Box 5, Pt. 1
March 2017
Box 5 is full tonight; it's spring break in New York, and Erik is sitting by the corner of the bar farthest from the spotlit stage, glaring at the strobe lights blinding him in regular twenty-second intervals. Cold condensation coats his hand from the glass of whiskey he's nursing as meager compensation, wet and uncomfortable, and he halfheartedly squeezes the glass in his hand, daring it to break.
It does not. Pity.
A seat over from him, Nate is having the time of his life, Erik notes with admiration, annoyance, and a little bit of resentment as he watches his friend flirt aggressively with the blonde swirling her strawberry daiquiri in one slender, manicured hand. Something about his Iranian friend's darker skin and green eyes tends to drive the girls crazy - not that Erik isn't capable of keeping up. No, he's self-conscious enough to know exactly how he can affect people when he's in the right mood, and experienced enough to know exactly what he's capable of. Just because he's gotten tired of charming pretty girls into forgetting the mask under the influence of his voice and hands and tongue doesn't mean he doesn't still indulge in the occasional meaningless hookup, after concerts when he's still riding the high of the performance, or after sitting through unspeakably boring contract meetings that he's positive he doesn't need to actually be at because Nate is his manager for a reason.
Erik glances over at the manager in question now. A brunette has joined the blonde and Nate is clearly having a good time, grinning, charming as ever. He glances over at Erik with a questioning look in his eyes, an invitation; Erik dismisses it with a glare, turning his gaze back down to the drink in his hand, the amber liquid reflecting and refracting speckles of blue, pink, violet from the rotating lights.
He knocks back most of the whiskey with a slight wince, careful to avoid the edge of his mask.
One of the guitarists is riffing in the background as band members filter on and off the stage, the lead singer - the brunette in the slashed-up crop top and too-short shorts - crouching at the edge of the stage, talking to someone in the thin crowd up front, giving him and everyone else in the room an ample view of her glistening cleavage.
Barring the singer, Erik likes Box 5's band better than most; they've backed him up well enough for the several live, scheduled performances he's given on that very stage as The Phantom, but tonight the random, wandering strains of electric guitar over the general turbulence of the club do nothing but grate on Erik's nerves. He can't seem to stop his fingers from twitching and wraps them around his now-empty glass as a solution.
Give up drugs for a week, and go out and get drunk to celebrate. Baby steps, Erik. Baby steps.
"What'd you think of the last performance, Erik?" Nate shouts over the din of the musicians twiddling around onstage. "Pretty good, huh?"
"He was fucking terrible," Erik immediately rejoins, grimacing at the memory as he warily watches the next impromptu performer climb the steps to the stage. A teenage girl with stick-thin legs and a red scarf, looking shy, determined, and terrified all at once as a darker-skinned girl with craggy blond highlights cheers her on from the side.
Amateurs, all of them - wannabe singers egged up on stage by their drunk friends for temporary glory and a good laugh.
"This is ridiculous," he growls, downing the rest of his whiskey. He's antsy and uncomfortable and - worst of all - bored, itching for the high he'd just managed to go one week without. Pathetic. He slams the glass down on the table, hopping up and wincing at the confirmation that he's had enough alcohol to feel it. "Nate, man, I'm out. Enjoy the next atrocity of what they call a musical performance."
"Erik, wait!" A sharp tug on his shirtsleeve, and he quickly shakes himself free but turns to face the other man anyway, affronted scowl fixed firmly in place.
"What?" he snaps, everything he wants to hurl at his annoyance of an (only) friend hopefully showing plainly and dangerously on his face. Or the half of it Nate can see, anyway. "What do you want from me, Nate?"
He can see the moment his friend capitulates and he feels guilty, but only for a second. Not his fault if Nate was stupid enough to think he'd have a good time mingling with the masses and getting drunk at a karaoke bar while riding out the last stages of goddamn withdrawal.
"I'll see you back in the apartment, okay?" Nate states calmly, his eyes broadcasting the message they both know Erik doesn't want to hear aloud. And you better not go fuck everything up and get high again, you hear? Or we both know I'll beat your ass.
With a terse nod, Erik turns on his heel, waving the bartender over to settle the bill. He tosses him enough to cover his own drink as well as probably at least another three for Nate - as annoyed as he is, he'll spend a lifetime thanking the guy for basically saving his life, just without actually saying the words - and he waits impatiently, tapping a rhythm out on the sticky wood of the bartop, eyes settling languidly over the spotlit stage again.
The girl is at the mic now, clearly nervous, overly black-lined eyes shifting over the crowd as pale fingers twist in the frayed fringes of a navy blue blouse before hooking tentatively in the pockets of her black jeans. Her face is ghostly pale in the glare of the spotlight and the tattered red scarf wrapped haphazardly around her neck does nothing to help.
He almost feels sorry for her; she looks terrified, honestly - and how old is she, anyway? Probably one of the many spring-breaking high schoolers that seem to litter the place tonight, flaunting both their fake IDs and the sense of careless, easy entitlement that Erik automatically hates.
The opening strains of the song she's apparently going to sing filter through the speakers and Erik starts in surprise; it's one of his.
"Here ya go, man," and the bartender is pushing his change into his hand, a single paper bill and a heavy jingle of coins, and Erik shrugs off his momentary surprise in favor of making for the exit.
Not a chance in hell he's going to listen to some shrinking high schooler butcher one of his songs, not tonight; a better night and he might've stayed to cringe or mock, maybe share a laugh with Nate, but he's already on edge and he needs to go home and either drink himself into oblivion or see if a few hours hammering away at the piano will ease his rapidly ballooning desire to go out and hunt for the fix he feels himself desperately craving. Nate had cleaned out the apartment, of course, mostly, but in this part of town it wouldn't take more than half an hour to find a dealer who'd be more than willing to make a quick buck.
So he slips through the crowd, weaving around tables and couches, setting his jaw as a few heads turn to stare at the mask. It's familiar and not necessarily unkind; thousands have seen his stage mask, after all, and Nate's actually started teasing him about it - "did you know, Erik, that you've made yourself the subject of many a teenage girl's wet dream?" "What the fuck, Nate?" "It's sexy. They find the mask sexy." "Shut up" - but it's still unwanted, uncomfortable, the curious weight of strangers' eyes incredibly heavy whenever he hasn't utterly lost himself in the lights and music and adrenaline of a live performance. Plus, the half mask he usually wears when he isn't performing somehow makes matters worse; the sight of the good half of his face makes people wonder what the hell could possibly merit covering the other half.
Well, to hell with them. He feels himself automatically straightening to his full six-foot-four in rigid defiance as he continues to stride toward the door - he'll be out of here soon enough.
It's a bit quieter here in the back of Box 5 and he can hear the music swell from the closest speaker, keyboard and twanging guitars, chords he wrote himself and knows like the back of his hand - ah, it's one of his more recent songs. He'll play it first thing when he gets home, perhaps, and already he's begun tapping out the rhythm between middle finger and thumb.
Ten more steps to the door, swerving around a couple embracing sloppily in the dim backlight of this part of the club - another chord progression, the comforting trill of his fingers from muscle memory as his legs carry him unerringly to the exit. Just six more steps, five more steps, four -
And then her voice hits him, low and sultry and a little unsure, but with all the numbing force of a tidal wave…
And Erik forgets how to breathe.
This is the start to my first fanfic, ever, and I'm pretty damn excited to get this really going. I've loved Phantom for a while, but got back into it after watching the streamed 25th Anniversary version back in April (the only positive outcome of this pandemic) and have been obsessed again ever since. The idea for this fic came about thanks to a lil piece of fanart I did featuring a young, modern, and tattooed Erik and a violinist Christine who also *happens* to sing...it got me thinking about how their story would've gone in the modern day, if Erik was a little more human and Christine a little more multidimensional and world-weary, and bam this fic was born. I'm going off the ALW stage version (my fav) but I've read both Kay and Leroux, so expect to see hints of those sprinkled in as well (including Nate Khan, my version of everyone's beloved bestie Nadir).
I'm planning on making this a decently long fic featuring both Erik and Christine's POVs, with the possibility of two tiny side-fics exploring their backgrounds. This was quite a concise start but I have chunks already written here and there...can't promise a regular posting schedule, at least not yet (life is a bit turbulent right now, so to speak), but hoping you'll join me for the ride anyway. I love POTO with all my heart - it's helped me in so many ways, and after years of dabbling in original fic I'm so excited to finally get involved with the wonderfulness that is the POTO fandom.
If you've made it this far, thank you and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this first tiny chapter :)