Author's Note: I realize that I'm throwing these updates out there… I promise I'm going somewhere with this. However, this is quite a long story. Almost twice as long as 'Jackal' was, and so my drabbles and vignettes are beginning to sort of focus in, and then pull back out to the big picture again. That's why there are ones like these, where you basically get the idea that they're fleeing the city, and then there long ones with, eh… more 'intimate' details. ) Anyway—I suppose I ranted about that because my style irked me today, and I kicked myself with a big "STOP BEING SO INCONSISTENT" sign. Anyway. 'Nuff blabbing. Thank you all for keeping up with this! I'm really getting back into this fandom, and I'm having a blast.
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37
"We cancelled the Florence bookings. There was a fuss, but nothing unmanageable."
Erik has nothing to say. The carriage of the Vicomte de Chagny rides softly over the dark streets, and every curtain is drawn. They have departed for Venice, the city by the sea, and before finding a chance to make a silent exit, the boy once again compromised with him. He is beginning to wonder if Raoul took on a lesson or two in their time together, how to truly deceive and manipulate. If such is the case, he hides it well indeed.
"You did not kill him," Raoul's voice is the faintest whisper, and it earns only the slightest inclination of the Phantom's dark head. "Do you wish you had?" Erik expects the shameful, disappointment in the others eyes upon his answer. He wishes so much to change what Erik is, and Erik knows it cannot be. He will never change. He will never forgive a world that has forsaken him, again and again, and he will never cease to end the lives of those who threaten him. He will not trust, and he will not be taken by the weakness of childhood fears. He has long passed the opportunity to live again.
"I wish," Erik murmurs, and strokes his bottom lip with a gloved forefinger. He focuses on nothing. "that I would not make such fatal mistakes as bestowing mercy on one who hunts me." His eyes flick up to meet Raoul's. "I am a murderer, Vicomte. You forget that."
Raoul shakes his head. "I do not believe you a murderer," he stands his ground. "You have always fought for survival."
I fought for what I wanted. What I loved. I murdered for Christine, as I have murdered for you. I have held a life in my hands and felt it wither in my arms to protect the new freedom you have given me. And so, I feel no guilt, I feel no sorrow. I feel no pain for the lives I have taken, Vicomte. And yet Erik cannot express this to his patron. He fears, darkly, and terribly, the look that would come into the eyes of the one soul left in the world that might have loved him, once.
"It is more than likely our trail will be lost. When word spreads back to Florence of our Venice bookings, we will be long on our way out." Raoul has shifted the subject, and leaves it at that. He says not another word for the remainder of their travel. Such silence is not alienating, or uncomfortable for Erik. He was born in such silence, and since learned to live with it.