I apologize for the delay in posting. I was out of the city for the week (went up to the mountains for a writing retreat) and so I didn't have access to the Internet. But it's all good now, and to reward you for your patience, here's a rather long chapter. Thanks for waiting, and enjoy!

(Although I'm not sure why you'd enjoy, since it's all angst, but hey! That's what fanfic is for.)


Weak light filtered through the blinds. Erik cracked open one eye, then the other, and wondered why his mouth and throat felt as though they were scraped with sandpaper. His arms and hands ached. For a moment, he thought he was going to throw up, but the feeling passed. Now he felt hollow and empty, a straw man stuffed with nothing but hay. It took a few seconds for him to realize where he was: the anteroom attached to the music studio, where there was a couch and some bean bags. He had passed out on the couch after telling last night's tale to Nadir.

Nadir!

He sat up quickly, the room spinning around him as he fought back hunger, exhaustion, and vertigo. He lifted a hand to his face, idly noting that it was neatly bandaged, and felt the wounded side of his face. My mask! he thought panickedly, his eyes sweeping the room. He saw the mask on the low table beside the couch, and quickly donned it on, breathing a sigh of relief. He could show himself to the world.

But wait. Christine… and Raoul. The party.

The kiss.

Memories crashed against his mind: Raoul's party, his drunken behavior, Christine's attempt at pacifying him. Playing the piano for an audience for the first time. Raoul and Christine, in the shadows, kissing.

Bile rose up to his throat, and he gagged. Keep it down, keep it down. Don't let them see your weakness. He felt the room close around him, the walls seemingly moving to hold him in. His heart hammered a staccato beat in his chest. He rode the wave of nausea, closing his eyes and breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. Slowly, he could feel his heart rate slow down, his lungs no longer gasping for air. Only a faint taint of bitterness remained in his mouth.

He thought Christine liked him: the small touches, the private smiles, the request to work together for their final projects. He thought that when a girl asked you to be their date to a party, that they were willing to be seen in public together with you, it meant that they liked you. He might not have superb social skills, but he'd observed enough people to be aware of how relationships worked. It seemed that there was a definite gap between theory and practice.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. 6:45 in the morning. He gritted his teeth. It was a Sunday, he was certain, and the thought of seeing Christine and Raoul the next day made his hackles rise. They lied to him. They lied! Erik balled his hands into fists, feeling the wounds stretch against the seams, the swelling flaring up once more beneath the bandages. This was why he hated the world. This was why he didn't want to go to college in the first place. (Damn his father and his last will! Damn his parents! Damn the universe!)

If there was something Erik was certain of, it was that he couldn't stay another day. Finally getting to his feet, he stormed out of the room and started making his way towards his bedroom. He didn't need much, and goodness knows he'd set up enough fake bank accounts during his teenage years running away from home, with only Nadir by his side, that he could easily disappear.

Damn the old fool and his corporation and his inheritance.

He needed to get away.


Raoul woke up with a pounding headache and an aching jaw. He was also, oddly enough, lying on the couch instead of in his bed. Disoriented, he gingerly touched his face, where most of the pain seemed to be centered. He ran careful fingers along the side of his jaw, and felt the swelling along the sides. He felt like someone threw a mean right hook against his face.

Come to think of it…

Trying not to disturb the delicate equilibrium of his body, Raoul carefully sat up and surveyed the damage. He was in the living room, still wearing the same clothes that he wore the night before. His mouth felt as though it was filled with cotton, and his eyes squinted in the sunlight that streamed through the tall French windows that lined one of the walls. Half-empty glasses of varying sizes and shapes were scattered all over the tables and on the floor. Sticky liquid pooled and dried on the hardwood floors. A lone disco light still spun awkwardly in one corner of the room. The Killers were playing over the surround sound speakers installed in the room.

How did he get here? And will Philippe kill him when he sees the damage?

Painfully getting to his feet, Raoul staggered to the kitchen. Most of the common areas of the penthouse - the living room, the dining areas, the kitchen - were trashed. He needed to call housekeeping services later that day. He stared at the empty bottles of liquor lined across the kitchen island. Someone had seen fit to finish his brother's best whiskey.

Wait.

He vaguely remembered seeing Christine glide into the room in Erik's arms; the other boy looked simultaneously frightened and thrilled at the girl holding on to his arm. He remembered taking swig after swig of whiskey in an effort to drown out the light in Christine's eyes as she orbited around Erik like a planet around a star. He remembered walking away from them during dinner, unable to keep his anger down.

He'd always nursed an affection for Christine. She was remarkably unpretentious, unlike the high society girls that Philippe always foisted off on him. She was beautiful, but seemed unaware of her beauty, which made her more attractive in his eyes. She could joke around with him and Erik like the best of the boys, but she also nursed a soft spot for the broken-hearted and the strays. He always let her know that he was there for her - especially when Erik decided to throw that temper tantrum after her comment about his parents - and hoped that she might see him as something more than a friend. But it seemed that she'd taken a shining to Erik instead.

But why Erik? Raoul buried his head in his hands as the previous evening came back to his mind like jagged shards of memory.

Christine had come after him. That much he was certain. She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and tried to explain. "He's… he's never known anyone to care about him his entire life," she'd said about Erik. "And I want to show him that it's possible."

"But what about me, Chrissy?" He hated the break in his voice, the pleading tone.

"You're my friend, Raoul. And I care deeply about you. But Erik… I think, given a chance, I could fall in love with him."

"No!" He wasn't sure if it was him or the alcohol talking already; but then again, didn't alcohol just emphasize feelings and actions that were already bubbling beneath the surface, the emotiosn that were kept in careful control all the time. "No! Chrissy, you belong with me!"

How did his fingers wrap around her arms? How did he end up pushing her against the wall so that her warm body was lined up against his? She was soft and small and warm in his arms, her eyes wide with terror. "Raoul, let me go," she'd said. "Please let me go."

And then he'd bent down and he was kissing her, the way he'd always dreamt about kissing Christine, her pale pink lips parting to allow him access to her soul. He drank her up like a thirsty man would drink water, soothing his parched throat. He never felt her trying to push him away, never felt her struggle against his grip.

It was only when Erik punched him -

It was Erik who punched him!

Raoul staggered towards the fridge to grab an ice pack. Pressing the unforgiving coldness of the pack against his jaw was a relief, and with it, a revelation. Erik was right. He was disgusting.

Growing up with his older brother for guidance, Raoul had always been cautioned about protecting the family name. "Being a de Chagny means something," Philippe had always said. "Sure, we can have fun, but there are always limits. People look up to us as examples. And we always have to be the right example for the right people."

And yet, last night, in front of his friends and classmates, Raoul did something that brought shame to his family's name. And quite possibly destroyed his friendship with two of the most important people in his life.


Christine sat behind the reception desk at the Garnier School of Dance. Sundays were always slow days: only half as many classes, and for the most part, she could comfortably do her weekend assignments in between manning the desk, figuring out schedules, and sorting out payments for the classes. Beyond the small corner of the desk, where she was wedged between an old-fashioned radiator and a rather fragile shelf filled with old magazines, she could hear the music that accompanied the various dance classes. There was the scrape of feet against the wooden floorboards, the tick-tick-tick of the metronome carefully counting out beats, the occasional thump of Aunt Giry's cane as she made a point to the girls in her class.

But today, she was just staring at the same page in her freshman History book for the tenth time in the last five minutes. None of the words were making sense to her. Resisting the urge to bang her head against the desk, she closed her book and stared at the computer screen in front of her. She had the school's schedule up front, in case Aunt Giry decided to make a surprise visit during the day. But beyond the Excel sheet, Christine had Facebook and Twitter and her AIM console online.

Disconsolately, she stared at her newsfeed, watching the screen update periodically. Nothing much was happening - just the usual status messages about who ate what, and where, and the accompanying grainy photograph as proof.

Several of their classmates from Cathedral had already posted photographs from last night's party. Christine winced at the photos. So romantic! Sorelli wrote beneath an illuminated photograph of Erik seated at the piano, his fingers moving across the keys as their classmates swirled and danced around him. He looked angelic - his head was thrown back, his hair artfully disarrayed, the photograph catching him in mid-song.

She scrolled further down, looking for last night's Facebook updates. Many of her Cathedral College friends were commenting on the food, the drinks, the music, the opportunity to get to know other people in a less formal setting. And then the status messages about the fight started to show up.

God, that Christine's sure gotten too big for her britches.

Why would two of the most eligible bachelors at Cathedral fight over such an ugly bitch like Christine?

If she's not gonna take Erik, I'm gonna have a piece of that, never mind the mask. I like my boys with a little kink on the side.

And then:

Fight! Erik punched Raoul in the face. Talk about the rules of hospitality. Beneath that were 67 comments, mostly from classmates who had seen or heard about the fight and were throwing in their two cents' worth.

Christine gritted her teeth and clicked to see all the comments. She felt her entire body grow cold. Nobody had seen Raoul force her, nobody had noticed him overpowering her. The shadows were enough for him to hide the evidence of his hands all over her body, his mouth swallowing her pleas. She started shaking in her seat, tears welling up in her eyes. It was so unfair! It wasn't her fault! She hovered the mouse pointer over the browser window and clicked it shut. She couldn't read anything anymore.

And then her heart sank even more. Raoul was friends with these people as well. (Erik, despite being more sociable in the last few months compared to his entire life, refused to get a Facebook account. The school already had to twist his arm to just sign up for an email address.) Raoul would see all of the messages and photos and comments. And he would… get angry at her? Hurt her again? Punish her?

Despite the warmth in the studio, Christine wrapped her hands around herself, fingers gripping her arms. The bruises ached beneath her touch, despite being separated from her hands by layers of clothing. She desperately wanted to run away, to disappear. Was it so wrong to like Raoul as a friend and Erik as (possibly) more than a friend? Was it her fault that they'd fought in the first place?

Was it her fault that Raoul did what he did?

Christine found her thoughts swirling downwards, disappearing into a maelstrom of emotions and shadows. She could still feel Raoul's fingers gripping her, holding her in place like a rag doll. She could still feel the bruising force of his lips against hers, the heat of whiskey on his breath, the slurred words of adoration falling from his lips. She shuddered. It was too near, too real to be quickly banished by a mug of tea and girl talk.

Her train of thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the Garnier office phone. Trying to compose herself, she reached over and plucked the handset from its cradle and pressed it against her ear. "Good morning, Garnier School of Dance. How may I help you?"

"Christine Daae?" said a deep voice, laced with a faint Middle Eastern accent.

"Speaking. May I know who this is?"

"This is Nadir Khan, Erik Destler's guardian." Christine immediately felt a stone settle in the pit of her stomach. She sat up straighter and grabbed a pencil and a spare piece of paper.

"Is Erik all right?" she asked.

"That's the thing I wanted to know, Miss Daae." She could almost imagine the look of disappointment in the older man's face. She'd met Nadir several times over the course of her friendship with Erik, and she knew that he was not a man to be trifled with. "Erik told me of the events that transpired at the de Chagny party."

"Sir, I swear, it was not my intention to - "

"I'm not calling to inquire about your intentions, Miss Daae. But suffice to say that, I suspect, because of the events that transpired last night, it seems that Erik has left."

"What?"

"Erik's missing, Miss Daae. He ran away this morning, and I do not know where he is. I was hoping you could tell me."


And another cliffie! Comments and constructive critiques are welcome. Let me know what you think. :)

Oh, and also: I'm part of an ongoing Broadway RP on Tumblr, and I'm playing Christine Daae. If you want to follow the stories or join in the fun, check out onbroadway-rp {dot} tumblr {dot} com