Fandom: Phantom of the Opera
Title: Left to Chance- Chapter 25
Author: secretsmile19 (livejournal)/moon maiden of time
Theme: #11-mission possible; limitation
Pairing/Characters: Erik/Raoul de Chagny
Rating: PG-13/R
Disclaimer/claimer: "Phantom of the Opera" belongs to Gaston Leroux; the musical was made by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This is not mine.
Summary: It was not love. It was…just mere fascination. Really.
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His hands were slipping. Erik growled out something foul and fierce and tightened his grip. Oh no. He was not letting the stupid boy go. If the boy was going to die, it was going to be by his hands. Or by his Punjab. Nothing else. The idiot was not going to die by— by falling! That was just ridiculous!
Erik shifted and planted his feet flat against the edge of the roof. He huffed, bit out, "Angels are supposed to fly, Vicomte—not fall," and pulled. The Vicomte came with the movement and was tugged awkwardly over the edge, body sprawling inelegantly on the roof.
Yes, the sprawl itself was inelegant, but the parted mouth, the wet hair, the clingy clothes…That was pure and beautiful in a way that caused Erik's heart to stutter. He forced a scowl to cover the feeling and hovered over the boy.
The boy was breathing, that much was evident. His cheeks were flushed also. Erik half wanted to think that it was a prolonged side-effect of those slight caresses Erik had given the boy; the rain was cool though and that, surely, would have been enough for the heat of those touches to fade. He also wasn't waking up.
"Vicomte?" A quick tap to the cheek that quickly turned into Erik pressing the back of his hand to the Vicomte's forehead. Heat seared his skin. Pulling back with a curse, Erik started tugging the boy close. The rain would do nothing good for the boy's illness. Erik would have to take the boy to his lair—keep him close and nurse him back to health.
His mind skittered around how he had stolen Christine with tricks and song, had stolen her to his home and kept her there. His mind wandered around those dusty boxes of ideas of keeping Christine there until she loved him. His eyes went down to the man cradled close to him and he wondered.
With another curse, he pushed those thoughts away and stood, dragging the angel up with him. Fool boy. The Vicomte had to know he was sick. Why was he going to the opera to see a silly little diva and then running about in the rain to chase a shadow? Idiotic, persistent Vicomte.
He glared at nothing in particular when he realized that, for the fever to be as high as it was, the angel had to have been sick for a few days. And for the past few days, the Vicomte had been running around the opera house…while sick.
When the angel was coherent and well, they were going to talk about things like rest and illnesses and healing. And if the idiotic angel didn't listen, Erik would just have to tie him up. He paused in his trek to the roof door and rethought that. Then he continued dragging the angel back into the opera house, deciding that he may just do that anyway.
--
Being the dreaded Opera Ghost meant that Erik was used to walking through the shadows of the Opera Populaire on silent cat feet. He was stealthy. He was furtive. He was sneaky. Trying to be invisible his whole life had made the skills easy to acquire and use.
Being the dreaded Opera Ghost while dragging an ill Vicomte to his underground lair made that stealth, that furtiveness, that sneakiness, almost completely vanish. Not only did he have to carry that near-dead-weight around in areas that could usually hold one person, but the proximity to all that warmth was…trying.
Erik allowed some more curses to pass when he pulled the Vicomte into a shadowy nook. A burly stage hand and a tiny ballet rat slipped by them, eyes only on each other. Silence with the exception of the reverberating aria Christine was going through. He allowed a moment to savor the warmth of the angel. Then he pushed away from the wall, keeping the boy on his shoulder once more.
--
He simply could not do it. It wasn't as if he had enough for his mind to deal with, with that silly ribbon and that damned letter. But now… The clothes were wet. The boy was already sick. He knew what he had to do to keep the boy from descending even further into illness.
He had to get the clothes off the boy. There was a pause as he stared at the angel sprawled on the dark sheets of his bed. His mind wanted to run with that, take that image and twist it to all his fantasies…
But no. The boy had to heal first.
Some small part of his mind—the sole part that knew that he was heading to the lunacy he had wanted to avoid by avoiding the Vicomte—was screaming in dawning horror as he stripped the boy and wrapped him in dry blankets.
He knew the road he was heading down. It was the same one he had gone down with Christine. His plans had been shattered once before because of this stubborn angel. That small part of his mind wanted to know what would happen if his plans shattered once more. The rest of his mind was trying to catch up and going: what plans? You are not going down that road once more.
--
Once he had changed into some dry clothes himself, he had gathered a dish of cool water and a slightly clean rag. With that, he wiped the boy's face and forehead, trying to break the fever. A few hours of that made the fever decrease; the dark flush of his cheeks lightened to a pale pink. The angel's breathing came easier and he settled into an easy sleep.
Erik couldn't resist the urge to run his fingers through the gold-blond hair. When the angel leaned sleepily into his touch, Erik couldn't stop the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. Then, after a moment's hesitation, Erik leaned down and brushed a kiss over the cool forehead. When the angel—Raoul smiled in his sleep, Erik sat back on the bed, his own smile on his face.