AN: Next chapter! This one is rather wordy and not super plotty, but I hope you enjoy!

ShineLovely- Thank you for the congratulations! I was so proud of my little Erik too, he walked out like a boss! Look who's growing up (taking his meds and going to therapy have also helped improve his responses to stress). I actually heard a song recently that made me think of Erik's character arc over the course of this story, "The Piano is Not Firewood Yet" by Regina Spektor. Abby of the Cellars - Thank you! And Alex will not be Buquet-ed in this story, not in a death-way, anyway. And I have a feeling you're going to be frustrated with this chapter. Apologies! ;-)

One day more.
Another day, another destiny.
This never ending road to Calvary...
-One Day More

Erik did not return home after his encounter with Alex. That's how he thought of it, an encounter, like a glimpse of alien life because it was all too bizarre to quantify as anything more mundane. The question 'What do you want with me?' was swirling in his mind as he peddled furiously away from downtown, but he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

Clearly nothing had changed for Alex in the last year and a half, he wanted to come back, take the best Erik had to offer and leave the worst of him behind when he'd taken all that was of value to him. But something had changed for Erik and he was no longer willing to allow Alex to control his every thought. Even if he wasn't convinced himself that he was worthy of more than use as a sometimes-workhorse, other people thought he had merit. Ahmed did. Christine did. They probably would have been very proud of him for walking away from that situation - though they might have preferred he not go in the first place. Ah well, baby steps.

Of course, Erik was still inherently Erik, so in order to clear his head he stopped off at CVS, bought a cheap sketch pad and packet of pens and headed to the nearest graveyard.

The sun was beginning to set when he got there, bathing the tops of the headstones in a blood-red light. Leaning his bike up against the nearest obelisk, he sat down and leaned against an obliging stone to do a bit of drawing.

This was better than music, as a way of calming the hell down. Music was never soothing for Erik, not when he was writing it himself. It got his heartbeat up, kept him from sleeping. With drawing, he was only ever depicting something right in front of him. It made him concentrate on the details of something outside himself and that relaxed him.

As he started to lose the light, his phone buzzed to life in his pocket. Erik sighed and removed it with some trepidation, expecting some passive-aggressive text from Alex. He was therefore delighted to see Christine's name pop up on the screen...though her message was strange.

wat r u doing? i need 2 talk 2 u

Erik's brow furrowed as he considered the substance of the text. It was short and not particularly revealing, like most of her phone communications, but 'needing' to talk to him was odd. She seemed fine at rehearsal that morning - oh. Oh God. Had Raoul cried all over her too? He sincerely hoped not, and anyway, if she was all upset about learning her boyfriend was gay, wasn't that something she should be bitching about with her girlfriends? Erik was most definitely not a girlfriend.

I'm around, what's up?

want 2 go 2 gregs? i need cake

Oh, yeah. Raoul had definitely cried all over her.

Sure, I'll wait for you there. I'm literally 5 minutes away.

im already in the parking lot. ill get us a table

Are Sorelli and Meg busy or something? How far down am I in this phone tree of adolescent relationship drama?

Christine was wearing sunglasses, but she took them off almost immediately when Erik slid into the booth. He noticed that her eyes were red and she noticed him noticing. "Sorelli basically forced these on me," she explained with a dry little laugh. "She said people can always tell when someone's been crying break up tears and she wanted to spare me the looks of pity."

Erik adopted his best Pity Face (basically a standard pout, but with wider eyes) and reached across the table to pat her hand. "My condolences," he intoned seriously. So she hadtalked to Sorelli, at least. That still left the question of why Christine thought Erik was a person remotely qualified to comfort her in her hour of need.

Christine laughed and this time it was a little perkier. "Ha, thanks. I figured I don't mind a little pity. God, I'm so stupid. I shouldn't be upset, I shouldn't even be surprised. I mean, he told me he was gay months ago – I never told you, did I? Raoul came out on Halloween or, at least, he kind of came out, he said he thought that he might be gay and he had a crush on you, but then he never said anything else and after what happened in New Hampshire he was so sweetand I thought..." she trailed off and buried her face in her hands, groaning. "Gah! He's such an asshole."

Erik assumed this was all a repeat of a conversation she'd had with the girls where they probably commiserated about how terrible all men. Understandable and he'd hardly begrudge them some momentary misandry, but maybe the time had come for a opinion. "He's not an asshole," he said, hardly believing the words that were coming out of his mouth.

His dessert companion seemed similarly shocked. "Oh, come on," she pleaded, looking up at him through her fingers. "You basically hate Raoul, you are not supposed to be reasonable right now."

"Can I take your order?" a waitress interrupted them to ask.
"Death by Chocolate cake and a water," Christine answered, without looking up at her.

Erik took it upon himself to play the normal person for the evening. He looked up and made eye contact with the waitress as he ordered, "Chocolate creme pie please, and a cup of coffee."

"Do you ever think you drink too much coffee?" Christine asked as the waitress walked away.

"You can never have too much coffee."

Ordinarily, she would dispute the point, but she was feeling too overwrought about her own life to sum up a great deal of distress over Erik's poor dietary choices. "Anyway, you hate Raoul, why are you not on my side?"

Shrugging uncomfortably, Erik clarified, "I'm not not on your side, I just don't think this is a taking sides situation. And I used to hate Raoul, I don't anymore – that's basically your fault, by the way, I decided to like him for you."

"Well, you're obviously a much better judge of character than I am," Christine sighed. If she'd taken Erik's stance on shunning Raoul from day one she would never have known how sweet he was, how he was such a good listener and genuinely nice guy. Dammit, Erik was right. Raoul was not an asshole.

"I am really, really not," he shook his head. "And you don't really think Raoul's an asshole either, you're just pissed and you're allowed to be pissed – please, like I would ever tell someone they aren't allowed to say things they don't mean when they're upset, that's pretty much my modus operandi – but I'm not going to add fuel to the fire."

"Why not?" she pouted, leaning back on the booth and folding her arms. She figured if anyone would join her in a cathartic release of all post-breakup bad mojo it would be Erik. God, nothingwas working out the way she wanted it to anymore, was it? Was she in an alternate reality? One where Raoul was gay and Erik was a sane person? At the moment, Christine would much rather be getting to third base with Raoul while Erik had an emotional breakdown in the corner. Even if it wasn't fun, it would be less unpredictable than this current scenario.

"Uh, because in a week, maybe two, you guys are going to go back to being friends, probably better friends than you were beforeyou started making out on a regular basis and I'm not going to be that douchebag who badmouthed Raoul to you while you were on the rebound." All major advice columnists would agree that this was the course of action that made the most sense.

"Or I could keep totally hating him," Christine observed.

"Unlikely."

"Well, that's what happened when you broke up with your last boyfriend," she blurted out somewhat spitefully. In true Christine fashion, she regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. "I'm sorry!" she exclaimed in a rush. "Oh my God, I'm a horrible person, I know he treated you badly. Um. I mean. I didn't mean to say that. Uh. I mean, I didn't know. What boyfriend?"

"It's whatever," Erik shrugged again, not even a little surprised that someone told Christine about the debacle that was him and Alex. Earlier in the year he would have been furious, but since she'd seen him at his worst already and knew what a crazy-pants he could be, the subterfuge was moot. "I figured you probably found out after I freaked at the Bistro. But the difference here is that my...whatever...wasa total asshole and Raoul's not. He's a nice guy, which is very different from being a completely evil, manipulative motherfucker. Who I just made the mistake of meeting for coffee, by the way, if you want to talk about poor decision making."

"Tonight?" Christine squeaked, eyes wide, happy to be diverted by tales of relationship woes that were not her own.

"Yep," Erik nodded. "He was devilishly handsome and utterly charming."

"Oh, Erik, you're not back with him, are you?" she asked worriedly. "Because that's a bad idea."

"I'm not with anyone," he reassured her. "I'm bad in romantic relationships."

"Not that I know all the details, but I wouldn't call what you had with that guy a 'romance.'"

"I'd call it a Bad Romance," he quipped humorlessly. "The stuff club music is made of. Isn't that sad? Two people who consider themselves talented musicians whose lives can best be summed up by a Lady Gaga song. Would you consider that apt?"

"I like Lady Gaga," Christine said. "But I think at the end of the day, you shouldn't be with someone if they make you feel bad about yourself. Which is bad advice coming from me because being with Raoul made me feel really good."

This was a fact, Raoul always complimented her, never blew her off, answered her texts in a timely manner and didn't seem annoyed when she took forever answering his. In retrospect, it all seemed too good to be true.

"We should just date each other," Christine said suddenly, realizing as she said it that she was only half-kidding. In the moment, it didn't seem to be a bad idea. "Then we wouldn't have these problems."

The speed at which Erik snapped his head up to look at her could have caused whiplash. Her? Date him? Rebound, he determined quickly. She was on the rebound and he was the closest breathing male. It didn't mean anything. "Oh, we'd just develop new problems," Erik replied, more calmly than he felt. "And we wouldn't have anyone to talk to about them."

"I guess you're right," Christine said glumly. Her phone buzzed and she thrust it at Erik. "Oh god, just take it. Take it. I can't deal right now."

Flipping Christine's phone open, Erik glanced at the number and saw Sorelli's smiling face pop up on the screen. "Hello," he answered, pitching his voice up a few octaves and adding a breathy quality he ordinarily did not possess. Christine almost choked on her water, then giggled threw her spluttering.

"Hey, hon, just calling to check in. You sound way better than you did before, so that's good."

"Thanks," Erik said, still mimicking Christine's voice. He was better at imitating other men, he usually couldn't do girls for more than a few monosyllables before someone caught on.

The actual Christine shoved her fist against her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly and giving the game away. He'd go with it as long as Christine kept smiling.

"Did you meet up with Erik?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, good. Well, if you need to tap that to get over your Blondie Bear, I say go for it. - "

"I DON'T. I DO NOT. Christine! I officially oppose this idea!" Meg's voice, tinny and muffled, came insistently through over the line.

"Shut up, Meg! If she needs to get it on with Erik, that's her business - "

"But it's SUCH A BAD IDEA. He's not in a good place right now. SHE'S not in a good place right now. DON'T LISTEN TO SORELLI REBOUND SEX - "
"Can be really good if that's what you want! Is that what you want, Christine?"

Erik felt that this conversation was disproving all of those relationship guidebooks that said men were the only ones who were all about sex all the time. Unfortunately, being a dude, he felt he was totally out of his depth in this conversation. "Uhhh," was about all he managed, but that was enough for the girls.

"Want me to get Charlotte on the phone? She'll side with me!"

"Ugh, Char's a giant prude, Meggy, of COURSE she'll side with you."

"That's still two on one! TWO ON ONE!"

"You do you, Christine! YOU DO YOU!"

"'K, thanks," Erik replied.

"What are they saying?" Christine asked, still grinning. "You look super confused."

Erik held up one finger to silence her, as Sorelli was still talking. "Okay, I just wanted to say, I'm with you. Whatever you want to do is cool. YOLO."

YOLO? Oh wow, way to make Erik throw up in his mouth a little. And, if one parsed that comment with the usual connotations of the phrase, usually employed when someone is going to do something absurdly stupid. Like drag racing backwards down a highway after a night of heavy drinking. Hardly comparable to a spot of rebound sex with him. "Really?" he asked, dropping the affected Christine!voice. "YOLO? I'm hurt, Sorelli."

A shriek came from the other end of the phone. "ERIK?! OH MY GOD, DID YOU - "

But he snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Christine. "That was awesome," she said, slipping the phone back into her purse. The waitress returned with their cake and Erik's coffee. "That was so funny, thanks - it's also kinda creepy that you can do voices, can you do Meg?"

"Oh my God, so not a challenge," Erik said, in a close approximation of Meg's fast-talking squee. "I do a devastating impression of Tim, I'm proud to say. It's come in handy in the past."

"I'll bet," Christine said, digging into her cake. "Did she say anything important? Before she started yelling at you."

Erik shrugged and took a large spoonful of whipped cream. "Not really, just wanted to make sure you were feeling better." Which had been the gist of that conversation. Sorelli equated feeling better with having ill-conceived sexual encounters. It was one of her major flaws as a human being.

"That's nice," Christine said, taking a bite of cake. "I'll be okay, I guess break-ups happen to everyone. Part of growing up, yadda yadda yadda."

"Think of it as a formative emotional experience. Use the grief you feel now to fuel your performance as Cosette," Erik suggested.

"Yeah, that'll be really helpful to be bummed over Raoul when he's making moon eyes at me. Gah, we have to kiss tomorrow! Oh, it's going to be so awkward."

"Eh, it won't be any more awkward than me kissing the hem of Charlotte's dress every night at the end of senior year. THAT was awkward."

"You're going to have to tell me about that sometime," Christine said. "When I'm in a better mood and can appreciate it."

"Will do," Erik nodded. "Just take it one day at a time?"

"One day more?" she asked in a teasing tone.

"Don't push it, Christine," he warned her. "If your grief consists of terrible, show-related puns, I'm taking my dessert and leaving."