Author's Note: Warning, Rated PG-13 for suggested heterosexual themes. (But not for long!) Sorry—I found that kind of funny ) Thanks you guys!
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38
In every Villa the composer and his patron have come across, even in the dead of night, there has always been a brandy and two empty glasses in the sitting room awaiting their arrival. Raoul pours himself a glass, and another for Erik. The Phantom will not sit down, and though he is clearly as exhausted as Raoul, he still paces around the room. Raoul takes a generous sip, and closes his eyes as the warm liqueur scours his throat. It seems Erik will not touch his.
He stands where his piano ought to be, arm straight and set at the small of his back, and stares forward, as if in disappointment that it has not yet arrived. A good lot of their possessions are to come the following day, and for one night they will have to survive on what the villa has to offer.
"The bedrooms are prepared," Raoul tells him, and Erik only nods, eyes still on the wall.
"Yes, I know. Forgive me," He tilts his head downward to half-glance behind him, and Raoul cannot see the dark blue beneath the heavy eyelids. "I try, but I cannot sleep. At least not yet." Raoul offers a slacken attempt at a smile, but it will not come to his lips. He and Erik have not spoken in sometime, and he feels strange behaving like this; as if nothing is out of the ordinary, and Venice was simply their next stop. Yet, at the same time, he fears to address the truth.
Perhaps it is not the uncomfortable silence, or the refusal of Erik to make eye contact that bothers him the most. Erik no longer needs him, and it has begun to eat away at the strength he initially had in the beginning of this tour. Such power came with it, for once, and over Erik as well. Slowly and surely, Erik is making him fear again. Raoul comes to sit on one of the chairs around a delicate little table, and finishes off his brandy. He clears his throat, and turns in his seat to address his composer.
"Forgive me, sirs," the housekeeper, a short fat woman with a kind face and tightly pulled grey hair, quickly bows and stands to the side. "The Countess of Foxhall is here. She told me to tell you she is sorry for the hour of her coming. Shall I show her in?"
Erik stares at the housekeeper, blank and yet somewhat thoughtful. Dark eyes flick to Raoul, as if the Vicomte will honestly turn the Countess Winter away. Raoul gives a single-shouldered shrug, and nods to the old woman.
"Ah-yes. Show her in, thank you," he breathes, and glances back to Erik. The Phantom's stoic face is focused on the hall in which the Countess will approach, and Raoul wishes that, if only for a moment, he could somehow catch Erik's attention before she were to enter. There is so much he would say, and yet it must go unsaid. He takes a step or two closer to Erik, to at least be by his side when she strikes.
From the shadowed hallway comes Elena Winter, veiled in black and as frightening as she is beautiful. Dark hair tumbles down the slope of her back when she removes the veil, and her black eyes fall onto the Phantom first and foremost. Pouted lips form into a darkly delighted smile, and yet when she speaks she seems naught but a concerned, old friend.
"My Darlings," she whispers, almost breathlessly, and wraps her lithe, lace tattered arms around his neck and presses her cool cheek to his. "You left with no warning, I was so worried about you. I was certain something had happened." She moves over to Erik, and that is when the heat begins to prickle up the back of Raoul's neck. He feels a hiss begin to rise in his throat, and chokes on it as Elena gathers Erik's hard, cold frame into her arms and holds him tight.
Raoul can see the change in Erik, and his arms remain at his sides. He is paralyzed in this moment, with a look of discomfort on his face that appears willing to change at any time to abject fear. He glances up at Raoul, as if blaming him for this new position he finds himself in. Slowly, in his own, bitter, dangerous way, Erik starts to give in to the situation and twists his arms upward, just at the elbows, to let his hands fall upon the small of her waist. She curves up like a snake, pulling only slightly away, enough to look into the masked face with a smile in the corner of her lips.
"Is everything all right?" she asks Erik, and after a moment, without releasing the captive body in her web she turns to Raoul. The way she has turned her body has strained it enough that every shadow of light muscle, every curve and every indention is available to Erik's view. Raoul's breath is caught in his throat, and he cannot find four words to string together with her staring him down. He can see that she has succeeded in catching the Phantom's attention, and his eyes fall almost hungrily on the planes of her olive skin. "I had a good amount of explaining to do to the managers of the concert hall on behalf of my boys, you know," she tells him with a smile, and her eyes flick back to Erik. "Well? Aren't you going to tell me anything of why you left?"
Erik finally releases her, and with stiff fingers gently pries her arms from around him. "Florence became too crowded, Mamselle," he murmurs, and steps away from her. For the first time all night he picks his brandy up from the table and takes a long sip. Erik pauses in the sitting room, the very tip of his tongue running over the taste of brandy on his parted lips, and his eyes linger a moment more on the Countess. He sets the glass down, and nods to Raoul. "Goodnight, Vicomte. Countess."
The Countess smiles quietly as she watches him make his way up the staircase, and touches the base of her throat almost contently. She takes in a deep breath, and exhales softly. That is when her eyes fall on Raoul. That is when she knows she has been caught. Her fingers curl around her neckline, and the smile widens, almost mockingly.
"Forgive me, Raoul," she sighs. "Your composer still takes my breath away, I am afraid. Even off of the stage." The Vicomte resigns to a forced half-smile, and wearily takes a seat in the one of the chairs. Her eyes have not left the staircase, and she lowers herself down across from him. "He is truly magnificent. In a way," she says, softly, and smiles at Raoul. "He reminds me of your dear brother." Raoul does not return her smile, and it is that uncomfortable expression that she notices right away. She stares forward at him, almost as if inviting challenge.
"Countess," he tells her, softly, and brings his leg over his knee, and the warmth of the brandy running through his blood gives him the courage to face her. "M. Erik is… nothing like my elder brother. I do… respect your feelings for him, but what he has told you is under that mask is nothing of the truth." The black eyes of this darkly beautiful, devious woman light up, and she leans forward in an almost improper gesture of excitement. Thrill has played upon her face, and there is no turning back now.
"Then you must tell me, Raoul," she whispers. "I must know, nothing else will satisfy me."
Raoul's face is still. "A lifetime of suffering," he tells her, dry and flat without the glee that still brought upon her smile. "A lifetime of rejection, of being caged and humiliated, seen as inhuman. He has worked so hard to rise above it, and all that has come out of his trials is a dark figure. A man that does not know what he wants, and will violently take what he finally decides he needs."
The Countess' smile turns into sheer fascination. "There was no fire," she breathes, and Raoul quails inwardly. There was a fire, in fact, and Erik was not at all free of that responsibility, but he certainly did not obtain his deformity from it. "He was born into this curse."
The Vicomte nods, and swallows hard. "Please," he whispers. "Take caution in all you do around him. He is not often touched, and is not at all comfortable with it. He prefers not to be spoken to, and he cannot learn to forgive your sex for what you all have done to him. Please, be careful."
"I crave him, Raoul," she hisses, secretively and yet far bolder and daring than what reaction Raoul had expected. Her full lips turn into a pout, and when she leans forward her dark hair spills around her shoulders, her cleavage, and does not help to conceal her charms. "I crave his attention, his company, I spend my days wondering if he could possibly notice me and remember my name. There are so many of us he could have," she says, and sits up straight. Her chin lifts up, and she is looking almost down upon Raoul, content in her new satisfaction. "The others are sure to give him grief, and heartache… I intend to give him my body, in exchange for his soul. I want him. I cannot stop."
Raoul is quiet a moment, and he lets his hand cover the lower half of his face. There is nothing, now, that he may say to her. He cannot call her off, he cannot separate her from the Phantom, and yet his deepest fear is that she may find out just why he wants no one else to have his composer.