She had no way of knowing, of course, that this was the house he had designed for her - for them, the house he came up with in the hopes that should she ever become his wife, they could live in to together. There was no marking anywhere on the paper to signify that it was Christine and Erik's house, no words or notes to give that away - but Erik knew, Erik knew of the long hours he had poured into creating a house that might please her, of the sleepless nights he'd spend shamefully imagining a life with her, of how he dared to picture those things with her there by his side...
His very soul burned with shame as he looked down at the life he had planned out so meticulously, at the audacity of designing a bedroom that they would share as though she'd ever want something like that with him. She was naively innocent of the whole thing, but he - he was not.
He closed his eyes and fervently wished that she had never seen the plans - if for no other reason than the fact that she had said aloud that she liked them, liked the thought of living there - that was something he could have done without hearing.
She liked the house, yes, she liked it on paper - but just like fairy story that had been her favorite (had he ruined that story for her? He never thought to ask before, if she'd ever been able to look upon the tale of the little bird and the sad princess again and not feel the stomach-churning punch of betrayal from his actions) just like that story she had held so dear, he knew that she would not be so receptive to the actual fact of it in real life.
On paper it might delight her and send her imagination soaring, but the reality of it before her would only serve to make her tremble and cry.
He opened his weary eyes.
When he had been a very small child, on occasion his mother would become irritated at his constant, quiet presence, and send him outside to play in the woods with Sasha, the dog.
There had been a time that he had been chasing Sasha and laughing, only for her to suddenly turn and start to chase him - a favorite game of theirs. They took turns chasing each other, his laughter ringing out and her tail wagging, both so lost in the game that neither one noticed the steep ravine until it was too late.
When he managed to return home, he was crying and Sasha had her tail between her legs - his arms and legs had been scratched badly by the tumble, and his neck and shoulder ached terribly. Sasha had a few scratches a well. His mask had been lost somewhere in the sticks and stones at the bottom of the ravine, and though he had searched and searched, he was unable to find it until finally he was overcome by his injuries and his fear and had given up on finding the mask.
His mother had scowled at him as he approached, taking a step back.
"Go up to your room," she had snapped at him.
Erik had hesitated a moment before turning and painfully going up the stairs to the attic. He hadn't wanted to go upstairs - all he had wanted was to be held and told he would be all right (did that pain in his neck mean he was dying? He didn't want to die!) but he knew better than to ask for that. The last time he had reached for her as though to hug her, she had very nearly shoved him to the ground, and he knew that if she pushed him now, it would hurt very much since he had already fallen once that day.
So he had settled on the blanket on the floor in his small room, crying quietly to himself, scared and alone.
Sasha had come in to lick at his scrapes and rest her furry head on his knee, and he hugged the dog like he wished he was able to hug his mother.
It had been a little later that his mother had set a brown bottle and few clean cloths outside his doorframe.
"Use this to clean your cuts," she had told him.
"Can you help me, Maman?" he had whispered uncertainly. "Please, I'm scared."
She frowned and shook her head, not quite looking directly at him.
"No, I can't help you. I'm busy, I have to make a new mask because you were careless with yours," she snapped before quickly leaving.
He rose on shaky feet to retrieve the bottle and cloths, pouring some out and wiping it down his bloodstained arms and legs. It stung, and made his eyes water again, but he kept at it until he had cleaned them all. He turned with a sigh towards Sasha, carefully picking through her fur for her own cuts, and pressing a clean cloth to those. She growled a little, but she trusted him.
He had fallen asleep that night with his head pillowed in Sasha's fur, the blanket wrapped around them both.
When he had awoken the next morning, his neck and shoulder hurt less, but the healing scrapes and cuts felt itchy.
"Erik!" his mother called sharply.
He followed the sound of voice and met her in the sitting room. She held out a newly made mask to him, not looking in his direction. Her hand trembled just slightly.
"Thank you, Maman," he said politely as he took it from her - he always tried his very best to be polite to her, because maybe then she wouldn't cringe when he addressed her, and maybe, just maybe, she would finally smile at him.
She glanced at him after he had put it on, her frown deepening. He was scratching at the cut on his knee.
"Erik, no!" she scolded him.
He froze. What had he done? He wasn't even doing anything!
"If you keep picking at it, it'll never heal!" she told him.
He had nodded, and wrung his hands in anxiety. Never heal? How awful.
He kept her words in mind over the next week or so, but even still, he found he couldn't help but pick and scratch at them. They itched! How could he help that? Sometimes he scratched too hard, too deep, and he would bleed just a little. He would burst into tears at the sight of that, and pray rosaries and beg and plead with the saints for forgiveness of his wicked disobedience, uttering promises of never picking at them at them again if they could please just heal and not itch, but no matter how fervent the prayers or how earnest the intention - it would itch, and he would scratch, and sure enough they took ages to heal because of his fidgeting hands.
He looked down at the blueprints from behind Christine.
This house was the scratch for the itch that was his obsession with Christine. It only served to hurt him deep in his soul, but he couldn't stop, and he had long since given up on praying.
"Do you truly like it, Christine? You aren't just trying to flatter your tutor?"
"No, it's very lovely! I mean it!"
He paused. No good could come of it, and yet-
"Would you like to live in a house like that?"
She looked back down at the design.
"Of course - it's quite charming."
She looked up at him, eyes sparkling, full of innocence as she asked, "Who is it for?"
for you, Christine
He studied her face a moment.
"It's not for anyone, sweet. Just something I came up with."
It wasn't a lie, not really. Those imaginary selves he had constructed - happy Erik and his sweet little wife, Christine, living up in the sunlight, together - those two didn't really exist, and never would. It was just something he had come up with.
She looked a little disappointed. It made her feel sad that no one would live in that house, that it would never be more than what it was - lines on a paper.
"It's just pretend?" she asked, regretfully.
"Yes," he echoed. "Just pretend."
How close to the truth she had come without even realizing - just pretend.
"Come, my dear, tell me what you'd like for lunch," he turned to go to the kitchen Christine followed him.
He had scratched the itch too hard, had drawn blood this time, and he regretted it. He truly hadn't expected her to even notice those plans, not out of all the others he had lying around. If he had known, he would have hidden them away with the embarrassing doll he had created of her in the even more embarrassing wedding dress he had crafted for her. But something about those plans had drawn her like a moth to a flame, like an Erik to a Christine - and she had certainly noticed. He supposed he should feel flattered, or perhaps proud, that without her even knowing his intentions with the design she was so taken with the house he had created for her, a testament to how well he knew her and knew what she would like out of a house, evidence of his excellent skill in architecture and planning - but all he felt was hollow and a little sick. He had only meant to ease the itch, he hadn't meant to make himself bleed.
He showed her everything in the kitchen and she ended up picking simple things to eat, even though he had quite a lot of variety and could have made almost anything.
"Are you sure this is all you want?" he tilted his head, curious.
She nodded, looking down.
"I can make you anything, Christine. It's okay to ask."
"I don't want to impose," she said shyly.
He shook his head.
"You're never an imposition, dear. Now are you very certain this is all you want?"
"Mhmm."
He set the table for her, and this time when he sat down, he stayed as she ate.
While his mind was almost always buzzing, an accusing voice constantly taunting him, there were times - like now - that he was able to forget himself, times he almost felt like what he assumed normal people felt like. Sometimes it was when he lost himself in music, sometimes it was when he was consumed with designing a building, but mostly it was when he was talking to Christine. Though there were very many times that being around her only served to bring his deficiencies into sharp contrast, he often found he could lose that little part of his mind that haunted him with his sins just by talking with her. It didn't matter what the subject was, in fact, it was often over something trivial that he seemed to lose it the most.
"You've traveled quite a lot, haven't you?" she asked picking at her food.
"I have. Not for ages, but - I've been many places."
"Have you ever been to Greece?"
He ran a hand over his hair and leaned back in his seat, lost in memory.
"Briefly. Why do you ask?"
"Hmm... Doreen said she's been there," she hesitated. "Is it nice?"
"The beaches were nice, from what I remember, but I wasn't there very long."
She frowned, as though this was not the answer she was looking for.
"Did Doreen enjoy it?" he asked.
"I don't know, I didn't ask," she said peevishly, and he chuckled.
"It's bad manners to not ask your friend how her trip was, my dear," he leaned his elbow on the table and she shot him a small glare.
"She's not my friend."
His eyebrow raised and he smirked.
"Oh-ho, what's this? Is Christine jealous?"
She pressed her lips together and rolled her eyes.
"No! No, it's just- we aren't friends, that's all."
"Why ever not?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but shut it again, and repeated the motion a few times, squirming a bit on her chair.
"Papa always told me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."
"And?"
She leveled a look at him.
"And I have absolutely nothing to say about Doreen."
Erik laughed at how deadly serious she looked about the matter, and after a moment a smile started to tug at her own lips as well.
He didn't think he would ever get enough of how she made eye contact with him, how she'd look right at his eyes as though they weren't oddly colored, how she never lingered her gaze on his mask, acting as though his face looked just like any other person's. It amazed him every time, and when she treated him so normally, he found it easy to forget that he wasn't normal.
He turned the conversation with the Daroga over in his mind. Sooner or later he would have to trust that she was being honest with him, that she wasn't pretending too much when she seemed to be comfortable around him. Perhaps he could let his guard drop just a little more often when she was there, perhaps it was okay to forget he was a monster every now and then.
They gossiped for a while longer, discussing places they both been in the past (though Christine had been quite young during many of her travels, and didn't remember some of the locations very well) and which of the ballet rats had been where, and though he tried to cajole her into speaking badly of the performers she didn't like, she resolutely refused to do so - but her facial expressions as he mentioned certain people spoke plenty.
"Well, my dear, since you are already here, would you like to do a lesson, perhaps?" he offered when the gossip had come to a lull.
She shook her head, twisting her napkin in her hands, a small smile on her face.
"No, no lesson - but," she bit her lip, unaccountably shy. "Could we just sing together, maybe?"
Her answer surprised him, and he smiled.
"Of course, Christine."
He loved to sing duets with her, for very many reasons, in part because she seemed to truly love singing with him as well. He couldn't take her on exotic vacations, couldn't take her on walks in the sun, but this he could give her - he could give her his music, his voice.
It was the closest he'd ever get to touching her, he thought - and the closest he'd ever come to receiving a touch from her. He loved the way their voices entwined and merged, the sound of them together so intimate and warm and unlike anything else. It felt like an embrace, like a kiss, and sometimes that thought filed him shame, as though he were taking something from her and she didn't even realize it, so he didn't often choose to sing with her. But looking at her now, at how she beamed at him between verses, how her eyes shone and her cheeks were pink - how could she not be feeling the same as him? After all, she had been the one to ask him to sing with her.
He played song after song, sometimes ones she would choose, and some that he picked, and he didn't think he had ever spent an afternoon so gloriously.
Would they sing like this every day, if they were married?
He pushed the thought from his mind. She had only just turned twenty, and she should be singing for crowds of adoring fans - not for an ugly old man, adoring though he may be. He would tuck away the memory of this shining day to remember when there were only clouds in his sky - clouds and rain and fog and no luminous Christine (the sun his world revolved around) in his life anymore.
Christine didn't know why Erik so rarely sang with her, all she knew was that she wished he sang with her more often. His voice was ethereal, an experience. She felt absolutely electric whenever she heard it, and she loved it. To hear that rich voice as it soared on the high notes and to feel the deepness of the low notes - it felt like champagne bubbles across her skin, and she had to suppress a shiver.
She closed her eyes and let her mind wander as the song reached the point where only Erik was singing. Her mind pulled up the fantasy she often entertained herself with at night when she couldn't sleep.
They were no longer in Erik's sitting room, no - they were onstage together, in costume, surrounded by a lush set and beautiful lighting. The orchestra swelled and crashed and spun out all around them, and the audience sat in rapt attention of the prima donna and the primo uomo, and even though she could picture it all in crisp detail, she was still hazy about whether or not he was wearing a mask. But the mask didn't matter, not really - when he sang, when she pictured him on stage with her, he was pure and whole, and nothing else mattered but the two of them.
She opened her eyes and joined back in the song without missing her cue. Erik was watching her, something tender and nearly inexpressible in his eyes as his hands flew over the keys as though they weren't even a part of him, as though they belonged to some automaton that had been trained to play the piano perfectly.
The song came to a crescendo and ended, and both were silent a moment, the only sounds in the house their faint breathing as they caught their breath and the likely imagined echos of their song fading from their ears.
"I think I need to sit down a moment," she said, her shyness coming back now that there was no music to focus on.
He nodded and pulled out his pocket watch as she sat in the chair with a slight huff - and it was no wonder she was tired, they had been singing for hours. His eyebrows raised at the time. They had been so lost in themselves, as though the world around them had fallen away, and it was surprise to realize how long they had passed in such a way.
"Do you feel alright, my dear?" he asked anxiously.
She smiled sweetly at him.
"I feel just fine, Erik. A little tired, that's all."
"You should have something to drink, you've been singing so long, and just after having a cough, too!" he fretted over her, standing and making his way to the kitchen, only to quickly stop and pull a footstool over to her chair for her. "Here, put your feet up, dear. You should rest them."
She set her feet up on the stool he had so solicitously placed for her, a smile playing across her features at his tender concern for her.
He hesitated in the doorway once more.
"You may remove your shoes, if they pain you," he quickly ducked out of sight, hopefully before she saw how his face turned red - but it wasn't just his curiosity of seeing her scandalously bare feet - she had been standing for several hours, and as he had placed the stool he had noticed that her shoes had a rather tall heel... Surely it couldn't be comfortable for her.
Sure enough when he returned from the kitchen, her little shoes were placed to the side of the stool, and her stockinged feet rested on the cushion. He handed her a cup of tea and hoped the color in his face was not too obvious. His eyes darted around the room, suddenly unwilling to take more than a glance now that the sight he had previously wished for was in front of him.
"Thank you, Erik," she said gratefully. "You always take such good care of me."
She smiled down into her teacup. It was true - she knew it wasn't just because it was birthday that he was being so nice to her. He was almost always so thoughtful towards her, it made her feel warm inside, made her think of how her Papa had cared for her and then how Mamma Valerius had doted on her. It made her feel loved.
She gave a little sigh as his words from the other day floated back to her - how confused he had been when she wanted to spend time with him outside of a lesson. Even after everything, he still doubted that she truly considered him a friend. If only she knew how to make him see, how to make him feel the way he made her feel. Yes, there had been unpleasantness towards the start of it all, but hadn't they moved past that? She really did think of him like how she thought of Meg or Raoul - and clearly he thought highly of her as well. She was there with him of her own free will, and she knew she didn't have to be, she knew that very well. Erik seemed to be the only one who didn't know it - he still seemed to think she was forcing herself to endure being around him because she only liked his teaching. That couldn't be farther from the truth in her mind - she liked him as well, and she always looked forward to their time together, not dreaded it. But like the Persian man had told her, dealing with other people was not Erik's strong suit. She supposed all she could do was continue to be kind to him, and hope that eventually he would understand in time.
"Erik," she looked up from her tea, curious. "When is your birthday?"
