Author's note: Did someone ask for Erik x Mannequin angst? No? Well here it is anyway.
Water dripped in the distance, echoing through the arched stone. A candle flickered at Erik's bedside table as he stared up at the ceiling, wincing with each discordant drip, drip, drip.
His eyes refused to shut. His mind refused to settle. He knew he needed sleep, having spent the entire day enveloped in his music, hardly eating, and certainly not resting. Inspiration could be gone in an instant; he would not risk losing his concentration, even if his hands trembled with fatigue and his stomach gnawed with hunger.
He turned onto his side, wrapping himself tighter in the heavy blanket. The monkey atop the little music box stared blankly ahead at him with its black glass eyes.
He reached out and wound it up to play, hoping it might drown out that incessant dripping.
The quiet music filled the room- a familiar melody he had designed it to play. A song he had created as a child…
His eyes finally shut, and he drifted into sleep- dull, dreamless sleep.
But the blank slate behind his eyes turned to inky waters. Then there were bars- great iron bars, all about him, everywhere he turned. They closed in on him, growing ever tighter, until he felt the cool metal on his arms. He was in a box no bigger than himself, trapped, utterly trapped, and so very cold.
Empty faces with black glass eyes passed in front of his cage, unblinking, uncaring. Coins jingled to the floor.
He tried to slip his hands through the bars to find the lock, he knew how to pick locks, surely he could open the door, surely.
His breath was coming fast now. He felt sweat on his brow, cold sweat, and laughter sounded in his ears, as those empty eyes stared at him, hundreds of them, burning into his soul… laughter and the endless jingling of coins… paying to view misery…
He sat up in bed, panting, covered in cool sweat. He rubbed his face with his hands.
Just when he had hoped to get some sleep…
He tucked the blanket up in his arms, like he had as a child, rubbing his cheek against the soft fabric for comfort, imagining it was his mother's skirts, the only part of her he had ever been permitted to touch-
No.
He pushed away the blankets and rose from the bed, still rubbing his face. The cold air hit his skin and he shuddered.
It was then that an exceptionally odd thought struck him, and he was too tired to resist its draw. Indeed, what was the harm in it?
He went out to the mannequin, dressed like a bride, like his bride, its face veiled in white.
What would it be like, truly, to hold someone? Not by the throat, not with arms about them in a vice, no, but tenderly, gently. What would it feel like?
What would Christine feel like?
He slid the veil from the doll's features, revealing the painted cheeks and glass eyes, empty, cold. But he picked it up by its arms, as delicately as with a bride, and carried it into his bedroom. He was struck by the childishness of this idea, but he was too tired to care.
Pretend it is Christine.
Pretend she is here.
He pulled back the blankets and set Christine upon the bed, placing her on her side so she was comfortable. She issued a sigh, as she ought to, she was tired, after all, from a long day of rehearsals.
He tucked the blankets up over her shoulders, then smoothed down her hair. Would it be perfumed, perhaps? Perhaps she smelled of lavender, or roses, or lilies, not the musty lake air, bottled up beneath the earth.
He slid into bed and curled up his body about her. She ought to be wearing a nightgown, that dress had to be uncomfortable, but she had been too exhausted to change, of course, the poor thing. That explained it, after all.
His arm wrapped about her waist- her hard, icy waist- and he tugged her closer, burying his face in her hair. He inhaled shakily.
Pretend it is her.
His vision clouded. He could feel the stiff joints of the doll, and how cold she was, how lifeless. Christine would have a heart, beating beneath his ear, and her chest would expand with her breaths. This was an empty shell, an illusion.
And yet he stroked along the cool surface of the doll, pretending it was warm and soft, full of life. It was Christine- she was Christine.
Tears ran down his cheeks. He shook with sudden sobs, still clutching Christine, but not Christine, never Christine, only a doll, an empty, lifeless doll…
And yet that night, for the first time, he slept undisturbed by nightmares, until he woke up and found himself clutching an iron shell, and not the living woman he had dreamt of.