~*Raoul and Christine/ Couples Domestic*~

I spent the rest of the morning, and most of the afternoon trying to find Sherlock, which proved to be ungodly hard in the mist of the English Performance being revamped to now hold privilege to the newest girl to take the stage, a Miss Christine Daaé. An hour before I finally got caught ahold of the dizzying manager Richard, I had the awkwardly lurking opportunity to stumble across a rather private moment between Miss Daaé and the De Chagny lad. It was as I had easily predicted that they were an item—or well, more so, he was trying to make them become one.

It was when I was making my way to the manager's office, only to catch the contrastingly loud tones of the teens talking together. I stared out of the corner of my eye as inconspicuously as I could, hiding behind a wide pillar. They both stood apart from each other innocently enough. He studied her shyly for a moment, and then stepped out of her way. The girl only seemed to barely notice him in passing. But it was then that the boy suddenly turned on his heel, and made after her. He walked slowly behind her, and I watched his hands clenching and unclenching themselves habitlity. When she noticed his notions, she stopped, but still refused to turn around. They stood motionless for a time, their eyes far away.

"Christine," the boy's eyes remained looking at his shoes, his hair carefully tied back, already dressed for the night's performance. I was surprised when he finally spoke. He almost seemed to be…pleading for some reason.

"Don't Raoul," the blonde put both of her hands to her ears, her already tiny frame seeming to shrink, and her back muscles tightening in light cloth of her dress. I blinked at her English; clear and resounding as her singing voice. "I can't listen to any of this right now. I just can't think. You shouldn't have come here. To see you here in passing—sure, that's fine, but stalking me—"

"I'm not stalking you, Christine. Please, you can at least tell me why're you're hiding from me." It was odd to watch them carry on a conversation without being face to face. The girl's expression from my angle was unreadable.

"Oh Raoul," the girl seemed to whisper just for him, but all voices carry great distances here, and I easily heard her murmur: "you know why."

The boy's fists tightened, his teeth gritting in his jaw. He slowly said his next words carefully, his tone rising. "He's not real, Christine. He is not real!"

"Raoul, lower your voice!" The blonde hissed, and she swung around on her heel to face him, her pretty, small features twisted in fury. The boy swallowed at the intensity of her glare. He mixed his expression, searching for a different approach. He seemed to settle for one, his voice gentle.

"I say 'hopeless romantic', you say 'stalker'," he chuckled darkly. He lifted both hands to act as a balance beam between them.

"Raoul," The girl's voice seemed frosted; her long hair pulled back into ringlets that tumbled down her back. "I'm sorry to put you through this, but this isn't a joke."

His look softened as he dropped his gaze from her. "I know it's not," He mumbled quietly. "But I can't keep up this up forever. Christine, there has to be another way—"

"This is the only way Raoul. For God's sake, what makes you not understand that? Why can't you see how much I'm suffering? What could possibly be going through you brain to make you think—"

"I tried, Christine. I have! But all I can keep thinking is: Christine Daaé, I lov—"

The girl gasped loudly, and she practically shrieked her next words. "Don't say it! Do you think me crazy, Raoul, or are you just stupid? I said I don't want to hear it."

Raoul's face sharply fell; his expression disappeared at the sting of her words.

"So, this is it, am I right?" The thin frame of the boy still towered over her as he approached. He courageously placed his arm around her waist, pulling her against his chest. He leaned his chin into her hair, resting on the top of her head. Throughout this, the girl made no attempt to reject in his actions, nor pull away. Their tired blue eyes seemed to stare into the darkness, and I noticed his grip tighten on her as the hall lights dimmed to adjust to the silently appearing stars as night fell over Paris. "You'll tell me you hate me, just to scare me away."

The girl was silent for a moment, her voice a fragile as glass when she finally spoke. "I'm the scared one, Raoul."

"You wouldn't be if you just let me see you more—" Raoul began easily, his lips moving against her hair.

The girl wildly tore herself from his grasp, her ballet shoes tapping as she increased the distance between them. Although she let go, Raoul kept ahold of her hand. "Don't start Raoul. Not tonight. Just... not tonight. We can't—"

"You've just lead me on then?" The anger in the teen's voice was intensifying. His

"I wasn't leading you anywhere! You keep following me!"

"And I won't stop! Zut, ne moi poussez pas! The teen's voice rose and then cracked into some type of unrestrained French.

"I have to go now, Raoul." The blonde was already disappearing into the shadows. The boy's pale fists clinched again, and I opened the door quickly, nonchalantly, as if I hadn't heard a single, confusing, teenaged hormone driven, cryptic thing in my entire life. But before I softly shut the door I heard him say under his breath:

"I'll see you tonight then, Miss Daaé."

~*~Later...~*~

When I finally found Sherlock, it was in the place I had thought last to look of all places. Our hotel room. I stepped in, and changed just as quickly as he was without exchanging a word at first, careless to the honest amount of time it took to meander a block from the Opera as dust set in to the hotel. When I spied the time to be about 45 minutes till our expected arrival time at the play, I began to explain to Sherlock all that I had uncovered throughout my surprisingly eventful day. When I finally turned to inspect my own appearance in the mirror, I chuckled at Sherlock's resounding reflection. It wasn't, of course, that my flatmate didn't dress nicely—but to see him with a neck tie of all things. It just seemed much too painful. And his gloomy expression didn't help. I laughed again, and said:

"Look'it you, cleaning up nice."

Sherlock adjusted a silver cufflink on his wrist, and then continued on to fix his silver spats, rolling his eyes.

"John, must you make this performance any more unbearable than it already is?"

"What?" I asked in mock surprise: "I thought you were looking forward to this."

"Before, perhaps. Now with a literally limitless entrance into the under belly of the Opera, this is a mere waste of time."

"We have to go, you know."

"We have to go as much as bloody Anderson has to go home and pretend to love his wife!" He raised his voice, crinkling his nose in disgust. But not at the infidelity, and more so the idea of shagging itself.

I stared at him, slightly stunned by his mood swing. "University must have been miserable for you."

Sherlock picked up his phone, the bright screen colouring his pale eyes.

I sighed, realizing what mood he was sure to be sliding into next, "Well, I'm still going."

He looked up with an impassive look on his face before he reached into his black vest pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

I raised my eyebrows. "Smoking?"

"I said it was impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London. I'll take what I can here."

"So you're joining me?"

"I have to go as much as Lestrade had to choose blood Anderson of all people to be his sniffer dog!" His twisted the cigarette angrily in between his fingers.

"Would you get off of Anderson, Sherlock?" I furrowed my brow, shaking my head, slightly confused at what he was getting at. His mood swings I had gotten used to; but sometimes I still even know how to react to them. "And what? You mean for that drugs bust?"

"Drugs bust—he broke into our flat!"

"You shouldn't have anything to hide," I charged into a subject that Sherlock and I rarely treaded upon, rather tactlessly. I certainly didn't want to get into some row that the next room over would no doubt hear as a couple's domestic. But I was beginning to get a little tired of Sherlock thinking he was never at fault for anything.

Sherlock let a serious pause stretch between us but I didn't back down my statement nor my adamant stare. His eyes locked in frustration for a moment, but then seemed to cool over into that defaulted indifference.

"Look, I'm going." I managed calmly, breaking the fleeting aggravation between us with my sensibility. There was only one way out of this, literally. Something he would never have the ability to swallow his pride for. I made for the door.

He pulled the cigarette into his mouth before grasping his jacket. "Wait," he suddenly said, his voice echoing into the hall as I opened the hotel room door. I turned back to look at him.

"You forgot the key," and he placed the spare into my hand as he walked out the door and turned to lock it. I smiled, and pocketed it.

"John?" Sherlock asked as we strode in silence towards the Hotel's main entrance.

"Yes?"

He paused at the gift shop, and I tried my best to discreet position myself so that if that cute girl was still working inside, she couldn't possibly see me.

"I need to make a call. But would you pop inside and buy me a lighter?" His tone held all the motives of the art of tongue-and-cheek. He must have read my mistake with that girl somewhere stupidly incredulous, like in my posture, or perhaps my hair. But all in all, he somehow knew. Even at the end of the day.

Did nothing escape this man?

I glared daggers at him and continued out the door and into the night.

French Translations:

Raoul's: "And I won't stop! God damn it, don't push away!"