A/N: This chapter feels so short for some reason but it's the same length as the rest of them has been... who knows. I's so glad everyone enjoys my quirky as heck Erik and the banter has with Rene. I really do adore these characters. Also this feels like the end but there's more chapters, I promise.

"I adore this pale moon, I adore this death mask."

Delmira Agustini, In The Light of the Moon

Erik had never had a more cruel dream before in his life. For a woman to kiss him would be… well, he had proved that they might not die, but that woman had only kissed his forehead, not his lips, and this one had! Yet of course he would faint out of his dream from the sheer power of the moment.

Especially considering Rene was his only friend, Erik knew she would never do such a thing and cursed his mind for believing it.

That didn't explain why he awoke on the floor, however.

Or why Rene's hand was on his cheek, her voice calling his name.

His heart palpitated with the idea that it might be real, that her soft and supple mouth had been on his own. Erik was already in tears if it was true.

"Erik, listen to me," she pleaded, her hand drifting down to his shoulder, both of them touching him as though he were any normal man.

"Rene… Madame, please." He cried further, coming up to only once again fall into her shoulder to cry this time.

She accepted him gladly, hugging him close as though it were something normal. This wasn't normal.

Erik's breathing was choppy and completely out of line while she whispered sweet nothings in his ear.

This wasn't happening, was all his brain could comprehend in that moment, a beautiful woman who had looked at him since first glance with nothing more than her own judgment of him, had kissed him. An actual, human kiss. One shared between lovers and couples alike.

Erik might faint again.

When he did quiet, she placed her hands on his neck, stroking her thumbs across his cheeks. She filled him with this insane sense of joy that could not be controlled, and part of him hated it. There was only ever supposed to be one woman in his life who claimed things from him, yet this one had already taken more than the other was ever willing to give.

Erik was remiss to say he liked it this way.

"Erik, did I do something you will come to resent me for?"

"No," he blurted out, then recoiled, shaking his head frantically. "No, Rene. Erik merely has never had such an interaction before and thought it fake and overwhelming to every sense he owns."

She giggled, scooting closer to him with her hands still on him. He had no idea what to do with his own and merely left them limp, wondering if she was going to do it again. He might need a warning if she was… and she probably just shouldn't.

Erik was promised to a woman already, he could not give himself away to another. His heart was spoken for, as were the rest of the experiences he would never get to have.

"Can I do it again?"

No.

"Yes," his traitor of a mouth spoke to him.

Erik wanted to know what it was like, he wanted to indulge, and if he did not feel the same way for Rene, then it would be easy to push her away, to continue to cry for forgiveness to God for soiling another one of his poor creatures, and then maybe return to his plan of dying.

But when Rene closed her eyes, Erik's own closed with her, his hands in fists when she guided him back to her. Their lips connected, and he was lost to whatever power it was she suddenly held over him.

He could do this forever, just this one simple movement of lips against lips and he would be a happy man. Nothing more, nothing less, and it would sate him for eternity. Why need anything else when this woman before him, Rene, had given him all the world had to offer in a mere brushing of lips?

Erik had no control of his body when his hands grabbed her waist, pulling her into his lap very unceremoniously. Having never done this before, yet witnessing some of these torrid affairs in the Shah's court, he figured his mind was filling in the gaps where experience lacked.

The only reason he knew she enjoyed this was the moan released through her lips, vibrating their kiss and letting their tongues touch. Why it was such a necessary thing, to be mixing their mouths together, Erik had no idea, but suddenly close wasn't close enough.

He pushed her to him, one arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist while she gripped at his face without pause. Their mouths opened wider, and they were as close as he thought possible, the embrace making his spine feel as though it had left his body.

They breathed only when Erik was able to grasp her left hand on his cheek with his right one, bringing it to his lips and placing a brazen kiss to it. At this point, all of his caution had left him and he felt like the world might suddenly be his if only because of this one kiss.

"Tell Erik you are not merely toying with him," he said with a gentle squeeze to her hand. "Tell him you love him again, and make sure that you mean it before you do because he will let you go now if you back out, but once you commit to me here in this moment, he shall have you forever as his."

Rene pushed her forehead against his, looking down briefly at their entwined hands and nodding. He felt her skin move against his, the softness of it, and the complete adoration now in her features that he had never seen before. How had he not noticed?

His mind had been too caught up in past endeavors, that is how.

"I will be yours, Erik, forever."

"Tell me you love me," he demanded out of nothing more than feeling completely high on the sound. She need not, for her promising to be with him was more than enough for him to spend the rest of his lonely life with her. Lonely no longer.

"I love you."

He reeled with excitement and captured her lips with his, the hand he still had on her waist pulling her in again to him. Where he had gotten the audacity to claim her as such was beyond him. She was happy with the events however, so he would not stop if she continued to be her old self again.

"Do you love me, Erik?"

It was an innocent question as they breathed heavily into the stagnant air around them, and while a part of him screamed and bled for his past love still, the part of him that wanted to live and keep going on with life did love Rene. That was the only part of him that matter thought, wasn't it? The part that wanted to die could do so, and he would be better off for it.

"Erik loves you, Rene. I love you."

She kissed him plentifully.

And when he recalled who he was and where they were upon his floor, he told her that he needed to stand, they both did, and at least move to the sofa where he could simply hold her.

She accepted the offer he brazenly put out there, settling into an embrace with him, her head on his shoulder. It was the most mundane thing, but Erik enjoyed it almost as much as he had enjoyed kissing her.

"I am still going to go and ask for your pardon, Erik. I want you to work."

"Why?" he questioned with a glance down to his chest, a surreal moment to find a woman there comfortably resting.

"You have been looking forward to it for the past several days, and it would break your heart to see it go to another at this point. Therefore I shall still go and beg your freedom."

"You are already too kind by staying with Erik, you should not have to beg for his freedom as well."

"Too bad," she swatted his chest with a domestic air that tugged on Erik's forgotten heart.

"I concede, then. I shall work. But you shall help me as well, I would want no one else at my side."

She sighed loudly, and he couldn't help but imagine something was wrong.

"Erik… can I tell you something?"

"Of course," he said, not wanting her to hear the pure terror in his voice. "You cannot take back what you have said before, you know that."

The warning was just a pure response of fear, but as she sat up and turned to look at him, he no longer feared that possibility.

"I know, Erik, it is not that."

He kissed her there, wanting to do it again. It made her happy, but then she saddened again. Erik did not like to see her so melancholy.

"Then what bothers you?"

Rene swallowed gently, taking his hands in her own and placing them in her lap. She was anchoring to them, and he suddenly feared what she might say.

"When I go up to the surface as you like to call it, and I approach who I need to in order to secure your future, there is a chance I do not come back to you, as much as I want to. So, if my family keeps me when I get up there… well, discovers me and keeps me, then I want you still to continue on, Erik. Without me. If I disappear, then you must go on, or else I will die. I will die if you do not keep on, Erik. You know there might be people looking for me currently, and while I know I am safe here, my venture above will not be safe, yet that is a risk I am willing to make for you. If I do not return the eve you set me free, then you must appreciate the sacrifice I made and go on with life. Do you promise me, Erik?"

Erik began to think she was as crazy as he was. The only problem with that was he didn't care.

"How could I go on without you at this point?"

"I'll write you if I can… but it might be near impossible. My family likes me under their wing, needless to say," she said with tears falling from her eyes.

Erik sighed, feeling suddenly helpless again. He lifted a spindly finger to brush away her tears and kissed her again.

"I promise."

He would not refer to himself as anything else this time because of how much it obviously meant for her that he go on. The thought barely crossed his mind that he would come out of this without her, but now that the worry was planted there, it stuck to him like burdock to a trouser leg.

Still, she was only going to de Chagny manor, a place he had been several times, there was no way she would get found by her family there. Especially if they were as caught up in wedding plans and funeral proceedings as the de Chagny's were bound to be.

"Thank you," Rene cried, leaning forward and sealing it with another kiss, but this one lasted longer and evolved like the second one had.

The idea of losing her terrified him, but Erik's faith had suddenly been restored in a single, swift kiss. That, and the idea was evanescent as he had the first taste of true affection with her arms around him, lips upon him, and when she opened her eyes she seemed to be pleased with what she found there. It was maybe Erik's favorite part of the whole thing.

"You'll be able to go above soon," he told her later, over what was now a romantic dinner for two, with candles and glances of love that once were not so.

He forewent eating and drinking just to hold her hand, and he thrived knowing she was happy once again. Those days where she was saddening due to his lack of seeing her in this light was a hard time for him, and now he knew why.

"Will you wait for me?"

"Of course." Erik took a sip of his drink before explaining, "You will need a guide this time, Rene. There won't be any alcohol in your body to give you enough luck to land back here unscathed."

She grinned.

"And you will hold my hand both ways?"

He sometimes struggled to place affections upon her as willingly as she did, they had noticed over the past few hours, but his confidence was coming in waves.

Squeezing their current hold, he said, "Of course."

"I'm going to come back to you, Erik," she said softly. "I wouldn't want it any other way, just know that."

"Neither would I."

Rene sighed and got up from her meal, abandoning the food in favor of his lap where the idea that someone cared to be so close to him still startled Erik. It had only been a few hours since her love confession however, and there was much time ahead of them.

She looked into his eyes with a gentle feeling, leaning in closer with an expression he had never seen on anyone before in his life. This unbidden, unasked for adoration that was for him and him alone. Having her gone for even a moment was going to be torture, but when she returned, he would not allow her out of his sight again.

A shiver-inducing caress and slow kiss later, Erik had a million more hopes for the future she was about to provide him.