing before, always felt nauseous thinking of the mess of it and none of the encounters he ever had ever needed much in the way of repetitive mouth kisses. But tonight his limbs are hardly connected to him, and his heart throbs with longing just to kiss her and hold her so close to him that they are in danger of melding into one.
They reach the lights at the cross beside the Roost, and when they are waiting for red to become green he dips his head to brush his lips over hers one more time. And then they are across the road and standing before the bouncer at the door to the club, who gives their ID only a perfunctory glance before nodding to let them in.
Erik throws back one shot. And one shot becomes two and his heart is pounding so much he tries to remember if he took his medication this morning or if he forgot it again (he took it, wanting everything to be just right for their date), and Christine's cocktail is called a Sex on the Beach and he can't help snorting as he tastes the peach off her lips and sweeps her away in his arms on the dancefloor.
John Henry grins at him and gives him the thumbs up over the shoulder of a girl that must be Kate, and even knowing that he'll probably be interrogated tomorrow working on their joint project, Erik grins back and pulls Christine closer. Later, when he stumbles on weak legs to the bar to get Christine another cocktail and a pint of water for himself, it is Nadir serving him. And Nadir gives him that look as if to say, take it easy, but Erik is so high that Nadir could be muscling him out the door to bed and he would not care. Instead of making a face like he normally might, he leans across the bar and grabs Nadir's shirt, pulls him closer and kisses him on the cheek. "Thank you," he whispers in his ear, his voice hoarse under the music. "Thank you." If it were not for Nadir he would not be here, would not have Christine, and it has only been two weeks but it has been a lifetime, a perfect stretch in the cosmos that fills his heart and he kisses Nadir's cheek again, tears dripping down his face and there are not enough words in any language to thank him for bringing her into his life, and Christine would say it in Swedish or Portuguese and he would get palpitations listening to her and it would still not be enough.
They stay until closing time, dancing and kissing and holding each other, and then with the flood of the crowd they stumble out, Christine still an angel on his arm, giggling in his ear as she kisses his bad cheek, drowning out the echoing pound of the music. They stop for a pizza and carry it home, back to his and Nadir's place, and she holds it as he fumbles with the keys, gets the door open and flicks on the light. The place is half a kip but they are each past caring and he dumps the clothes off the couch as they settle onto it, put the pizza down on the table.
They kiss and share the slices, taste them in each other's mouths, the spice of pepperoni and cream of the cheese, and before he quite realises it, Erik is lying flat on the couch and Christine on top of him, kissing his lips and his cheek and nuzzling into his throat, and if he died right now, if the ticking timebomb inside of his chest decided that this was enough, that twenty-five years, seven months, and nine days is all of the time allotted to him, Erik would not care. This has been the best of it, all he's wished for, and as the tears prickle his eyes for the fifth or sixth time tonight he strokes her hair and whispers into her mouth, his voice gravelly and throat aching, "I love you."
For the briefest of seconds, the words catch him by surprise. But it is the truest thing has ever spoken.
And her lips curl into a smile that he feels more than sees as she whispers back, "I love you too." And his heart soars, and he has never felt so whole.
That is where Nadir finds them when he stumbles in half-blind with tiredness, Ellie on his arm. The two lovebirds pressed together, asleep on the couch, and he deposits Ellie in his own bed, comes back with the duvet from Erik's and spreads it over them. It crosses his mind that he should wake Erik, should tell him to take the make-up off so he doesn't break out in spots, but it would be cruel to wake him now. Instead he settles for smoothing back Erik's hair, and as he cuts the lights he misses the moment that Erik's eye flickers open, a rim of gold-hazel in the darkness, and seeing Christine asleep on top of him, and Nadir slipping out, his lips twitch into a slight private smile, before his eye closes and he drifts back into sleep. And in the stillness of the early morning, there is nothing that could be wrong in the world.
A/N: This is the final chapter for now. I may decide to continue this further, but I haven't decided yet. I am also considering two separate fics set in this same 'verse - one M-rated about Erik and Christine's first time, and the other looking at some of their later life together. But as I said, they're still in the thinking about stage.
So, for now, please do review, and I hope you've enjoyed this little thing!
