A/N: Thank you guys so much for all of your lovely reviews. I am enjoying seeing how you all like this story. Today's Tumblr tid-bit is going to be extra special, so make sure to check it out. Just type in my penname and you should be able to find it quickly. Enjoy!
The darkness filled every fibre of her being, swallowing her in its oppressive reign over all things within the room. Penetrating her lungs, it clung to the air as she breathed in her frightened gasps. She felt the frantic buzzing in her veins for escape pulling at her, but ignored it to sit, frozen in fear, upon the couch and simply wait out the inevitable. She was not sure what she was waiting for, but she felt a distinct jarring of propriety at her contemplations of moving. She did not wish to cause a stir in the invisible room of blackness. She waited for what felt like an age for the other shoe to fall upon her foolish head, but it waited until her wandering mind began to question if it ever would. Oh, it fell hard.
'How dare he?! How dare that foolish boy try and claim what is mine?!'
Christine had to cover her ears as the yell, though by no means sharp, split through the stilled air and cut into her very soul like a hot knife. It scorched her from the inside until she worried she would have scars forever burned into her. She held in her faint whimper of fear as she knew the harsh words would fall upon her before long.
'After all I have done, and he sees fit to come in and take it from me! Such a damned fool he is to think that he can claim what he pleases! He shall know how it feels to be denied! That over privileged snot shall have to learn that not everything is his for the taking!'
Christine could hold it in no longer. She let out a single hiccup from her balled up state on the couch and whimpered while flinching into the corner of the cushions. She awaited the harsh words to tear at her and carve her to nothingness. She waited for the painful oblivion to come out from the darkness and seize her. Would she even know when it had claimed her? In this complete darkness she may not even see the end coming. It may have already taken her and she was in Hell, tortured with the harsh tones so unlike her teacher. She had heard him angry before, but never this furious. She wondered how someone could switch from sounding like an angel to the devil so quickly.
The air softened around her as his eyes fell upon her pitiful form. His shoulders slumped and his heart dripped with sorrow to see his darling in such a frightened state; he felt a wretch for making her so scared. He had done this to her because of his jealousy over that boy. Here she had sung out her soul for him and he had ruined her night. She was still so incredibly beautiful, even in her small and pitiable state.
'Christine,' he cooed gently, letting in his dismay at bringing this out of her. He had worked so hard to make her strong again. He had done so much to bring her a voice and she had surprised even him with her sharp wit. It was with him that she showed her strength. It was for him that she strove to be herself. 'Oh, my Angel. Please, do not cry. Oh, forgive me, my darling Christine. Forgive me.'
'I'm sorry,' she wept, somehow finding breath enough in her hysterical sobs of fear. 'Please, do not be angry with me. I am sorry.' She dissolved again, making his heart break; the heart she alone had started beating upon her first appearance in his miserable life.
'No, my sweet. Do not cry. I am the one who is sorry. I would never hurt you and could never be angry with you. Please, do not cry, my Christine.' He was begging it of her now, using his softest voice in hopes of coaxing her out of her shell of tears.
'Angel, I want you—I want to know you—to see you, but I am not worthy of it,' she wept, feeling the childish wants coursing through her. She missed her father and the security of his arms. She missed the smell of him as he wrapped her in a cocoon of safety and love. She wanted that again. She wanted to feel safe. She wanted to feel loved for who she was, even though she knew herself to be broken.
'Then come to me.'
She poked her head up at this. 'W-what?' she asked of the darkness.
'Come to me,' he repeated.
'W-where…? How…?' She looked about in the darkness until she saw a soft glow emanating from the wall that held the long mirror. She saw the welcoming light of a lantern, feeling its promises of safety.
'Come to me, Christine.'
She heard the voice. It was becoming more sure and real as she stood up, as if in a daze, and made her way towards the light. She took cautious steps across the room, briefly stumbling over the corner of a box. She regained her balance quickly and continued on. Each step seemed to bring her heart closer to the warmth she had longed for. All she had wished for since her father had died was just within reach if she only followed the light.
She came to the wall and stopped, wondering how she was to find her angel with the glass in the way. That was when she felt the slightest brush of air come to her face. There was no mirror! It was gone and through it lay the uncertainty of continuing darkness apart from the soft light of the lantern beckoning with comfort.
She took another step forward, hoping to leave the dark loneliness of the dressing room for the warmth of the light, but tripped on the frame of the now missing mirror. She felt herself fall, the tightness of her heart at the fear of hitting the hard ground joining her earlier dread of the dark. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain, but it did not come. She crashed forward into a soft embrace. She felt something hard yet slightly warm come to her cheek as two wings of black fabric enveloped her. Her own arms wrapped around a narrow form, feeling it expand slightly as it sharply drew in a breath at her collision. She felt the initial instinct of pulling back disappear from her as she was granted the comfort she had longed so desperately for just moments ago.
She found herself nuzzling into the silky fabric at her cheek, enjoying the soft gasp emitted somewhere within. Pure emotion had drained her as she hung there for a few moments, vaguely aware of being pulled into the space behind where the mirror should have been. She nearly whimpered at the momentary absence of one of the hands which had come to rest oh-so delicately at her back, but this urge faded when the warmth was returned. She was faintly aware of a clicking sound as she felt the openness behind her close. The mirror must have been put back into place.
This realisation woke up her mind just enough to wonder what, or who as she was now finding to be a more accurate description, was holding her. She pulled back from her unintentional embrace to look up, but was met with only shadow. She could hardly see anything until her eyes adjusted to the very limited light coming from the partially snuffed out lantern hanging on a hook on the wall. Its gentle glow, no longer quite so comforting in this closed in space of blackness, glinted off of two orbs of matching yellow-gold. Puzzling over them, she realised that they were eyes. This sent her standing on her own again as it all came rushing to her.
'Please, Christine. Do not be afraid.'
It was the voice of her angel, but it was clearly coming from the form in front of her. She stepped back, feeling the cool glass behind her and letting its chill shock her mind back into more complete wakefulness.
'W-who are you?' she asked the black silhouette before her with the oddly glowing eyes.
'Who I have always been, my dearest. I am your angel, your teacher, and your humble slave. I am anything you would have me be.'
She watched in surprised horror as the shadow of a being bowed to her, letting his eyes be cast downward, shutting out that much more light in the dark space. Their disappearance scared her and she had to stop from lunging at him in hopes of the earlier security his arms had brought.
Oh God, she thought, I have started making him human! But he had been human all along! What a fool I have been to think otherwise! I fell for such a silly trap of my childhood and now I am faced with a being more shadow than man.
'Please, my dear. Come with me. Let me explain…in better light.' He seemed to add the last piece having noted her still panicked eyes. He held out a hand to her, letting the lantern light show its gloved outline.
She seemed to regard him a moment, most likely weighing her options, before taking his proffered hand in assistance. She eyed him warily as he seemed to stiffen at her touch. She wondered why, as his was the hand that seemed unnaturally cold even through the leather glove he wore.
Slowly, he guided her down what appeared to be a hallway. He kept his eyes straight ahead as they journeyed on without the aid of the lantern, now completely extinguished. Christine had to hold on tightly to his hand to keep from running into anything. Eventually they reached the end of the hall which appeared to be of a similar length to the one on the other side of the dressing room. Her once angel pushed open a door concealed like the mirror, only this one much thicker in material than the comparably flimsy two-way glass in the dressing room. They entered into a small, square closet like space and he closed the door back. This closed just as the outer dressing room door burst open.
A rather anxious Raoul came in and looking about in a slight panic. He called out to his old childhood friend, but found the room to be empty of the songstress. He felt his stomach twist in fear as he fought away the thought that perhaps she had left. No, he inwardly argued, the door was locked from the inside. He felt worry begin to gnaw at him at Christine's flight. He wondered somewhere in his flurried mind if perhaps her mysterious music teacher had something to do with all of this. She had mentioned she was supposed to meet him this evening, after all. Turning away from the empty and still darkened room, he resigned himself to waiting until tomorrow to seek out his lost friend.
Christine had been startled to find that with a sharp click, the small, square room she now found herself to be in shifted dangerously before sinking slowly. It was an elevator! Her mind tried not to swim with all of this new information and her guide seemed not to be in the mood to speak or explain any of it. Were she not so tired and lost she would find courage to demand he tell her what was happening, but she was simply too exhausted. She felt the ground even out as they came to a stop some seconds later. Opening the door once again, her guide stepped out into a new room.
Christine had to blink a bit as lights arrested her eyes and…God! What was that smell? She finally managed to look about her in confusion before realising she was in the midst of an indoor garden. Or, at least, that was what she had assumed as she looked about to see what must have been several hundred flowers in various arrangement about the rectangular room. It was lightly furnished, however, which contrasted in suggestion to the indoor greenhouse. There was a coat rack beside the elevator and a door just across leading to what appeared to be a kitchen. To the left, she observed that the room was done in a soft crème colour with a rich green carpet. A long settee faced a small fireplace somehow arranged just a bit away from the elevator wall. Two wingbacks, one in rich red with near black wood and one in soft blue, and matching wood flanked the fire with a coffee table dripping with lilies set between them. On the far wall to her left was another open doorway showing a hallway beyond.
Continuing her dazed exploration of the room, she turned to notice her would-be guide standing a ways away with his hands clasped behind his back. He had his head lowered slightly, but she felt his eyes watching her every move. He looked like he was expecting a reaction to his apparent home beneath the Majestic.
Her face must have given away some of the dizziness she felt for he was at her side mere moments before she could stumble.
'Are you all right, my dear?' he asked with plain worry striking his voice.
She nodded drowsily, feeling a headache coming on. 'Just…too many flowers,' she explained as she tried to allow her senses to shut out the countless smells attacking her at once.
'Oh,' was all he said, looking about uselessly and noting perhaps he had overdone it a bit in his eagerness to please her.
He started to guide her towards the light blue wingback but she dug in her heals and groaned in protest. He looked at her questioningly.
'Lilies give me headaches,' she explained, feeling somewhat guilty for the pained expression this news brought to his eyes. It was then that she realised all she could see of him were his eyes. Backing up out of his arms, she fell back onto the settee with shock writing itself across her face. She watched the wince come into his eyes as he turned away from her.
'Ah, yes. I see we have come to that bridge now.' He sounded more like he was resigning himself to a fate than stating the somewhat obvious. 'I must ask you, my Christine, not to be alarmed. I promise you that no harm shall come to you while in my company.' He told her this over his shoulder as he lifted off the wide brimmed fedora she only now noticed he was wearing. Blame it on the overwhelming scent of every flower breed known to Manhattan, but she did not have the brain capacity to realise he was wearing not only the hat, which he carefully hung upon the coat rack by the elevator door, but also a long and sweeping black cloak.
She all but gasped as he elegantly hung this, revealing a figure as thin as a toothpick and angular as a modern skyscraper. He seemed to be all hard edges and bones as he towered to a well over six foot height. He made up for his harsh bodily angles with the grace of his every gesture. It was like watching poetry move in space. The way his long, bone-like fingers, now also shed of their coverings, smoothed back his perfectly slicked black hair that shone like a raven's feather. The simple act of turning slowly to face her seemed like a complex ballet.
All of this melted away, however, when he turned his face towards her. His face, if that was what one would consider it, was covered completely in black leather, moulded to the features of a human, but immovable to even the simplest of expressions. Christine felt her eyes widen and herself shrink into the cushions of the settee when this odd being looked upon her, his gold eyes shining out from the shadow of his mask. It was then that it fully hit her: he was a man. He was a man in a mask, whom she did not know, and who had stolen her away to his home underneath the café, most likely where no one would ever hear her screams for release. She wondered if anyone would look for her. Or, even if they did, if they would ever find the hidden passage behind the mirror. She would become one of those unsolved missing person cases that would gather dust for years before someone finally just threw the file away. She would be forgotten down here because this man, this thing had taken her.
This spiralling swirl of despair brought hysterical breaths wracking through her. She clutched at the arm of the settee and tried to steady herself, but to no avail. Her dark clad abductor came to her in a rush so fluid she wondered if he were not made of pure water and air. He knelt at her feet, hovering his hands uselessly about her as his eyes pleaded her to tell him how to fix her.
'Christine! Christine, please, you have to breathe deeply, my dear,' he all but begged of her.
God, she thought, his voice has become real. There is no more Angel or generous teacher! There is only this creature in the mask!
'Christine, look at me!' he commanded with just enough of an edge to his tone to make her comply, despite the tears it brought to her eyes. 'You have to breathe, Christine. Remember how I taught you.' He held his hand in the air above her stomach. 'Breathe from here,' he told her in the tone he used when correcting her technique.
Straightening her posture, she started to slow her breath. She kept her eyes upon his, too afraid to look away, and finding some hidden measure of comfort when they began to calm at her recovery.
'There, now. That is better,' he said, though it seemed more to himself than to her.
Taking another clear breath, she let her trembling words out. 'W-who are you?' she asked again.
'Oh, Christine,' he seemed to sigh, his eyes filling with sadness as he beheld her. 'Please forgive me for all that I have done. For all that I am. Please, try to understand that I did it all for you.' He stopped, looking at her deeply but seeing only more fear at his failing to answer her properly. He looked down, taking just the tips of her fingers in his as he let another sigh drift in the air. 'I have been so cruel to you.' Finally he looked up again, but seeing her trembling bottom lip sent him over the edge. His tears welled up in his eyes before falling with the force of his sobbing words. 'I have lied to you, my darling Christine. You must forgive my deceit but I did it all for you! I am no Phantom, or Angel, I am simply Erik. I am but a man who has cared more for you since the moment you walked through the door than you will ever know. I…I love you, Christine.' He bowed his head as he sobbed, slowly sinking to the floor, letting her hands slip from his.
Christine looked down in horror as she beheld the tall and imposing man be reduced to a tearful, sobbing mess at her feet. She tried to wrack her brain around all he had said. She felt the idiot for merely suspecting instead of knowing her teacher was the Phantom. Her heart tinged with guilt, however, at the sorrow her desire for an angel had wrought upon this man. Had he truly cared so much for her that he would lie so completely to make her want to be around him?
She snapped back to the moment at hand when she heard the pitiful gasps of 'I'm sorry,' coming from the floor. She realised then that this would be her chance to escape. A swift kick would probably buy her time to reach the elevator and—
'Please forgive me, Christine.'
She could not. She simply could not bring herself to do something so cold.
Slipping down to the floor in front of him, she cautiously reached out a hand to his quivering shoulder. She almost pulled it away when he tensed at her contact. He acted as though he had been burned from her slightest touch. Quickly, however, he relaxed as his sobbing stopped. She sat there, not knowing what else to do, slowly soothing his shoulder and feeling the tight muscles just beneath his black suit relax gradually.
'Erik?'
His breath sharply caught at this. He had never in his wildest dreams expected his name to be uttered so beautifully by his angel. Daring himself to move slowly lest he frighten her, he raised his head to meet the drooping lids that now threatened to cover her round, hazel eyes.
'I feel very tired,' she said in an almost childlike voice.
He was not given enough time to come up with a response, unfortunately, as she then wobbled slightly and fell forward into his quickly reacting arms. He caught her deftly, sinking slightly with her to soften the impact against his arms and chest. He stared down at her in disbelief for what felt like years. Still, an eternity of her resting in his arms would not convince him it was real, or that she could look any more beautiful than she did at this moment.
After a time, though, he realised she would grow uncomfortable in this odd position, and the angle of her body would prove harmful to her if left too long. Shifting her carefully in his arms, he supported her back and caught her behind the knees as he stood as gracefully as he could. She was much lighter than he had anticipated as he walked into the hallway and strategically opened the door to what he had long thought to be her room.
Carefully laying her down upon the soft bed, he tucked the covers in after taking off her shoes. He supposed she would not appreciate his divesting her of her dress without permission, nor did he think he would be able to survive the ordeal. Giving her one last glance, savouring the slow rise and fall of her stomach from beneath the covers, he crept silently from the room. He would await his angel's awakening patiently and hope to find words with which to explain himself come morning.
