"There are a million ways to bleed, but you are by far my favorite."
Iain S. Thomas
There was no less of a foreboding sign than Rene getting sick the morning before she was to go speak with the new Comte.
He thought she had been clear of this problem, but it seemed that wasn't the case. Not that he minded helping her, but it did seem to dampen her mood.
When that was over and they'd breakfasted, Erik waited in the sitting room while she attempted to put on her previous attire that she'd arrived in. Having restored it as much as possible, Erik thought it best if she wore proper clothing to visit the Comte considering he was now the head of one of the oldest families in France. Rene agreed, and now she was fitting into her clothes.
The high collars and gloves was a strange sight, her hair once again pinned up and into its proper place. She did not look like the woman he had fallen in love with, but nothing would change that view he now had of her.
"I'm ready."
"Not quite," he said, heading over to the door and handing her one of his many cloaks. This one was by far, his cleanest and best one, and it made him happy to see her take the garment with a curious smile.
"It's fair weather season, Erik. And I have my own. What is this for?"
"The catacombs are cold, Rene, not that you would remember. And I want you to have a piece of me."
She agreed, then immediately ran into his embrace, their arms around one-another like it would be the last time. Part of him wanted to go with her, yet it was not safe for him too far outside of his home, it would barely be safe to linger in the halls of the opera until her return.
"I love you," she muttered into his chest.
"And I you."
Placing a tentative hand on her head of precise curls, Erik enjoyed this time as their many hours away from one-another was nigh.
"Let us go before I decide to make us both hermits for the rest of our lives."
"Alright," Rene replied, however shaky she sounded would not make this trip any easier.
Erik grabbed ahold of her hand and did not let go until their kiss goodbye as she slipped form the side entrance on the Rue de Scribe.
Knowing he had at least an hour to kill, Erik went to visit Nadir of his own volition and turn the tide on the pesky Daroga. Keeping an eye on the time, he arrived by shadows within minutes.
And wasn't Darius surprised to see him?
Still venturing without a mask, he had not really seen him, moreover the cloaked version of Erik with a wide-brimmed hat who demanded that he be allowed to see the Daroga.
So sitting in the room with Nadir who had not been caught up on the last day's worth of events was a very charged conversation.
"Remember when I came to you last and told you that I kissed my love alive?"
"I do," he replied, already on the watch for something suspicious as the time of day did not require any other social construct.
"Well, I have further proven that I can kiss a woman... Or she may kiss me and she shall not die upon contact."
"Erik, do not tell me you hurt that poor woman-"
"I could never!" Erik knew the insult was coming and held his tongue from lashing into the Daroga.
"Then how have you discovered such things?"
Since Erik was remaining calm, it seemed Nadir was inclined to as well. Though the man's stance was tense, with a large amount of it showing in the whitened knuckles of his hands gripping the armchair with anticipation.
"She kissed me out of love Daroga. And not the petty offering given to me by the last woman, but a declaration of love in physical and verbal form. Love which I have reciprocated."
"I could tell-" Nadir all but interrupted him to say this. "I knew it. The moment I looked at you, whether you knew it or not, and every moment after, I saw your love shining in your eyes. It was not an obsession this time, but something raw-"
"What I felt for her was real. This just happens to be reciprocated with Rene," Erik asserted, not caring for the insinuations that his love for his angel had been anything less than a miracle.
"I am glad… but I shall have to see to believe you, is she still in your home?"
Erik had forgotten to mention so far that Rene was, in fact, absent from his home for a good reason.
"Today was the day we chose for her to ascend to the surface and approach your accomplice for my pardoning. She has great faith it will work, but she warned Erik she may not return. And if not, to continue without her."
Nadir eyed him as well he should. Erik was far too calm about her pending return, especially considering it might not even happen. But, his faith was unwavering on that day, and so he chose not to make his temper suffer.
"This does not seem to move you as much as I imagined it should."
"I have made the decision that nothing shall go wrong. It cannot."
"What if it does?"
Erik felt his fingers twitch with the very idea.
"I shall go on. She wanted me to go on, and I would never disobey my Rene."
"Yours, is she?"
"She promised," Erik hissed, finally unleashing a little of his anger on the nosy Daroga. "She promised Erik that she was his, and to hell with anyone who does not believe it! I am hers as much as she is mine, and if her family takes her away from me, I shall simply have to set it up where I can once again be with her. For now… I do not worry."
Nadir pursed his lips at him, loosening up and waving him off. Stretching for the favored whiskey that was close by, Erik denied his offering. At this point, he had gone a fortnight without the stuff, in honor of Rene, he would not indulge in the liquids. To taste it on his lips would be a step back in her recovery.
Everything he did would be in a conscious effort to please her from now on since he did not want to endanger what they had.
"I am happy for you Erik Portmanteau."
"You could not have chosen anything more ghastly, could you have?"
His new name was not what he envisioned, but if one day it could be passed on to Rene, then anything might sound lovely after her first name. Instead of Madame de Renaud, she would be Madame Portmanteau, though the idea thrilled him a little too much for company to be present.
"I could have made you an illegitimate Chagny, if that makes you any more secure in my choice."
"It might have done the job, but it will look better if one day it is not attached to only me."
Nadir might have dropped his glass if it weren't for the arm rest of the chair being right below it. He was able to get a grip on it fast enough to avert a spill, but that did not stop the slack jaw.
"You do not mean to move so fast?"
"No, Erik has no intentions of doing anything about it anytime soon, I want to make a name for myself first. I have a lot riding on the opera house currently, and as long as no one steals it from under my nose, all shall be fine."
"No one should," Nadir replied back into his normal casual tone of conversation after being assuaged there would not be another marriage anytime soon. "I have had close watch on it and all news surrounding it, there has not even been interest in the scope of it."
Erik let loose a hot breath, his lack of nose making the moment far more dramatic.
"Good. Let us hope it remains as such."
The Daroga agreed silently.
"How are the renovation plans coming?"
"I hate myself, is really where it is. Self-actualization if you will, Daroga. If someone drops a chandelier in my opera, I shall be even more upset than the time I did so."
Bursting into laughter only quelled by one of Erik's stern looks, Nadir chuckled his way through saying, "I am merely amused by the idea that you could be haunted by the same plague you put upon the place, is all."
Unamused, Erik went on with what he was saying earlier.
"The plans are going well, I like to think. I have everything budgeted out, and I have carefully laid plans not even the opera's previous managers could fumble."
"Wonderful, and how many of these plans involve me?"
"Almost all of them!" Erik said cheerfully.
The look of gaiety scared Nadir more than the daggers, it seemed.
"I like to think that this will go smoothly, and if so, how is casting going to happen? Surely you aren't going to-" he motioned vaguely to all of Erik and left him to fill in the blank.
"Well, I have to be present. I have revived my original plan of a normal-face mask, but only this time, it shan't be normal. I was thinking a stark white with toned features covering everything but my mouth and chin," Erik said. He put his fingers right over the spots, recalling the feeling of lips there and finding such a memory strange and irresistibly intoxicating.
"And so you shall be doing the work then?"
"Yes."
"What about the previous workers at the opera?"
"I shall give them all a fair chance. I need staff first, so that is where I will start. However, I will be running quite the tight ship. Not a single hair out of line, which is where being the Phantom comes in handy, as does your second pair of eyes. Hopefully this time, with a more authentic and authoritative role, they will not find you so odd."
"One can hope," Nadir replied, his smile rare considering Erik was sharing it.
They talked for a bit longer, some banter included, and then he decided it was time to return and receive Rene from her trip. It was only then that fear gripped him, for the first time truly that entire day.
There were a million things that could actually go wrong from her escapade, yet the one he was most concerned about was her family discovering her less-than-missing and taking her away from him before he could even have the chance at something more than the day prior had been for him.
Erik couldn't even believe it and might call the whole thing a fever dream of death if it weren't for the Daroga having seen and interacted with Rene too. Now if Erik had been dreaming him too, well then maybe he did deserve death.
The opera was empty when he returned to it, which made some sense. Erik had only been gone the minimum amount of time, and while he had hoped she would return as promptly as possible, those pests she was speaking with were not exactly the most lenient.
Part of him wondered how his angel would react to this woman coming and asking for his pardon. How she would react to someone loving him.
Not that it mattered to him because it didn't, but the curiosity gripped him just enough to distract him for an hour of pacing. She had been his entire life at one point, and that had only change so quickly because someone more deserving… more loveable had come along.
Someone who loved him back.
At the third hour, Erik truly began to worry.
It was not evening yet, he felt the warmth of the sun in the empty opera, and his hopes were still existent, if not high.
Her touch lingered on his face, the feeling of cold yet soft hands coming to touch his features as no one had ever dared to before. The memory of waking up to her after fainting from a mere kiss… he hoped he would not be teased over that if the Daroga ever found out. If Erik closed his eyes and thought hard enough, he could almost feel the tactile presence of fingertips brushing over sallow skin, lovingly and with a tenderness he'd never felt before. It was intoxicating, and her smell lingered almost as clearly.
For a moment he was so overwhelmed that he had to grip one of the bars the ballerina's had strung through the opera for opportune moments of bending over as a patron passed by.
There was no doubt going be to a lot of coincidental similarities between himself and everyone's fabled Phantom, but the truth was that Erik did not care what anyone thought of him. Long ago had he stopped listening to the fake misunderstandings of his features, and prior to that even had he realized the words against him were not at all really towards him in the first place, merely because they held fear.
Fear had governed Erik's life for so long, he would not let it do so any longer.
Now, he stood in the opera house alone and ready to take over this upper domain as well as continue to reside in the lower one as well.
Out of pure and utter boredom, Erik had reached a dressing room he recalled more fondly than any of the others. It was still emblazoned on it with a name that would never again bear it's occupant, but he would happily put a new one on there without single pause.
Looking into the mirror, for nothing other than a cathartic glance, Erik was slightly surprised to see himself. Less sallow and otherwise slightly less emaciated, the part that was not his face looked but haunting. And that was it.
There was no terror in his just-a-little-too-skinny hands, and his suit fit snug against weight that he'd gained over the past fortnight with a heavy diet.
Almost dying had done something to him.
The news the next few days was filled with articles and stories alike of how the de Chagny family had given up the crimes against le fantome de l'opera, the tragic accident that was Philippe's death, and the grand joy of the wedding to come. And while Erik read these things alone in the underground, he knew the opera would not be lonely long.
A/N: Who is Erik if not childishly bragging to Nadir, quirky, sarcastic... and alone? Too soon?