Bumped the rating up to M for… winkyface content reasons. Those reasons show a bit of themselves in this chapter, but I realised that they're better showcased somewhere else more appropriate for the story. Somewhere soon, by the way.

I hope your ideal date is the montage portion of a romantic comedy where the quirky protagonist shows the gloomy love interest the joys of living.

Night had fallen like rain on the rooftops of Rouen and arrived as their car had, in a silent but sombre manner. Their hotel in was a building that, according to Erik, was quite far from the centre of the city, though even the activity at what appeared to be a dead hour pleasantly surprised her. It must have been almost midnight and people still scattered the pavements on their way home, a few flurry of cars shooting by like comets; it put her town's deserted streets and still nightscapes to shame. Even from the sidewalk block of their hotel, the city set her heart aflame with a persistent curiosity, the sort of excitement she hadn't felt ever since she was a child with her father stepping onto French soil.

But before she could even suggest a late excursion, Erik gently ushered into the hotel without even the vaguest slimmer of a promise. If he noticed the disappointment on her face, he made no indication of it. Before he pushed the door open, he once again reminded her to let him do the talking. As upset as that made her, the shame from her actions earlier that day kept her rebelliousness at the bottom of her chest for now.

The hotel itself crossed an uncanny valley between her town's own architecture and what she assumed were urban sensibilities. In the lobby, the array of beige armchairs dispersed across the room felt like one chair too many, and the lamps glowed a deeply drowsy yellow. A man on one of the chairs closer to the staircase had fallen asleep with a book on his lap, and somewhere a clock ticked eerily in whatever quiet it could find. It was not like the familiar rooms of her town but rather simultaneously both too impersonal and too private. She wouldn't be surprised if the walls had eyes as well as ears with how paper thin they looked.

The conversation Erik was having with the receptionist went on for some time. She didn't need to look behind her to know he was standing over her; well, she was urged not to look. A gloved hand was carefully tapping an invisible, nondescript pattern of notes on her shoulder, a reminder that her eyes should be trained anywhere in the room that wasn't his face. The worst thing about it was that she didn't mind; a part of her, however small, wished to reach up and feel the brush of his gloves against her skin. As a distraction, she looked out the window of the ground floor, and saw that a turquoise pool outside rippled like a gem in stark contrast to the night.

"And are you sure there are no more single room vacancies?" she remembered him asking the receptionist.

It was with some bored disapproval that the receptionist nodded. She appeared a middle aged woman, perhaps the same age Madame Giry was, but with hair dyed an obnoxiously bright orange. She inspected her matching nails with an offhanded nonchalance that seemed to offended him.

"You're positive?" he asked again.

"Last I checked, Monsieur, there's just one single room left." She lazily checked the ledger on the desk. "We've got a double room vacant, though."

A sigh reverberated behind her like the low growl of an annoyed cat. She didn't understand why he disliked the single room so much, but then again, she wasn't sure the idea was worth entertaining either.

"That, then," he huffed, and stepped forward as the receptionist pushed the ledger towards him.

Her gaze shot down immediately onto the plain floor and she busied herself with trying to knock her toes together without lifting her feet from the carpet. There was the sound of writing like the scratching of furniture.

"So… is it a simple sort of honeymoon?" the receptionist asked no one in particular.

Her face suddenly went red hot.

"No—" they said at the same time, and to hear her voice overlap with his felt like a desecration of sorts.

But both their gazes had shot up and it was the fight for her life not to look at his face. The shame rose like nausea and silenced her, watching as he struggled to find an amendment.

"Not… necessarily," he began, "I suppose it's a rather unorthodox matter that w—actually, to be frank, Madame, it's none of your business."

She had to admit, seeing that usually reserved and calculated facade of his fall into pieces was an amusing sight, and helped alleviate the tension in her chest. The receptionist was unimpressed, but the raise of her brow indicated that it was strange they weren't married, and travelled together, yet shared a room…

Anxiety dug like thorns into her knees as she buried her face in her headscarf and he finished signing his name.

They managed to land a room on the ground floor, which he was annoyed at for a reason he once again refused to specify. She actually liked it, but didn't tell him it was so that she could enjoy the view and easy access to the swimming pool, with only a sliding glass door that doubled as the only window. Despite that, he told her to keep the curtains drawn and the radio and television untouched. A pair of simple twin beds were separated by a shoulder's width worth of space, yet it felt too far and too close both for her liking. The carpet, drapes and soft homey lighting matched the same cosy yet foreign fashion of the lobby.

He was the one who took both their suitcases from the car, and he kept his distance from hers from that point on. He made no move to touch her luggage after he had placed it on her bed, which she could guess was a respectful gesture on his part. As she dug through her clothes to get her poplin pyjamas at the bottom of the neatly folded piles, she regretted not packing a swimsuit. Perhaps she could buy one while they were out and about in the city, if it was a luxury he could allow them.

Her hand absentmindedly stopped fumbling with the material of the buttons. If he saw her in a swimsuit, or if he saw her in anything less decent than what she had packed, like the lace high-waisted underthings that she knew Sorelli liked to buy—

"Would you like to use the shower first?" his voice cut in, and at first she thought it was some realistic lull of her mind's doing.

She nodded far too harshly and zipped into their small bathroom, shut the door and rubbed her temples until her skin cooled down. Perhaps it wouldn't be long until her face melted off too.

The shower not as warm and calming enough as she'd hoped, but at least it washed away some of her worries. She towelled herself off from the grief of the road trip, and came out of the bathroom to see him hunched over the work desk with the phone book and map sprawled under his hands. The shape of him working at a desk was strangely nostalgic, even though she had never seen him like that before. He had discarded his coat, jacket and scarf, leaving only the layer of his dress shirt behind. It was the only time she noticed that he had rolled up his sleeves to the elbows outside the vicinity of their music lessons; the gloves, however, were still there.

"You're not bathing?" she said quietly, hoping not to disturb him too much. The focus that shone in his eyes felt deadly.

"Not tonight," he replied, barely looking away from the map.

"You won't sleep either? Rest? You drove for more than eight hours today."

She was met with silence. Outside, she heard the pool waters still.

"Erik?" The name was a blade and could have cut her lip if she wasn't too careful.

He huffed, finally leaning back against the chair with effort as if he had been fettered to his task.

"I thought we could have gone to visit tonight, since tomorrow vising hours are not permitted," he mused. "But I haven't even found the address for her housing yet, let alone the street."

She surmised he must have swiped a map of Rouen from the reception desk. "This place has changed since you'd been in it last?"

He rubbed his eye with a the heel of his palm. It didn't escape her notice that the ruined side of his face had been turned away from her. "Christine, I haven't stepped foot in this city for nearly thirty years."

Thirty years. That was the closest clue she'd ever have to his age.

She sat on the bed and exhaustion all but nearly sank her into it. She fought a battle of wills not to bury her head into pillows and fall into a welcome deep sleep, but there was a part of her that instinct couldn't fully kill; Erik had been no stranger to lies, both of them hadn't, and she trusted him like she trusted no one else. But had it all been to wait for a moment until she was asleep—?

She shook the doubt from her head and felt a fool's blush creep upon her neck like fire. No, of course not. His sensibilities and fear came before his impulses, which she wasn't even sure he had; or if he had them, he hadn't made it obvious to her at all. He made it clear long ago without words, without needing to, that he refused to even touch or speak to her unless he was asked or agitated beyond reason.

"Regardless," he continued, "tomorrow would be a good time to do some errands and fetch other necessities for the trip back home, so as to not incur any more gas station stops. That way, the evening fee here might not have been entirely wasted."

Without thinking, her mind turned towards words. "Can I come with you?"

His frown dented his face. Parts of his hair fell in front of his features as he combed it back, frustration visible in the gesture. But her fingers subconsciously curled inwards in the hope to feel the texture of it too.

"Christine—"

"I know, Erik," she said carefully.

She couldn't understand why she wanted this so badly. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she could still feel the guilt gnaw on her. Insulted by her lack of awareness, he had said, and with such vehemence she'd never felt no thinner than a knife. Of course a part of that had been to prove him wrong. To think of it as an absence of concern on her part was absurd beyond belief; no, she couldn't do that to a friend. Erik—a dear friend, who didn't even want to be called one. Then maybe this was an unconscious act of forgiveness, to prove to them both that she belonged in a world where faces changed to suit their troubling circumstances, where songbirds fell silent around him as to respect one of their kind.

She watched him turn to look at her, and she braced herself as the patchwork of flesh and sinew crawled up now all the way towards his right forehead, hollowing out his cheek and temple and carving growths and valleys closer towards his lip. It appeared as if it had always been there, as if it was the only face she knew, and would disappear just as quickly once she went to sleep. She couldn't tell if the thumping in her heart was his fear, or hers.

Stop looking at me.

"Erik, I understand—"

"You can accompany me," he said.

Their eyes locked. He appeared to have wanted to say more but said none of it.

"Thank you," was all she replied with.

The fear wracking his body must have been far too much for even her thoughts. She held power in the thin space between her fingers and palm, and it felt like a heartbeat when she pulled it close to her own chest. He was giving her his fate, and at any moment she could expose to the world what only she should have seen. It was trust and it felt like glass, newborn to her as it was to him.

The silence suddenly felt taut. She could already feel the word stretch between their ribs like a guitar string.

"Then you should rest," she continued. "If we're both going out tomorrow."

At that, he visibly shifted. "Christine, I have work—"

"That can wait until tomorrow to do. And I can help you."

She could practically hear him roll his eyes as he slouched on that uncomfortable chair. "Fine."

She shook her head. "No, not there." And she reached across the great expanse between their beds and patted the empty one.

His jaw set.

"What, was your bed totally useless when you moved in?"

"Not exactly."

"Then you have no reason to be afraid."

She guessed he was tired of arguing too, and so he stood and laid his back on the mattress, eyes trained on the ceiling in the most stiff and mortifying position she'd seen, like a body in a grave. Tiredness held her like a heavy blanket as she reclined on the bed too, on her side to face him. Despite the tenseness of his body, he looked calmer than she had ever seen him, before the curse had taken them both. How long had it been since solitude didn't feel so oppressive and cruel to him? How long had it been the same for her?

He knew she was watching. Somehow he always knew, because his head turned to hers and their eyes met again. For a moment the world stopped too, and she swore the ticking of the clock by the door missed a beat. Sleep was washing over her in waves and she allowed it; she welcomed his eyes so warm they were almost sunlight, their arguments that always had to be held back with leashes, the scent of leaves and cold that still surrounded her ever since the day she walked into his record store.

"Erik," she murmured, eyelids heavier than her heart, curling into herself. "I'm sorry…"

She couldn't recall with clarity what happened after those words left her, or why she felt a compulsion to apologise. But she felt the bed beside her shift as he stood from the corner of her blurry vision to tuck her under the duvet. He hoisted her gently so her head rested on the pillows, as soft as clouds.

She woke up with softness pressed around her, the shower rushing in the bathroom. Sleep drifted off her eyes and bones gradually as she looked around the room. While there was an obvious dent on the adjacent bed's blanket from where he supposedly slept, he was nowhere to be seen; and if the movement in the shower was indicative of anything, he hadn't gone out.

Sunlight filtered through the dim curtains like it would through a patchwork of leaves, and the chill was not unpleasant either. Perhaps the only thing it was lacking was a buzz of a television or crackle of radio static to feel like any sort of home. The first time she'd ever woken up in a bed outside of her small, inconsequential town; and not only was she not alone, she was with a man (if he still wished to be called that without insult) whose destiny was tied to hers without objection. She couldn't guess if she objected to such a fate too.

She could imagine him walking into the bathroom before she woke, looking into in the mirror to see a face that used to belong to him, all because her eyes were not there. It felt so needlessly cruel that such a talented—albeit rather irascible—man had to be shackled to a horrid curse, one she hoped his mother held the answers to. Even the task of meeting the woman he had hated for his entire life must have been a last resort.

Time felt still, particles of dust moving slowly across the blurry room as she danced between waking and sleeping with a clumsy grace. The shower still spurred on; God, how long was he taking? It captivated her that even he managed to abide by the necessities human nature, of baths and dressing up and having an opinion (however wrong) on the Beach Boys. And by accompanying him, she gained access to such safely guarded secrets; Erik, showering! It really was absurd in the way the idea of eclipses or midnight drives to nowhere were. But it was all it took to unspool the thread that wound her mind tight. The more she thought, the more she told herself to stop, and the more she told herself to stop, the more she fed herself with imaginings of parts of his neck and arms that water cascaded gently off, that she could never hope to touch.

She didn't even notice the shower turn off and the door to the bathroom open quietly. She shut her eyes as fast as she could, feigning sleep and hoping the coldness of the room would dampen her skin. The scent that drifted like mist through the room smelled like his cologne.

Her eyes remained downcast, where they would remain for the rest of the day. She exchanged a chance to observe how different his eyes shone in the day, for the sidewalks of Rouen. But she didn't taste regret like saltwater at the back of her tongue, and stayed firm in the choice she made.

"Christine," he said from above her, carefully, "if we go out…"

"I know," she said. This is completely up to your mercy.

From behind her, the midmorning washed over her hair and it made her crave the fresh air, the new environment, the honking horns, the crowds of strangers, the wide and wonderful world. She was once again a small child, running through that marketplace. This curse was not only his own.

With a faint smile like daylight, she took his cold hand, and pulled him into the waking, cobblestone maw of the city he once knew.

Turned out his so-called list of errands was more intimidating than the name suggested. He simply had to shop for some groceries and food for both lunch and dinner, and find a place within the vicinity of the hotel from which he could order a to-go breakfast. After that, he would have borrowed more maps of the city or procure more phone books to attempt to find directions to the building where his mother lived.

Breakfast consisted of buttered bread from a baker a few blocks away from their hotel, and Erik had ordered black coffee to go with it. The midmorning smiled upon the waking city, with an infinite amount of cars zooming to and fro the busy streets. People in all kinds of fashions, all kinds of faces, rushed by her until they slowly coalesced into a fantastical blur.

Her face ached from grinning, even as she held her uneaten breakfast in her hands. She could count the steps her shoes landed on the pavement and recall them as some of the happier days of her life. The world felt infinite, wide, just at the brush of her fingertips and all she had to do was step forward to rise to meet it. The sky was never bluer, the streets never more labyrinthine and intricate, the crowds never stranger, and she was seeing it all under the guidance of the one friend who understood her more than anyone else left.

"You're smiling," he said suddenly, and from the absence of his left arm from her vision, she guessed he was drinking his coffee.

She flushed and her face fell flat. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"No," he replied. "It's simply the fact it's been about an hour, and I haven't even seen you scowl yet. It's fascinating."

She snorted and shoved her shoulder into him, causing him to choke on the sip of his drink. It was enough to bring out a giggle from her, but one that didn't last for long. She couldn't make any similar observation for him, and the thought crept up on her like frost.

She had asked him to bring her to places around Rouen he had any vague memory of, and he obliged her far too kindly. He brought her to a bookshop full of old, yellowing tomes that could have either cost millions or a few francs, and to a small restaurant he had claimed once belonged to a kind priest who had loved to cook where he wasn't giving homilies or marrying couples. There was a large, golden clock face with as many numbers as there were stars on its embellishments, and a building not far from it which spurned her imagination towards haunted mansions and ghoulish castles. Every moment sparked the deep-slept love of wanderlust within her chest, and she felt golden sparks dust her cheeks whenever she blinked.

Rouen, she realised, was alive; its citizens ran like ants across its thin streets, lived within its tall and historical houses older than anything she could imagine, and spoke in a flurry of voices that all combined into the language of the city itself, as incomprehensible as it was beautiful. And though her heart soared with each new discovery, every elation of sightseeing, there was always some lingering regret that she couldn't see the face of the man that had brought her that bliss.

The most impressive sight by far was the Saint-Ouen Abbey, in the heart of the city. As they approached, even from a distance, she could make out the shape of a gigantic, domineering shape that appeared ancient and slumbering: thin spires of dark stone sharp and stark against the noon sky. She had seen churches grand and pristine in Uppsala, left in the corner of her mind like all her idyllic, forgotten childhood was, with towers of concrete and steel, but the height of this cathedral seemed to rival all else in the world. As they approached its facade, she realised words couldn't do such a marvel justice; if she was to describe each detail, each embellishment, each sweep and line and angle, perhaps Erik himself was going to be the one to chastise her on extensive knowledge on boring subjects instead.

The interior itself felt sprawling, as if the heavens themselves were the inspiration for such high white ceilings and grand altars. Other tourists and churchgoers scattered the floor pay their services or gape at the stretch of the pillars, the flutter of daylight over the pews, the thin halls and lean proportions of her surroundings. She felt at peace with the reverb of steps and hushed prayers; she was safe here. If she had been bolder, she would have looked in his direction, but his hands went into his pockets, the most tranquil she'd ever seen him.

"The organ of this cathedral," he said, unprompted, "is by the master Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, and one of the most treasured instruments in all of France."

She followed the gesture of his outstretched arm and saw, at the back of the cathedral, below the intricacy of the stained glass window, a massive organ with pipes reaching to the ceiling, steel and blackened wood intertwined with each other. It sat soundless, waiting, the silence of anticipation before a performance.

"Do you know how to play the organ?" she asked in a hushed whisper.

The shadow on the floor moved in accordance with the incline of his head. "It has been a long time, but I don't believe I'll forget how to."

She almost turned to look at him, and had to catch herself before her head spun. "Oh? And where exactly did you practice? I don't think they sell these things off the wall for novices."

He hummed, and she could have mistaken it for a smile. "Let's say having an address next to a church would inspire few to pick it up."

She tried to dive into memories that didn't belong to her, to see a young boy with a mop of raven's feathers for hair and a half a birdsong in his heart running across the streets to the safety of a cathedral, of music and high vaulted ceilings. She wondered if she would ever see him wide-eyed and in awe as he had once been; even to think of the peculiar impossibility of Erik as a child brought a gentle smile to her face.

"You said you didn't have a homeland," she reminisced.

She saw the shadow behind her still, then loosen. "I… still hold to the fact I don't. But if I was to name a homeland in the sense of my birthplace, that wouldn't be here."

"You weren't born in Rouen?"

"Close. I was born twelve kilometres west from this city."

She dared to be a little bold, her gaze climbing up until only his scarf, where she was able to catch a thin sliver of skin between the high collar of his shirt and chin, and attempted to gulp soundlessly. She felt she had never touched this part of his soul so deeply before, and it felt too far to stop prying.

"It's a small town not unlike yours," he continued. "Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville. Only a handful of families ever made the choice to stay, and even fewer had the ability to leave. And really, who would want to? The hills that surround the streets, the wind through the grass… it's the most beautiful Normandy could be. An abbey named Saint-Georges lay at the heart of the village. And every Saturday evening and Sunday dawn, I'd hear the organ bellow from the view of my window, and it was the only thing that I ever remember making me happy as a child."

She felt she had held the beating of his heart in her hands, and the high walls of the cathedral echoed it too. "And how did you learn to play?"

One of his hands left the confines of his pocket and splayed, the wisps of memory dancing between his fingers. "I snuck out of my house every evening, when the streets had gone quiet. The parish priest caught me, of course; who could ignore the sudden loud blare of one of those keys? But instead of reprimanding me and returning me home, he gave me my first sight of sheet music, and taught me how to play a scale."

Her eyes drifted to the stained glass rose window, and wondered if Erik had once looked upon it too, in a different abbey, in a different town. She fought the compulsion to reach for his hand.

"I've never heard an organ before," she said mindlessly.

"Then I regret quite a bit I didn't bring you here when the vigils were to begin," he replied, and she didn't miss the note of excitement in his tone. He knew she would hear such, one day, and she came to trust his word more than she thought.

They had waited a few more minutes for a vigil to start, but one never came. Weekends in the city were like an eighth day out of the week after all. She still felt her chest grow warm at the mere idea of wasting time like this with him.

"Christine," he said after a while, "thank you."

"For what?"

"For all my years in Rouen, I've never seen the interior of this cathedral. I must admit it's a more beautiful experience to see it with you."

At her request, they came upon a small boutique, It was one a few blocks down from the Seine, a river of blue that cut through the centre of the city like a knife. He had remarked when they crossed it that the bridges in Rouen were nothing like those in Paris, and though she could guess he smiled at that, there was nothing in that anecdote that brought her fascination. Only a strange grief that she would never see the Seine so blue in her life again.

The store itself was simple and boasted a wide collection of men and women's wear; it was an establishment that appeared to have forgotten the manner of his footsteps, because he walked into the place with a strange uncertainty he didn't seem to exude anywhere else. A relative handful of people flitted around the hangers and displays looking and behaving like butterflies, perhaps in an effort to walk off the lunch hour. She had never been to a clothing store in the city before, and of course she'd buy something to commemorate the simple but significant occasion.

Erik seemed less thrilled, hovering behind her like a shadow as his gait seemed to hesitate a while in front of the sunglasses display by the cashier. Behind it was a desk stacked with white paper mache masks that appeared to be customisable.

"Something catch your eye?" she asked.

"Not quite," he replied, but she saw where the brush of his fingers lingered on one of the pairs of sunglasses.

In the distance, perhaps by the crackling of the desk radio, a quick strum of guitar and dual voices floated gently through the store. She recognised it as the Beatles' 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' almost instantly, and she was already anticipating Erik's negative reaction to whatever mainstream pop dared to assault his ears. And as soon as the lyrics began, she heard the faintest bit of a sigh and tried not to laugh.

It was after she managed to pick out this gorgeous floral-patterned coat and a wide-brimmed hat to match, that she noticed Erik was gone. After the store-goers had exchanged a little, she found him towards the hallway that led to the dressing rooms. He was being pointed towards the back by one of the shop employees, and as his figure disappeared into the walls, she felt a surge of panic bolt through her. As if it was as natural as instinct, she grabbed the sunglasses his gaze drifted towards earlier and dashed after him, her new coat and hat dangling from her arm like towels.

She waited for the store employee to turn her back so she could quietly sneak into the changing room hall, and spotted the dark edge of Erik's cloak as it vanished into one of the doors. Her cheeks flushed a bright pink; why was she so compelled to follow him? Was his secrecy finally coming to pay its price?

Her wary eyes darted around, making sure no other person saw her, and knocked with rushed confidence on his cubicle.

"Erik," she hushed a whisper.

The air was still. Suddenly a black arm like a wing shot out of the thin space and spirited her away inside, closing the door back with a loud thud and then click.

She anticipated that the rooms would be small, perhaps even too little of room for even one person to be in, so the first thing she ran into was the thin pane of his chest. A quick glance at her claustrophobic surroundings and a nudge to the back of her legs ascertained a bench for belongings, and a mirror which encompassed one entire wall. Had she been in this space by herself, it might have been quite roomy, but Erik's height was enough to make it uncomfortable on his own. His sharp edges sunk themselves so far into the shadows and lines of the walls, as if he was trying to touch everything but her.

"What?" he said quietly, and in such a small room, she felt the note of every syllable. "There were extra rooms."

"I know," she replied, the air heavy. "But I wanted to catch you before… you changed."

He blinked. "Did you seriously believe I was going to try anything here?"

"Oh, I'm sorry for properly guessing what changing rooms are for."

He bit back a laugh, and reprimanded herself over the fact that she actually wanted to hear it as much as he didn't want to.

She tried to bring up the hat to show him what she was planning on purchasing, but realised her mistake too quickly when her palms brushed against the expanse of his black coat. He hissed painfully and jerked back like she had burnt him. But before she could tuck her limbs away, the walls pressed them closer, until the colour of her dress disappeared into the darkness of his jacket.

A forbidden craving began clawing out of her body like a curse, and she hoped it was shame. The doorknob was always either too close or too far from her grasp, and she often hesitated to reach out anyway because brushing her hand against his would have been a far worse fate than trying at all. He tried to break free of whatever trickery had kept them entangled like knots but she hesitated to even tell him that movement didn't seem to help. His own arms eventually found no better purchase than beside her head, caging her like a bird. She resisted some dark voice telling her to run her own touch up the length of them. Her mouth went dry, and somewhere above her, she heard a curse pass like a plea. The atmosphere between them, if there was any left, crackled electric.

There was silence and only that. Her breaths grew shorter and shorter until she struggled for anything to say, anything. She swore she could hear his heart beating in a nervous staccato.

"I-I was going to give you those sunglasses by the cashier," she all but mumbled. "You were looking at them. I thought if I could put them on and looked at you, since it wasn't directly my gaze, you wouldn't have to…"

It felt like the taste of blood.

Hide.

"It probably wouldn't have worked, but it was a commendable attempt," he admitted, and she swore his voice had never been lower, deeper, thrumming. Her stomach dipped. Something cold pooled like heavy mist at their feet and snaked up her ankles, her knees.

She couldn't help it any longer; her eyes locked with his, and his flesh went to ruin, all for her. And instead of bracing herself for her own reaction, she held it under her tongue and refused to let her fear through. Her eyes flickered between either of his own, waiting, and his anger melted away into exasperation, fear, dismay, an array of different colours. Somewhere, buried deep at the bottom of the clump of them, she saw hunger, and she didn't know whether she wished to see less or more of it. The sting of sorrow and pity cut her throat red.

"Christine," he whispered, and it sounded so beautiful she wanted to cry.

She wanted to shout for joy, she wanted to crumble into ash, she wanted hold him and ask him to say it again, against every part of her skin. His eyes shone with a sincerity she was both unnerved by and wanted so badly to touch.

"I love you," he confessed softly, and it was said like a condemnation. "You know that, don't you?"

A door within her ribs opened and then shut, and suddenly nothing was the same. She struggled to find the matching words within her, but it was all too much, the weight of it on her shoulders making her knees weak. This must have been a dream, she would wake up soon, and feel the air of the motel flush against her nape, and he would instead be asleep on that bed or that stupidly uncomfortable armchair and he wouldn't have said anything so brazen, so unforgettable. The air refused to enter her body and she felt petrified under his gaze.

"I…" she tried, but it wouldn't return.

She attempted to let the silence answer for her instead, but it pushed them all the more closer. One of her hands went under the lapels of his jacket and felt him shift, like she had passed her fingers over a wound.

"Say something, Christine, I beg of you," he pleaded, and horror ran through her when she wanted him to drop to his knees and comb the back of her thighs with the texture of his gloved hands.

"Erik…"

As each arduous second went by, hope slowly washed away from him until he shut his eyes and bent his head, and if he was to lean in just a little more, their foreheads would touch in a kiss, unlike a kiss. Against her back, the wall felt adamant, traitorous.

He tried to move himself away, but the distorted physics of this impossible room just moved him closer, until all but the form him was flush against her chest. "You don't… this was a mistake."

She was going to burst into tears at any moment; she couldn't even hold his face when she would. A storm brewed and swept everything away, and she mourned every moment, every question she wanted to ask, every single thing she wanted to feel. She stood still like stone, taut but unmoving, unafraid but fighting for her life. Oh—her breath hitched like a hiccup when she suddenly felt his knee between her legs, and it took everything in her not to collapse onto the coldness of his body, to relieve herself of ache on every edge and corner. Something inside her refused to wake up and speak.

"Erik," she said again. Why can I only say your name? Why do I feel like saying it for the rest of my life?

His mouth felt far too close to hers to speak anymore. She could almost feel the shape of it, the chill of his lips against her own, the scent of coffee and cologne dizzying. She tilted her head, her eyes fluttered shut—

A knock came from the door and it jolted them both back away from each other.

"Only one person in each room," called the employee, and she watched Erik withdraw and pinch the bridge of his nose. The room suddenly expanded wide, to the point that another person could have fit in the space between them.

"My apologies," he called out, and the footsteps disappeared down the hall.

He shot her an unreadable look before staring at the thing in his other hand: one of the white display masks by the store entrance. He carefully ran his fingers along one edge of it, as if to cut the face of it in half, before passing her a bow and stepping out of the dressing room with the click and pull of the doorknob.

She sat there in the room, hugging her hat and coat to herself, and didn't come out for a while.

The rest of the day went by in a blur of sights and people, but now Erik refused to talk to her. The last question she had asked him was what he had bought from the store, and he had procured both the sunglasses that he picked and the paper mache mask. After a lunch and then a dinner that were both quite nonevent, more so because she couldn't do so much as watch him eat, he asked on those errands and they went around various groceries and shops for small snacks, other maps, and markers. She was grateful to have something to carry alongside her shopping bag, and she didn't miss the fact he had bought a pair of scissors from a grocery store, an instrument she couldn't understand the purpose for, until they returned to their hotel room later that night and he had busied himself into cutting that white mask in half.

She had come out of the shower, dejected and exhausted beyond belief; the cold water hadn't rinsed the mortification off, nor the humiliation she felt even as the fabric of pyjamas scraped against her skin painfully. He still sat at the work desk when she emerged. The other side of his face stayed concealed in the white mask that had been cut sleekly to follow the shape of what remained of his untouched features.

"I found it," he said finally.

Silence. She didn't wish to speak.

"The address," he said again.

She nodded, disinterested, too tired to care and too frustrated she had been. "Oh."

"Be ready for when tomorrow arrives, we leave this room by eight. We should take breakfast at some cafe by the place and then…"

His voice gently fell off. It sounded unknown to her now, where it used to bring her such happiness. She had detected the hint of fear in his tone and dreaded even just a little what atrocities his woman had created in order to make Erik, of all people, fear her.

Somewhere outside, she heard the lights of the pool click off. He rose lazily from his seat.

"Christine," he started carefully, "about earlier today—"

"Let's not talk about that right now, Erik, please," she nearly huffed. "I just… I want to forget everything that's happened."

She didn't miss how his fingers bristled. "Right, of course you do."

"That's not what I meant," she countered apprehensively, trying her best to be gentle. "You don't understand."

His eyes were trained on hers, careful, anticipating. She never noticed how frightened he could be whenever she was around.

"And let me guess," he crooned, full of weight and regret, "you don't know how to make me understand either."

Her shoulders slumped and the last of her heart withered away, and he turned his back to her, the angles of his silhouette so unfamiliar.

"Let me ask," he said with a mournful tone. "What do you think of me?"

The answer was immediate, though her mouth was bitter and her tongue clumsy. "Erik, you're a friend. You matter to me. I want to see this curse lifted from you."

"And that's all, isn't it?" he sneered. "That's all I'll ever be. I matter to you. My… face, does that matter to you too?"

Her hands grew numb with fear. "Erik, I care about you—"

"God, enough with the vague dances and sly diction," he hissed. "What else is keeping you here? What kind of morbid curiosity makes you endure my horrendous presence? Do you truly want to see my mother, want to watch me whimper and plead for answers before her like some disobedient dog? Haven't you seen enough of my pathetic self already?"

She frowned and ire pricked the skin of her nape. "You're shoving words into my mouth and somehow take my silence for some confirmation of the worst qualities of yourself. I never said those things before, and I never will."

He buried his head in his hands. "Of course you never said those things, because you're too busy thinking about them to say them at all! That's all you ever do, isn't it? You think about how much it pains you to stand beside a man whose face you can't even see. And you're thankful for it!"

"No, Erik, you stop right there," she snapped. "You don't get the chance to use me as a weapon against your despair."

He spread his arms. "Then assuage my doubts, right now. Tell me I'm the most handsome man you've ever met. Tell me you never rued the day you met me. Tell me that you love me."

Frustration went right to the tips of her fingers and she felt like flinging her towel at him, like running up to him and slamming him into the glass windows, like tearing that mask to shreds, like peeling away at his anger and seeing more than just the flesh of his neck and collarbones and wrists, like screaming every sorrow and desire into existence.

Her chest felt heavy with guilt. She couldn't say those things at all, or lie to him. Of course there had been some days where he was handsome and he was not, where she was filled with regret and she was not. There was, perhaps, a moment when she…

His face melted again, into an expression of triumph that slowly crumbled to dust. "You don't love me."

"It's more complicated than that," she retorted.

"Then why can't you say it? Can you deny it? Could you possibly return the affections of some starved beast like me? It's because it's too complicated, Erik. I need more time, Erik."

Her rage became white hot and she put her burning palms to her temples. "People need space and reflection to make decisions like this. So would you stop pretending those vile words inside your head are mine and give my feelings a moment of peace, for once in my life?"

"What else should I call them then?" His hand clenched into a fist and for a moment, his gloves made them appear like sharp, glinting claws. "If they don't belong to you, then who else?"

"Definitely not me." Her voice was no longer a voice but a long, frustrated groan. "Your happiness should not depend on me."

"If that's the case indeed, why don't you enlighten the both of us? I could never be seen in public when you're around! I trusted you with the knowledge that you could have exposed me for everyone to see and I jumped at the chance like some sick idiot! How foolish I was! I thought the world of you, Christine, and—God, a part of me still does. But you… you are a coward. You run from anything that would cause you even the smallest bit of unhappiness."

Her gritted teeth felt like the edge of knives. "How dare you blame me for your feelings! I never asked for you to torture yourself for my amusement. I never put that curse on you."

He scoffed, cold. "You might as well have."

All she could see was red, now, and she screamed loud and shrill into her trembling hands. "You think I'm a coward, but do you truly want to know what I think of you? Fine! You're so selfish, Erik. You whine and complain and blame me for every single moment of your misery when you haven't even stopped to consider how I feel! This… your face… what I do to you, it ruined my friendship with you, and I treasured it more than anything I ever had left. I feel like such a burden on you and now you tell me you love me. What was I supposed to do? Answer with the confidence I didn't have?"

He stepped forward like a prowling animal. "You could have done some due diligence and at least lied to me, instead of dangling the premise of a reciprocation before my face."

How much longer was this going to go on? She felt her spirits fade into sorrow. "I could never do that to you! This isn't fair at all! You can't take my words out of some twisted context—one out of kindness and concern for you, the one friend I feel I have left—and use them against yourself, then tell me it had always been my fault. Ugh! With all your scorn and hatred for everyone, it's no wonder you've been alone all your life!"

His eyes went wide and he fell dead silent. Outside, she heard the pool waters still. She didn't even possess her own body when that left her lips, and some sudden horror gripped her stomach, that it probably went the same for him and all those horrible things he had spoken. Somewhere inside her, happiness fractured down a single, lightning-forked line and then shattered like a mirror. Her sobs went by in the subsequent quiet, while she watched a tear slide down his exposed cheek and follow the edge of his chin.

"So much for kindness and concern," he murmured sternly, but his voice cracked like all-too precious glass, and it was too much.

He walked past her, his shoulder barely brushing her arm, and picked up his coat from the door. "I'm going to take a walk. I'll wake you up before we depart to my mother's."

She didn't watch him go, even as the door clicked shut.

Then it crashed around her, and Christine, alone, cried the hardest she had ever cried in a long while.

It felt like an eternity when she had calmed down a little. Even as she drank a bit of water to satiate her parched throat, tears stung her eyes and she huffed, climbing into bed and praying slumber would take her faster than her nightmares would.

But she refused to let any fond memory of the day cling to her anymore, even as she sobbed quietly into her hair, the last of her gasps for air slowly drowning in sleep.

I apologise for this long chapter, which definitely grew out of the original proportion I thought it would. I do not, however, apologise for the angst. That's always part and parcel of the E/C ship, as we all know. Sad winky face.