Hi all. Here's a short fic built around a light idea I couldn't get out of my head. Because I dearly regret my unfinished stories, this two-part fic is already completed, and the final, longer chapter will be up in two weeks.

Also, my modern Erik is always generally based on Leroux and Kay, but honestly, after too many years of on FFN and like… a lot of 2020 comfort-rereading, my Erik is equally (or more!) influenced by the entire fandom, especially Quiet2885, Soignante, and Broken-Vow.

Thank you for reading!

Abruptly dismissed from her lesson, Christine lay on the smooth hardwood floor of her bright private suite, on the second floor of Erik's remote house, glaring at her duffle and cursing whatever sad impulse had made her nestle travel Scrabble between t-shirts and socks.

As though he hadn't stocked her rooms with fine clothes and expensive soaps and her favorite hand lotion—back before he hated her.

As though she really believed a board game could fix all of that.

No. It was Erik who preferred to resolve conflict through avoidance and distraction. With his rosewood chess set and his magic tricks, his graceful waterfalls of playing cards.

Now, she blew at a dust bunny and decided that her dumb plan was his fault.

Not that she'd developed her plan far beyond "Attempt to ease tension by proposing one round of Scrabble." So maybe it was for the best that her "artist's retreat" had suddenly reached Sunday evening, which meant she would leave Erik's house the next morning, which meant they had passed the whole weekend in this awkward, unhappy orbit, hardly speaking a word.

But what had she expected? After she had… after all that had shattered during last month's "retreat," she marveled that she as there at all.

She had been astonished when, just days after their… confrontation, he had shown up for their Wednesday night lessons in their quiet corner of the theater. It had been cold, hadn't it, the way he'd accompanied and corrected like nothing had happened? The way he had announced, finally, that he "would anticipate her for usual weekend," his voice calm and unhurried, as though neither of them had reason to doubt she would return to his home in the forest ever again.

As though neither of them had crawled. Clawed. Begged.

Christine's stomach twisted. She rolled the back of her skull on the hardwood, turning her face to the window and the redwood trees clustered just outside. Her rooms were far above his basement music room. She could see where the redwood trunks began to thin, tapering upward. And if the weekend's lessons were already over, she had no reason not to lie there feeling sorry for herself, watching the light slowly drain from the sky.

The idea was too tempting. Infuriating. Why had he cut off the day's lesson? Hadn't she finally been singing well?

Now she had hours before dinner, when she would sit downstairs in his elegant dining room and eat something wonderful, all alone. Next, even though—or perhaps because—her cleaning annoyed him, she would rinse her dish in the silent kitchen. And then she would stand in front of the door that led to his basement, holding her breath, willing herself to feel the music vibrating through the floor.

Would he bother to say goodbye in the morning? She doubted it. Maybe, if she was lucky, he would leave one of his odd little notes, informing her that he had filled a travel mug with coffee or somehow managed to put gas in her car.

He always disliked that she pushed her tank to the verge of empty. Or at least he had, back when he worried about her.

She climbed onto her mattress and stretched out on her stomach, a joyless starfish made of lead. It wasn't as though she had actually liked spending time in Erik's house before. First of all, when their lessons had begun eight months ago, he'd "invited" her there with much more force than she appreciated. Well, not force, exactly. But he had made abundantly clear that his continued instruction depended on her dedication, which meant he expected her full concentration for at least one weekend a month.

Still, she wasn't an idiot. One weekend a month for free lessons from a musical genius? That was an easy trade.

So what if his black mask unsettled her—when he played, her voice dipped and soared with a rich purity that she'd once thought unattainable. With his help, she'd secure an enviable featured role at an upcoming classical concert. And when he sang with her? Oh—she had nothing equal to exchange.

She'd decided not to mind that Erik sat with her during dinner, his own place setting empty and his mask firmly in place, covering forehead to chin. The mask did have holes for his eyes—deep set, golden eyes—and she would try to meet them when he attempted conversation. What did she think of modernist literature? Had she heard they found water on the moon?

Sometimes, he would pour them each a glass of wine. And Christine would ramble light half-answers to his questions, studying a leaf of kale just long enough for Erik to lift his mask and drink. On such nights, she cut her food into very small pieces. She felt the beam of his eyes on her red mouth.

Then, after dinner, Erik would lead her to the living room for an hour of "entertainment"—that's what she had, perhaps a little unkindly, begun calling this portion of the evening in her head. Without touching her, he would make a coin disappear from her fingertips or (this one still amazed her) conjure a blue jay feather from a candle flame. Or he would try (and fail) to teach her the nuances of the knight's L-shaped moves.

Whatever the particular evening's particular focus, he never failed to dismiss her exactly when one hour was up. Christine didn't know how or why he tracked those sixty minutes. At first, she'd been happy to assume he was busy and relieved to spend the rest of the night on her own. With a clear routine, they could avoid confusion. He was her music teacher. Her generous host. As long as he'd used that firm, formal tone each time he'd dismissed her, she'd been able to ignore the desperate glint in his eyes.

In his eyes as he'd done what she'd asked.A raw pleading, and his hand trembling. Long white fingers peeling off the mask.

I want you to trust me. And he had.

Her stomach churned, and she pressed her forehead into her bedsheets. She would not think about that.

Because of all the things said and done that day, all that she had seen, why should she most clearly remember the terrible sound of Erik's sobs?

She wasn't a person who thought men shouldn't cry. She refused to be. In fact, she had seen sweet Raoul cry man times, and his tears never sickened her. When she heard his little sniffles or saw his blue eyes brim with fat tears, she felt sympathy and offered comfort, as any normal, caring person would. She had even held him and rubbed his warm back after explaining that she needed some … long-term space from their fledging relationship. Didn't that count as going above and beyond? Wasn't she kind and good?

She scoffed to herself. It wasn't kind to feed her ego with through the pain of others.

And if she were a good person, she wouldn't have noticed how neatly Raoul cried. Sniffling through a nose.

But Erik's face not the only difference! He had raged at her! He could be frightening and confusing and frustrating. More importantly, he was sometimes purposefully cruel! At least the barbed words and cold withdrawals always felt purposeful. Consider how he'd behaved all through this very weekend—as though he'd summoned her back not so much to teach as to torment her.

Until today's lesson, she must have seemed like a listless child, shrinking and distracted, intent on swallowing lyrics and missing notes. But he hadn't yelled at her or even really scolded her as he normally might. She found herself actually longing for one of his blunt lectures or even an uncharacteristically brutal rebuke—she would accept the harshest words if that meant she could get through this one song.

It was a complex song. An expression of her character's lifelong grief and turmoil, the precipice of resignation, the bright thread of one final hope. It stretched her full range, particularly the lower register. She needed his instruction. His help.

Instead, he'd been unforgiving, silencing his piano at the slightest hint of a flaw, and then, wordless, staring the whole song over again. And again. And again and again, so far past even his usual perfectionism, so often that she began to fumble even the opening phrase. Even as she'd felt herself sucked into a maddening temporal vortex, she'd held it together as much as she was able. Not that he seemed to notice when she had begun to cry.

She could still hear his cool, rumbling timbre.

You don't understand the song.

Had he been punishing her? Practicing some awful method training?

Whatever his intentions, she knew she had sung well today! She was certain!

Now, she burrowed the top of her head under her infuriatingly plush pillow, wishing she could turn her mind off as she had that morning, when she'd entered the music room feeling detached and hollow, numb even under his gaze, a fly encased in amber.

She hadn't cared anymore, and then she'd been furious, and then she'd abandoned her body, something in her fleeing that room, and on the fourth try she finally was the music. She sang perfectly. Unravelling all the way to the end of the song.

Good. Again.

Again. She couldn't hear herself.

Exquisite.

His praise had been mournful, rich, and resonant. That impossibly beautiful voice.

Your soul knows these notes now. Erik is sorry for that.

Ecstatic and nauseous, Christine had merely nodded, barely understanding his words and hardly caring because she knew the final pieces left to practice were duets.

Anticipation buzzed through her toes and her fingertips, warming the back of her neck. She drew closer to the piano. It had been so long since she had heard Erik singing, and as always, his voice was stunning, transportive, more than she could possibly remember.

She sang, discovering that her soul knew these notes as well. She wouldn't be disturbed by the lyrics, words of love and longing. She was an actress, wasn't she? She was acting. And when their voices finally curled together, lush and heartbreaking and rapturous, Christine, eager to float, closed her eyes.

Then, Erik stopped singing. He stood from the piano. Christine choked on her note. Her eyes watered. Erik did not look at her.

No more. You are dismissed.

But why? She regretted how quickly she'd obeyed him, without demanding any sort of explanation. Was it even possible to please him? A lost cause.

She wanted more of his voice—enough to erase the memory of his face.

She grit her teeth, ashamed. Under her pillow, her forehead collected a sheen of sweat. She sat up, reaching into her nightstand for her cell phone, the only clock in her room. It was till torturously early, barely four. Was time moving forward at all?

She looked at her screen a little guiltily, suppressing the urge to switch off "Do Not Disturb." The phone wasn't exactly contraband, but she knew Erik disapproved, adamant as he was about avoiding interruptions.

Still, even if she used the phone right in front of him, he would do little more than glare or perhaps grumble. This was a marked improvement from the beginning of their… acquaintance… when he had been more… strident about his house rules. It was almost funny now, how forcefully he had thrown her phone through her suite's second-story window.

Almost funny. She traced her screen's long hairline crack.

She though back to what he had said during their truncated lesson. Erik is sorry for that. Was that an apology? An expression of sympathy? Perhaps both, though Erik was not, in her experience, particularly good at articulating any remorse for harm done.

That didn't mean he wasn't aware of that harm, or even that he wasn't remorseful. The more and more she came to know him—as far as knowing him was even possible—the more she understood that despite his polished exterior and professed misanthropy, he carried a heavy burden of regrets. Though, whether he felt sorrow only for himself, without much to spare for the suffering of others… that was less clear.

After he'd smashed his window with her phone, he'd stood frozen for a moment, until she, frightened, had started to cry. Then, he'd clutched his chest and dashed from the room. Peering through the fresh shards, Christine had watched him search the damp soil below her window, pawing through ferns and twigs. When he'd returned and set her phone on a table, refusing to look at her, she'd been gratified by the mud on his fine suit and the wilted leaf stuck on his knee, and she hadn't challenged his fierce stream of self-punishing words.

And although he'd replaced the window that very same day, he hadn't apologized. She'd refused his offer of a replacement phone. He had proved himself a volatile man, prone to bursts of destructive anger, and that was something she shouldn't forget.

He was so terribly angry. Deeply angry, all the time.

He had tried to trust her.

And when he was on his hands and knees again, his face bare, the cursing and screaming over, swallowed by his moans, her whimpers, broken strands of her hair tangled around his dead, gray fingers, had she been gratified then?

Why oh why was she here?

She considered her screen again, a portal to the outside world, all those people inviting her into their bright, full lives—but really, she didn't want to a group thread about cast happy hour or engagement photoshoots or former classmates' new record deals. She especially did not want to see the inevitable messages from Raoul.

Perhaps he had sent another bright line of emojis or a too-tempting offer of concert tickets or his favorite: "just saying hi." Or worst of all, maybe his parents wanted to see her—after all, friends still come over for dinner.

Also, for some reason, Raoul had recently taken to sending her grainy gifs of clumsy puppies. They were cute, undeniably. She marked them with tiny hearts. It was absolutely not a big deal if her sort-of-ex had, as it seemed, forgotten her preference for cats.

With a sigh, Christine shut her phone back in its drawer.

She sat up on the edge of the bed, staring up at the room's high, white ceiling. Then the packed bookshelf, the dusty DVDs, the sleek stereo. The duffle bag and the Scrabble board—how humiliating. Then the gleaming acoustic guitar in the corner, next to the music stand and fresh staff paper, gifts from Erik, all because she had once made one wistful comment about writing her own songs.

A kind gesture, but now the sight of the brand new guitar and untouched paper made her feel flushed and queasy. She stood and approached her window, gazing down the sloping redwood mountainside to the horizon and its distant ocean, impossibly vast and still.

She felt so alone.

Poor Erik. He'd built a house overlooking the ocean and then spent his days underground. Always alone in his basement, so stubbornly thin and pale. But no, his pallor, his sharp edges and dark hollows, they weren't all his fault, were they? And he hadn't shunned the world entirely… or else why fund a theater? Why listen to every audition? Why design such an elegant mask?

Yet here he remained, his genius buried in a mountain, a gemstone in the deepest mine. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair. Not at all.

She pressed a palm to her chest, willing the ache in her heart into resolve. She recalled the day after the broken window, how he'd insisted on a game of cards. How after a round or two, much to her amazement, her Jack of clubs whispered a riddle. Her three of diamonds began to complain. And soon enough, though he sat still and stoic, he was making all of her cards joke and sing and bicker in a wild array of voices—she held a tiny, absurd cabaret. She remembered bending over with laughter. She remembered the warmth in his glittering eyes.

She scribbled a note on a piece of staff paper: Please meet me in the dining room before you make dinner.

Her board game was a silly idea.

And she had to try.