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Work Header Rating: Mature Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: F/M Fandoms: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber Phantom - Susan Kay Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux Relationship: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera Characters: Christine Daaé Erik | Phantom of the Opera Madame Giry Nadir Khan Meg Giry Additional Tags: Angst medical inaccuracy because if it takes me more than two minutes to research it you can forget it tbh just a lot of crying Fluff Fluff and Angst Hurt/Comfort title from a Yeats poem couldn't pick a canon for this to be set in so I stole pieces I liked from each book / movie Language: English Stats: Published: 2018-09-15 Completed: 2019-11-25 Words: 70907 Chapters: 35/35 Comments: 88 Kudos: 165 Bookmarks: 25 Hits: 2194

The World's More Full of Weeping Than You Can Understand Mertens

Chapter 23

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Erik was right when he had said he was not easy to live with.

He had apparently gathered a number of habits that were well suited to a person who was constantly alone, and adding another person into that mix was... Interesting.

Living underground, especially, seemed to lend itself to a certain lack of regard for the time due to the absence of natural light.

It's not even a full week of sharing a bedroom when it happens - she feels him wake during the night and her half sleeping mind registers the fact and doesn't think much else of it.

He, however, is faced with quite the dilemma.

It's not that he wants to leave the comfort of this bed and the woman sharing it, no it's not that at all - he could stay here forever, he feels.

But he's just awoken from a dream - such a beautiful dream! - and he now he has a piece of music in his mind that he simply must write down. This was a common occurrence for him, and it never had posed any kind issue before - he'd just get up and write until he was finished then simply go back to bed, regardless of the hour.

But now there was Christine to think about. Namely, about how terrible it would be to leave her side while he was writing. Who knows how long it would take for him to write this - why, she might even have already left for work by the time he got back! That was unacceptable. But this music must be written...

So he devises a compromise. He regretfully leaves the bed for a few short minutes - just long enough to grab the inkwell, quill, paper, and a large book to write against. He takes them back to the bedroom, and hesitates before setting the inkwell on the side table near the bed. The little table happens to be Christine's side, but he certainly cannot have the ink spilling all over the sheets - he would have nothing to write with, in that case.

The candle that Christine insists on keeping lit during the night gives off just enough light for him to see the staves with a little effort.

He settles back into the warmth of the bed, Christine shifting slightly despite his best efforts not to wake her.

He takes the quill and attempts to dip it into the inkwell - a task for which it is necessary to reach over his wife and lean towards the table. She doesn't seem to notice. Success!

He begins to furiously scribble the notes out onto the lined paper, biting his lip. He can't wait to play this for Christine.

Naturally, the quill runs out of ink, so he repeats the action of leaning and reaching and dipping it in the inkwell.

He continues writing. It runs dry. He reaches.

Her mostly sleeping mind was aware that he had left and come back, but there was nothing so terribly unusual about that. It was the odd motion of him leaning over her that her sleep addled brain had trouble comprehending. Was he reaching for her? But she felt no touch at all. An odd anomaly, nothing more.

But he does it again. And again. She opens her eyes. He's sitting up and appears to be writing something. And now, it happens again. He reaches over her for something that she can only assume is on the little table. His torso comes within scant millimetres of brushing against her nose, and even in the midst of her annoyance she must admit she's rather impressed at the amount of talent it must take to be able to get so close without actually touching. As he pulls back to sitting, she sees that he's holding a quill. So he's writing, then. But still-

"Erik." she says in an even tone. "What are you doing."

"Nothing, my love. Go back to sleep."

She leans up on her elbow, watching him as he's absorbed in his work.

"Do you often do nothing in the middle of the night?"

"Perhaps, I suppose." his answer is absentminded, as though he were only half listening to her.

But then he snaps his head over to look at her, as if realizing for the first time that he's disturbed her sleep.

"Ah, Christine, forgive me. I did not mean to wake you. Please, go back to sleep. It will not happen again, I promise."

She sighs and rolls to face away from him, closing her eyes once more. She's just drifting off again when she feels the ever so slight dip of the mattress, and sure enough when she opens her eyes there's an arm above her. She turns to face towards him again, and not only his face but his entire body takes on an expression of guilt - but he keeps writing nonetheless.

"Why don't you trade sides with me, Erik? Then you won't have to reach."

He shakes his head.

"That is your side of the bed - you have always slept there and I know that you prefer it."

She rolls on to her back, staring up at the ceiling in the near darkness.

"They make pens that hold a fair deal of ink inside of them, you know." she says after two more reaches. "I could buy you one the next time I'm at the store, then you wouldn't have to worry about the inkwell anymore."

"I would much prefer if you did not, my dear."

She considers his possible aversions to such a thing.

"They make them with red ink." she offers.

He pauses, not sure how to explain.

"It is not merely about the color of the ink. A fountain pen would- well, I'm afraid a fountain pen would quite ruin the aesthetic of the whole thing." he gestures widely to the staves. "It's simply out of the question."

She huffs and shakes her head, finding it equal parts frustrating and endearing. That damn feather quill pen, with all its outdatedness and toil, here to bother both of their lives for the foreseeable future because of Erik's dedication to the aesthetic.

"Perhaps we can get you a table for your side, too, then."

He nods and she's not certain that he's heard her, but the quill once again requiring ink reminds her that this solution is of no use to them at the moment regardless.

She bites back her next suggestion when she realizes how it would sound out loud - after all, there's surely a reason that he's here in the bed with her and not at his organ where he normally composes. To mention asking the possibility of if he could take his writing to a different room please? - he would surely take that as her casting him out, and she already had had enough trouble getting him to feel comfortable with sharing her room. So she tries her best to ignore what's happening.

Her poor, dear husband. She loves him so, but she also loves being well rested.

Finally it becomes too much.

"Erik Francis Daae, switch sides with me this instant." she slams her hands down on the blankets.

He's startled out of his work and looks at her, narrowing his eyes.

"Where the devil did you get the name Francis from?" he asks suspiciously.

He's never used that name in any of his many aliases and is utterly confused.

"I don't know." she replies. "It's surely the sleep deprivation. I just came up with it."

He's still confused but he complies with her demand, getting out and then getting back in, now taking up the space Christine had been occupying. Surely this will fix it, she feels, as her eyes slide closed once more.

Except-

Except now that there's no distractions from his movements, she can hear the scritch scritch scritch of the quill against the paper and the tap tap tap of the quill against the inkwell, and that's when she realizes that when one is married to a genius, one must learn to cope with the eccentricities that come along with that, such as composing at three in the morning.

She knows that she is not perfect, of course - she'd be the first to admit to that. Her hypothetical situation of leaving dirty laundry around the room may have been less of a hypothetical per say and more of a constant in actual fact. It's understandable that such a thing is off-putting to him, and she does attempt to do better in that regard. There are myriad little actions she herself performs that she knows can be annoying as well - some she's aware of and some she is not. She taps her foot as she washes the dishes, and Erik has never brought it up to her but it never ceases to make him nervous because the movement reminds him of his mother. They agree that honesty with each other is typically the best policy, however, so for almost any other habit he gently explains why it bothers him, and she typically stops or lessens whatever it is, and she feels comfortable doing the same to him - and it nearly always works out quite well. But she's sometimes surprised at what, exactly will be the thing that sets him off, because often times it's nothing she would have imagined to be a problem, and on some occasions an innocuous action or noise will occur at a most inopportune moment when one of them is irritable and the other is feeling sensitive.

She was merely sitting in the reading room preparing to drink a cup of tea like she has nearly every day of her life when it happens.

Erik is sitting across the room, reading intently. It's some stuffy old tome that Christine can't make head or tail if despite having peeked at it's contents before, so he's reading it silently. He had offered, quite generously, to read it aloud if she so desired, but she had not taken him up on the offer. Still, it's nice to be in the same room, she thinks, so she had decided to drink her tea in here.

She's simply stirring the sugar in, as she always does, when she notices his eyes are no longer on the page and instead on her. She smiles sweetly at him, but this garners no response. No matter. She continues stirring, waiting for all the sugar to dissolve.

"Christine." he says presently. "Surely the sugar is sufficiently mixed by now."

She stills.

"Well... The first spoonful is, yes."

Erik knows perfectly well that she takes far more than spoonful and his jaw clenches.

"Would you like me to stir it for you?" he offers, and she isn't certain what he's getting at.

"No, thank you though."

"Are you very certain, Christine?" his voice is tight.

"I know how to stir tea, Erik." she continues to do just that.

"You are certainly stirring it, yes. But have you tried stirring it so that the spoon does not touch the sides of the cup, perhaps?"

She frowns.

"I've always stirred my tea this way, and we've had tea together nearly every few days for the past years. You've never said anything about it before."

"There have always been other sounds to distract, quite often talking. It is different now, here in the silence."

He feels rather rude to bring it up, but that awful clinking noise is so hateful to his ears, he can't bear it.

Christine tries her best to comply with his wishes. In truth, she had barely ever noticed that she stirred in such a manner - and really, who would? The drink got stirred - was that not the point of the action? So what if the spoon clinked against the side of the cup in the process? This new way takes focus, more effort, but she can tell it bothers him even if she doesn't fully understand so she tries her best.

Her mind wanders after the fourth spoon of sugar, and her fingers slip.

Clink.

He pins her with his stern gaze.

"Well it was not on purpose." she huffs.

He sets the book down and closes his eyes, trying to calm himself. His voice is only slightly raised when he replies.

"This would not have happened if you simply let me stir it for you."

The words were said almost calmly, just a bit on the loud side, and really - he had had a very trying day that had cumulated in quite a headache that was only just now waning, but that wretched clinking was threatening to bring it back on at full force.

For Christine, however, the day had also been very trying - a fact he was not aware of, just as she was unaware of his headache. She had dropped a large stack of papers to be filed and they had become hopelessly mixed up, a fact that had not pleased the lead accountant and had led to her being called a bit of name. It stung of course, and she spent the rest of the day thinking about it - to the point that she had mixed up a ticket order, knocked over a pitcher of juice on the carpet, and tripped over her own feet in front of some customers and rather embarrassed herself. The rest of the day she had felt quite sorry for herself, and in the midst of her moping her mind turned to some very dramatic thoughts.

The accountant was right, she had thought sadly, she can't seem to do anything right. And as she often did in times of sadness, she thought of her husband - a topic that usually cheered her very well. But today - today her thoughts had drifted to how capable he was, such a quick learner with hardly any topic or skill he was not knowledgeable about and adept in. He would never have had these kind of silly problems she was having - mixing up a simple order, for goodness sake! What was wrong with her? So different than Erik... It was a wonder how he tolerated her bumbling ineptitude. Surely it irritated him at times, she thought. How could it not? Not when he was so skilled and she so... Simple. She had stopped her work every so often to brush away a tear of pity for her own plight. She was only ever good at singing but now that that's gone-

And now- now, she could not even stir a cup of tea correctly. Is she so much of an oaf that she must have someone handle a spoon for her because she'll mess it up otherwise? Apparently so.

Erik exhales after his words and opens his eyes once more just in time to see her face crumple.

She sets the cup on the table in front of her and rises, smoothing down her skirt with shaking hands. She attempts to quickly exit the room before the tears start up again, and she realizes they're coming sooner and more numerous than she had thought and she leaves as fast as she can.

Panic shoots through Erik. He hadn't intended this - hadn't intended this at all! He sits for a moment, stricken. It's finally happened - he finally drove her off in a fit of tears. And all over a blasted tea cup!

He jumps out of the chair and races after her. He had said he'd let her leave if she ever wished it, but he hadn't intended it all to end like this - please, not like this.

She's standing in their bedroom with her hands pressed against her face, trying to stifle her pitiful weeping. She vaguely hears Erik as he hesitates in the doorway before striding across the floor - expertly avoiding the clothing strewn about there - and approaches her from behind.

He wraps his arms around her and rests his forehead on her shoulder.

"I am sorry, Christine. Please forgive me. You can stir your tea however you want."

A trembling plea for her not to leave him is on the tip of his tongue but he bites it back.

"Oh, Erik." she sighs as she scrubs at her face. "It's not just about the tea cup."

His heart twists, because surely she's about to recount his numerous sins against her-

"It was the lead accountant."

He pauses as he digests this new information, his arms tightening around her just slightly as his mood shifts from penitent to possessive.

"What did he do?"

His voice holds a faint undercurrent of darkness, and for a brief moment Christine is once again glad not only of his more stable temperament of late but his long ago vow to not kill anymore - because at the tone of his voice she suddenly has an image in her mind of the accountant meeting the wrong side of a Punjab Lasso. It's so terribly wicked of her - a sin, surely - but her lips twitch into a small smile at the image before she can burry the awful thought. It was not that she wished any harm on anyone, of course not - but it was just slightly flattering, was it not? The thought that Erik would fight anyone that offended or harmed her?

"I was carrying a rather large amount of files that had taken ages to sort, and I- I dropped them everywhere, and he was very cross with me over it. And I felt so clumsy for the rest of the day, like I'm not very skilled at anything, and then the tea cup-" she cuts off to sniff.

"I'm not a very skilled person in general, I suppose." she sighs.

Erik hums.

"You know that is not true, my dear. You're just having a bad day. Anyone could have dropped those papers. Do you think that insolant account boy could write an opera, as you have done?"

She nods, thinking about his words as she leans back against his chest.

"Besides," he murmurs. "I daresay you are quite skilled at putting up with me."

A grin creeps across her face.

"You are quite right in that regard, my love."

Yes, they both find the transition of living with another person to be an adjustment, and there are small arguments peppered here and there, and concessions must be made every now and then. Neither one one would say that the other is particularly easy to live with - but both of them would not have it any other way. Any moments of discord are far outnumbered by moments of sweetness, moments of love.

She'll gladly put up with every pointed look at her discarded petticoats lying in a corner in their room if it means she gets evenings of coming home after a long day to a meal that's been beautifully prepared just for her, she'd take endless disagreements about the lemon to sugar ratio in tea if it also meant she could also have an endless amount of mornings where she awoke with his arms around her, she'd endure every one of his odd quirks and then some as long she could continue to play and compose music with him.

He didn't care so terribly that she was somewhat absentminded when it came to laundry or dishes or various items lying about - not when she hung on his every word and kindly remembered the things he had told her, whether it be something small like mentioning a favorite whiskey (of which she later bought for him as a gift) or something more important like how she did her best to overcome her fear of spiders so she could simply put them out of the room instead of killing them after he had told her about how he felt a sort of kinship with the creatures. She could crack her knuckles and pop every joint in her body with that horrible noise constantly (although at times it seems she certainly does) as long they could continue to share those soft touches and sensuous caresses each night. He would endure her tapping her fingers with no discernibly consistent beat against every hard surface of their home for a thousand years just to be able to keep seeing that look on her face when she'd glance over at him in random moments and smile, her eyes full of love.

No, they would not have it any other way.