A/N: Sorry for the later update. I'm in another state and the time change is messing me up on basically everything. Thankfully the FF email notification issue seems to be fixed. Hope you all enjoy as always.
Erik sat against the wall in his bedroom, listening with his sensitive ears to the faint sounds of sobbing coming from two rooms over. To fully wash himself in the punishment of hearing her cry, he had opened the door to their adjoining bathroom. He let her every inhale in be a serrated knife through his heart while her wailing cry out—stifled slightly by the pillow he assumed she had buried her face in—rang through him like a new thrust into the tender flesh of the vital organ. He let himself wallow in the self-punishment, knowing damn well he deserved it and so much more from her. In truth, it was almost kind merely having to hear her. If he were put before her now, he would not be able to meet her eye for the tears which would well up in his own. He had broken her. He had broken the most beautiful thing in the world thinking it was in his possession. He had clipped his bird's wings.
He listened for what felt like an eternity until it finally began to calm down slightly. He could not tell if his own silent tears had brought drowsiness upon him or if his angel had finally stopped crying. Sitting up a little straighter, he listened for what she might do next. Would she try to escape again, or would she simply sleep and hope that this was all some kind of dream?
He was beyond amazed when a third option was chosen and he heard her come into the bathroom. He listened intently as she came in, obviously noting the open door to his room by her faint gasp. He wondered if this would be the end of it and she would rush back into her room never to be seen again. He found himself wrong again as he heard faint shuffling in the open cabinet on the far end of the narrow room. At a hiss of pain, he was looking to the doorway at the angelically glowing silhouette of his darling Christine.
She peered into the darkness that was his room, seemingly confused as to whether or not she should enter.
'Erik?' she called in.
He had to take a bracing breath for the wild beating of his heart at her utterance of his name. Never had it sounded so lovely as when she spoke it.
'Yes, Christine?' he asked, still slightly breathless.
'Where do you keep the bandages?' She sounded childishly ashamed that she should have to ask.
'Here,' he started, coming off the floor and shaking life back into his legs which had laid uselessly in front of him for what he now thought to be merely an hour. He wondered how she had any liquid left to her after so long a time spent crying.
He paused his purposeful stride when he heard her gasp, presumably catching the glint from the light in his eyes. He knew he looked rather strange with the golden tint of his irises. He always had, but it did not help his case any to have let them be the cause of her earlier fear. Slowing his gait, he came up to her, watching with a concealed cringe as she shied away from his presence. He supposed that in her contradictory moods that this must be one of her acts of forced boldness. He could not help the smile that came from the adorable nature of her efforts. She was trying to act grown up and strong.
Walking over to the cabinet she must only have given a cursory examination, he pulled out the small white box of the first aid kit. He motioned for her to sit on the edge of the tub, but she did not comply until he made to lay out the supplies.
'It was my fault you got hurt. Please, let me fix it,' he asked of her, keeping his eyes down in a non-threatening, contrite way.
Finally, with a shaking breath for support, she came over and sat on the smooth tiled edge of the tub. She leaned back a bit in surprise when he kneeled before her, reaching out with what he hoped she would not notice to be trembling hands for hers. She obliged, keeping her fingers curled round the handkerchief she had now stained from the cuts. He cringed a bit at this, but gently unfolded them, taking the soiled fabric away carefully for fear of irritating the cuts. He felt his heart twist in his chest as he observed the continuous line across the tips of her index, middle, and ring finger on her right hand. They were not deep, but clearly hurt a good bit.
Blinking away the tears that threatened once again, he took a cotton ball and put it to the bottle of rubbing alcohol before tipping the container for a brief second. He tried to brace himself for the pain he was about to inflict in order to help her, and looked to her eyes for reassurance. He found patience and weariness from crying, her eyes red and swollen like the little ball of the tip of her nose. Her lips too were a bit puffy, but he found the tragic sight still strangely glorious. Somehow in a tear-stained state she took his breath away.
'This is going to sting a bit,' he warned, hoping to see something besides fear from his words. She looked at him with a flicker of uncertainty before hardening herself in preparation for the discomfort of rubbing alcohol on an open cut. Instead, however, she noted he only rubbed around the cut. She looked confusedly at him as he held her hands under the fosset of the tub, running cool water over the injuries. He then took a bit of soap from the tray and rubbed it on his now wetted fingers, gently taking them to smooth over her cuts.
She tried not to yank her hand back as she sucked in a breath at feeling her fingers burn from the soap. She heard him mutter another apology before he took her hand from under the water and turned off the tap. Taking a towel which she now noted to be ivory and soft plush, he dried their hands with as much care as he could.
'What was the point of the alcohol if you were just going to put my hand in the water?' she asked, miffed he had raised her fears for nothing.
'I wanted to see how big the cuts were. The dried blood was concealing them too much. Besides, don't you like my bottle?' he asked, showing a bit of pride as he held up the bottle of alcohol. She nearly burst out laughing as she noticed fully that it was in the shape of a violin in cobalt blue glass. He caught the mirth in her eyes and tried to hold it. 'One of my many eccentricities,' he shrugged as if that explained everything.
'Do you have a collection of Avon bottles, too?' she asked, raising her eyebrows as if nothing would surprise her anymore.
'No. Should I?' he asked, cocking his head before realising the joke in her words. 'I just…liked this one,' he said, bowing his head and subtly grabbing a few Band-Aids from his box of supplies.
Christine felt herself giggling again as she cheerily hummed the theme for the adhesive medical strips. Erik was growing amused by this laughing, slightly punchy Christine. He wrapped the soft cloth around her finger, letting it cling onto itself due to the small circumference of her slender digits. He put each one on with considerable care, watching from his peripherals for any sign of them bringing unnecessary discomfort to her. He debated on giving her poor, bandaged fingers a kiss, but decided against it and instead patted her hand gently.
Christine tested her fingers by gripping her hand a bit, noting the limits of her movement and how much the cuts hurt. She ignored the masked man as he methodically put away the supplies, threw out her bloodied handkerchief in the waste bin next to the sink, and looked to her rather expectantly.
'You really should let me leave,' she said, not meeting his gaze. She sounded almost resigned to a dark and wicked fate when she announced this.
'I know, and I will tomorrow. Please, Christine,' he took her hands delicately in his, tearing her eyes to him with a pleading look of utter despair. 'Please just grant me one more night of you in my home. I swear no harm will come to you and I shall return you back to life above before you are late for your work. Just allow me your presence a little longer before you leave me forever.' He begged it of her, knowing he was despicable for putting such pressure on her slender shoulders.
She seemed to search about a moment before nodding slightly. She wanted to ask what he expected to gain from her staying one more night if he anticipated her eternal absence, but decided it was like denying a dying man his last request. She worried then about him, if her staying a few extra hours in his company would mean so very much to him.
He took her nod with unbelieving eyes and nearly wept with joy. He smiled shakily before realising she could not see it. This sent a thrill through him.
'Wait here,' he told her abruptly, holding out his hand as if commanding a dog to stay seated. She lifted a cautious eyebrow at this as he ducked into his room of pure darkness. She heard a shuffling and a muttered swear before a breathed, 'Ah-ha!' She held in a smile at this. How he could act like a child sometimes. She stared wide eyed at nothing as she realised she was thinking of him as though she knew him. What in the Hell was wrong with her? She must be delusional from all of the crying, she told herself.
Before she could delve into this further, however, his head popped back into the room. She saw his lopsided grin as though his mouth were not used to smiling. His mouth! He was wearing a new mask, this one of white leather and covering all of his face but his chin and lips. The rest was moulded like the other, but something about it seemed less daunting.
'What do you think?' he asked, holding his arms out as though he had tried on a new suit rather than a different face covering.
'It's…nice,' she complimented weakly. He seemed to take this well, however, as he smiled in satisfaction to himself.
'I thought you might like it better than the other one. It seemed to frighten you,' he told her, now seeming small again.
That was decidedly not what frightened her about him, but she did not feel like voicing that inevitable topic of deep discussion. She simply smiled as best she could when faced with a man who was acting like a child with a new toy, rather than a different mask. When had her life become so strange, she wondered.
'I must admit to wanting to colour it,' he told her at length, feeling the uncomfortable silence looming over them. 'I thought maybe a light pink on the cheeks and faint violet under the eyebrows.'
Given the look she was casting him of horrified concern, he deemed he had made the right choice in holding off on his paint supplies. 'Too much?' he asked, getting a fervent bout of nodding in reply. He sighed resignedly. 'Yes, I thought that might be the case.'
Turning his eyes back to her, he caught an idea. 'Would you like some lunch, or maybe just something to drink?' he asked, noting her pale pallor. She nodded minimally, taking his now outstretched hand as she rose from her seat on the tub. She did not continue to hold it, much to his dismay, but any contact was well worth the effort.
Letting him lead the way, they left through her room and walked to the kitchen. He seemed a bit more confident in this, which made her both grin and feel a pang of concern. He was still a strange man in a strange house which she was not allowed to leave until the following morning. This pit grew in her stomach, hardening her eyes even when he glanced back over his shoulder at her as if to make sure she was still there. The jovial light in his eyes seemed to dim slightly at her distant expression, but he seemed too excited to know she was really and truly in his home to let it bother him too greatly.
'I promised you this morning I would never do anything to hurt you,' he reminded her as they walked into the white tile floored kitchen. His shoulders seemed to have slumped a bit in their short journey and she wondered if it was because of the emotional barrier she had put up in front of her generally expressive eyes. She had long cursed their size and telling roundness. She sometimes longed for the narrower slits of Katharine Hepburn.
'Hmm,' she hummed indifferently. She stood in the middle of the room, feeling utterly useless. She looked at some of the cupboards as if expecting one to start talking to her and telling her where the glasses were.
Erik seemed to pick up on this as he reached out to one, but recoiled his hand in thought. 'The cups are there.' He nodded, shifting over to keep the few feet of space she preferred between them. He hid his smile at the wave of shock that washed past her features before they grew stern again.
He watched her from the corner of his eye as she stood on tip toe to reach the shelf with the appointed glassware. He cursed himself on his foolishness. He was nearly a whole foot taller than her and thus had things in his home built accordingly. Watching her stretch up, he walked over to the refrigerator to give her both access to the sink, but also to get out some bread and cheese for the sandwiches he was preparing for her. Her fingers brushed the glass a bit too far and it came crashing down onto the floor.
The noise of shattering glass rang through his ears with unexpected fear aligned with it. He did not know why, but his heart lurched to his throat and his hands shot out before he could think to stop himself. Before he knew it, he had Christine pressed up against him as he heaved heavy breaths. He clung to her slight form which trembled beneath his long fingers. Pulling her back just enough, he saw terror reflected from his eyes into hers as he held her cheeks.
She stared ay him dumbly as his breath caught terribly in his throat with a sob. He crumpled before her, clutching at the edge of her skirt, both mere inches from shattered remains of the glass.
'I'm sorry. Please, do not be angry. Please, I'm so sorry.' He begged like a small child not wishing to be beaten.
Christine felt her instinct to run pulling at her once more, yet something in his weeping form, now repeated from her first night here, made her stop and swallow her own fear to tend to his.
'I'm not angry, Erik,' she said, trying to mask the uncertainty in her voice. Just less than a day and they had both cried more times than she generally did in a year.
'Please, take me home,' he finally pleaded in a voice unlike his own. 'Take Erik home. He is too scared to stay. He's sorry he lied. Take Erik home, please!'
Christine froze at this. Never in her life had she heard someone refer to themselves in third person outside of a joke or self-reprimand, but given the abundance of tears pouring and staining the hem of her blue dress, she found this to be far from either scenario.
Perhaps it is a motherly instinct that drives even the most terrified to comfort those who need it. For all that he was and had done to her in the past fourteen or so hours, Christine found herself carefully kneeling on the floor next to his quivering form as he curled in on himself. She brushed away a few shards of glass before pulling at his shoulders to look up. She tried to control her heartrate as she watched the grown man weep like a child on the kitchen floor. She did not want to panic, but it was difficult when faced with this—whatever this was.
'Erik, you are home. You're in your home right now in the kitchen, remember? You brought me here last night. Though I am not sure I forgive you for lying to me for so long, it was not entirely your fault.' She tried to reason with him, but he only shook his head.
Muttering a few more "Erik is sorry"s, he continued to stay in a foetal position on the floor. Finding he was unresponsive to her gentle tugs, Christine pulled at his shoulders a bit more earnestly. Finally she managed to drag him up a bit, but he still kept his back arched too much to see his face. He let out another sob, still sounding more like a child than a man, and it hurt her deeply.
'Erik, please, you're scaring me,' she pleaded with him, leaning in to search out his eyes. When he wailed again, she gritted her teeth against the stinging in her eyes and pulled him to her. She was not sure what strange Hell she had fallen into or what one she would be going to for this, but she found herself to be sitting on his kitchen floor, clutching the sobbing mass of the man in her arms, and petting his head while cooing comfortingly. He did not hold her back, simply letting his arms hang limply in front of him while he sobbed against her breastbone.
'Shhh, Erik, it's all right now. Don't cry, shhh. I'm here. There's nothing to be afraid of,' she tried, hoping it would be enough to pacify him some. Looking down at him again, she realised she had not noticed before, but he had a particular scent about him. It was like a cedar chest with an added spice of sweetness. It was oddly comforting, like pulling out clothes of a grandparent's to play dress up in. She rubbed his shoulder, now absent of its sleek black jacket since the failed escape attempt incident. Now he was down to a crisp white shirt, black suspenders, and plain black tie. His hair, before perfectly immaculate in its slick, was getting ruffled as she ran her fingers through its silky depths, massaging his scalp underneath. It was the colour of the blackness that claims you right before you start to dream. His shoulders were surprisingly narrow, now that she felt them. The jacket had given them false width as they were little more than wiry muscle and bone. Feeling him against her and all of his sharp angles inadvertently digging into her suggested the rest of him was so.
'I-I forgive you, Erik. For lying to me. It was foolish of me to fall for such a silly story,' she told him as he started hiccupping. 'I didn't know it would hurt you so much. For that I'm sorry,' she continued, closing her eyes as she tucked her cheek further into his soft hair. She breathed in his scent like a bracing agent before pulling back to seek out his eyes.
They were downcast, but given the slight flush at his normally pale ears, it was from embarrassment rather than further anguish. He started to lean away, but slowly so that she would not think he was rejecting her. He knelt perpendicular to her, looking at his skeletal fingers as they curved in slightly from their resting position on the floor at his knees.
'I'm sorry you had to see that,' he told her in a small voice, but the tone was his own this time.
'Erik, if I'd known my actions would upset you, I would have tried to forgive you sooner,' she told him, resting a hand on his shoulder.
He looked at the hand as if it were that of an angel's telling him he would simply never be good enough to enter Heaven. He reached up as if to cover it with his own, but thought better of it. He shook his head, straightening just a bit.
'That was not why I was upset,' he said as though that would put an end to the conversation.
'Then why were you crying? You asked for forgiveness for lying, so I thought you meant…' She trailed off as he turned his head from her, shame palpable in the air around them.
'They don't happen often. You needn't worry yourself over it,' he told her, making to stand up. She snagged his hand, however, halting his process slightly as she forced him to stay near her.
'What's going on with you?' she asked with genuine concern and not a hint of disgust in her tone.
'Flashbacks. Please, do not ask me further.' He tried to pull away, not very hard, but he tried…a little.
'Erik,' she spoke with patience and openness. 'Please tell me.'
Sighing heavily, he hung his head. Changing the turn of his hand, he held it to assist her to rise with him. He could feel her persistent gaze cutting through his shoulder.
'Let me make you lunch and get us both something to drink, and I shall tell you, if you truly wish it,' he said, seemingly like the man who had condemned himself to suffer in Hell for all eternity.
'I just want to try to understand you, Erik,' she told him gently. It was the truth. Ever since she had thoroughly gotten it through her skull that her angel was a man, she had wanted to know the why for everything he had done over the past four years of their acquaintance. Ever since she had come to his home she had wondered why it was here and what exactly drove a man to live underneath a jazz café in the middle of New York City. It was in the hope of having these questions being answered that she held firm to her resolve to hear what he had to tell.
A/N: Next chapter: Story Time for Erik!