"What are you doing here, Monsieur?" Erik's voice was low and threatening, to the point that Christine almost wanted to take a step away from him.
"I'm doing my job, what are you doing here?" Jospeh retorted, giving him a glare of his own.
"I'm doing my job as well," Erik took another step closer to Christine, who tried not to cower from him.
"Carry on, then," Jospeh grumbled as he grabbed a few items from the shelves, seemingly at random, and hurried out the door.
Christine flinched at the sound of the door slamming shut. As soon as Erik was convinced the man wasn't coming back, he turned from her to go sit on the ottoman, the fierce look gone from his eyes, returned once again to cold aloofness.
"Who was that?" the question was blunter than he intended.
"Jospeh Buquet. He's a stage hand - a scene mover, mostly."
She managed to mostly hide the quiver in her voice. The incident had startled her more than she cared to admit. She placed a hand her chest, willing her breathing to steady and her heart to stop pounding. Erik made an imposing figure at the best of times, but this was first time she realized just how terrifying he could be. She didn't envy anyone on the receiving end of those stares. And was that a noose he had up his sleeve? She shuddered, mentally making a note to not leave her eyes closed around him for very long. Finding Buquet lurking in the room had been even more startling - how many years had she spent coming in this room and never seeing another soul in it and now?
Erik nodded at her words, then waved a hand in her direction.
"Continue with your warmups, please," he told her absentmindedly.
She raised an eyebrow at being told what to do, but he didn't notice.
He replayed the scene in mind again - the hint of movement behind one of the scenery props just behind Christine, the small scuffle of noise that made him jump to his feet, how close that Jospeh Buquet fellow came to becoming aquatinted with the Punjab Lasso... Buquet. That was the one Nadir was always talking about, always getting in trouble for minor offenses. He could sworn the man was hiding behind one of the props, but perhaps he was merely hiding to take a swig of liquor. He certainly had been surprised to see Erik, though.
Erik found his thoughts torn away from Buquet and kidnapping and lassos. How on earth did Christine manage to make simple warm up exercises sound so exquisite? There was simply no room for any other thought than of her when she was singing.
When she jumped into her run-through of the aria she'd be singing later, it was a near tangible ache in his soul. His eyes roved the room, unwilling to let them land on her lest he be unable to look away again. There was a dusty old piano in the corner, probably horribly out of tune, but oh how he longed to spring up and begin playing it for her, to offer her accompaniment. Did she have any idea how close to perfection her voice was? He slouched against the wall behind the ottoman, aiming for nonchalance, as though he wasn't listening to the voice of an absolute angel.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, taking in how he sprawled against the wall, perpetually too tall for any form of chair he sat on. She pushed her voice, stretching out a note. He closed his eyes. Was he falling asleep? Was she that boring? She replayed his previous words in her mind - I'm doing my job.
She glanced away. His job. Yes, of course. It would foolish to think that there could ever be anything about the two of them that was more than a job to him - and even more foolish of her to have wanted anything else. Her friend's mother's friend would not automatically become her friend as well - even if they were apparently both singers.
She didn't have very many friends who were singers... Or any friends that were singers. She had many acquaintances who sang, and a number of good acquaintances who sang, but none she would have considered as real friends - and none who would have considered her a friend, either. The people she was closest to were all in different fields - ballet or acting or even a baker like Elizabeth back in England. But no singers. She didn't know what, if anything, she had done to make it that way. She was kind as often as she could be, and she was certainly around them often enough. And now, it seemed, there was one more singer who didn't care about her past the confines of his job.
Her stomach twisted and her mind taunted her. What if he actually hated her? What if this aloofness he seemed to carry was simply professionalism masking a serious distaste for her? She stopped singing to take a drink of water. It might not be the case, but it might make it easier to accept their strange situation. He simply didn't like her. If he was at all interested in anything about her, he would have asked, would have brought it up by now. He didn't seem the type to suffer from shyness, so that couldn't be it.
She was a right little fool, she scoffed at herself. Singing her soul out with the hope to coax a compliment from a man two decades her senior who probably couldn't stand to be around her in the first place.
She turned around once again, rolling her head to stretch out the tension in her neck. If he could see fit to ignore her, she would do the same for him. She paced a little as she mentally rehearsed what she would do onstage.
He opened his eyes, daring a look in her direction. He couldn't help how his mind wandered to what she would sound like singing the compositions he had written for her. He let himself imagine, briefly, some fantasy world where he had written an opera and she was his prima donna, preparing to go out on the stage and share his music with the Opera House, with everyone and anyone who would listen, until there was not a single corner of the earth that had not heard the music of the mysterious masked maestro sung by the beautiful woman with the celestial voice.
A small frown marred her perfect face, and he wondered if it was nerves getting to her. That little incident with Buquet had probably thrown her off of her pre-show ritual. She sang through the aria one last time before turning to face the door, calling backwards to him that she was ready to go to her dressing room.
Once there, he turned to face the wall after checking behind the mirror. She gathered up her peacock blue gown and took it behind the partition. There was a long moment of panic as she struggled to fix the zipper on the back of the gown, which had somehow gotten stuck and refused to go either up or down. Her mind was filled with horrible visions of having to explain what was wrong to Erik, of him having to come around the partition and those gloved fingers having to work out the little folds of fabric that were caught, fabric that was far too close to the small of her back, and if he didn't hate her already he certainly would after all that. It took much twisting of her arms and pulling on the zipper until she feared it would rip, but finally - and painfully - she managed to fix it herself. Her sigh of relief was quite audible. She was then able to sit and do her hair and makeup. She kept her gaze firmly on her own self in the mirror - if he was stealing looks at her, she didn't want to know.
Backstage the atmosphere was different than it was during dress rehearsal. Everyone seemed more rushed, more nervous. Christine was lost in her trance of anxious ticks, rocking back and forth on her feet, squeezing her hands, her eyes gone glassy and wide.
Erik felt terribly in the way, a feeling only heightened by the glares and glances from the other performers. Each look only served to remind him that he didn't belong here - that he never would belong to this world of performers. He tried to press as closely to the wall as he could, standing directly behind Christine so that she wouldn't see any of the rude looks he decided to return. It wouldn't do to distract or upset her, especially not before she was due on stage - but he held no qualms about that for any of the other performers.
One of the performers preparing to get on the stage walked a little too quickly past Christine, stepping on her foot as he did so. She gasped, and pulled back. Had Erik not been quick about stepping to side, she would have backed up directly into him. He gave a vicious glare to the oaf who dared to trod on this angel as though she were a mere discarded stage prop, although the man didn't see it as he didn't turn around. A series of snickers coming from Carlotta's entourage informed him that it was no accident, exactly as he had suspected - after all, Christine was standing so close to the wall, trying so hard to not be in the way. The man had gone out of his way to step on her.
Erik huffed. How dare anyone treat her like that? He would have words with little Vicomte about how Christine was being treated here, as he assumed Christine was too sweet to bring it up to him herself - if they ever actually found the Vicomte, that was.
Christine was biting her lip, favoring her good foot now and wringing her hands. Erik had to stop himself from placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Christine," he said carefully. "Are you alright?"
Christine was so tiny, he didn't think it would take very much to break one of her delicate bones, especially one in her foot. If that brute had hurt her, Erik had more than half a mind to greet him with a fist in his face as he came off of the stage.
She looked back at him as if noticing he was there for the first time. She nodded, but he could see unshed tears in her eyes.
"I'm fine."
She was announced on stage and winced as she tried to walk without a limp into the spotlight. Once there she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The music started.
She began her aria. All traces of any pain, any lingering thoughts over what had just happened were erased from her countenance and posture. If perhaps she leaned a little more to one side, that was all that was noticeable. Her voice rang out as clear and solid as ever, her eyes sparkled in the overpowering brightness of the spotlights. If he hadn't seen it happen with his own eyes, he'd never have known that she had been rattled just moments ago.
He felt an odd sense of pride for her. She was an utter professional. He knew that if it had him in her place, he would have missed his cue because he would still be pummeling the man into the ground - unless, of course, someone managed to pry him off and escort him from the premises. But there was Christine, singing as well as ever, as though nothing at all had happened. How strong she was, how brave.
She paused for a moment at the end, absorbing the applause as she bowed before slowly turning and walking gracefully off the stage. By the time she reached Erik, he realized she was walking slowly because her foot still hurt. They went back to her dressing room without a word.
She closed the door behind them and rested her head against it for a moment. She begged herself not to cry, not in front of Erik - there'd be plenty of time for crying when she was in bed that night. She sniffed deeply and pulled away from the door, sitting at her vanity instead. She pulled up the voluminous skirts and kicked off her satin shoe, rubbing her poor foot.
"Are you sure you're alright? Who was that?" he made certain to keep his voice gentle this time.
She shook her head.
"Just one of Carlotta's friends," she sighed as she put on her shoes from earlier.
She limped slightly as she walked behind the partition and he looked away. She let her blue dress fall on the floor, not even caring in that moment how much money the Opera House - how much Raoul - had spent on it. She changed into her regular dress and then snatched up the gown, throwing it over the back of a chair. She carelessly ripped the pins from her hair, not even bothering to wipe away the thick makeup.
"Are you ready?" she asked him wearily.
"Of course."
They stepped outside into the crisp evening air, a thin crescent moon in the sky offering precious little light to see by.
"Christine... Do you always take the same path home?"
"Yes."
He hesitated.
"I don't think we should, tonight. We should go a different way - just in case."
"Can't we start that tomorrow? This is the shortest way and- and I'm so tired," she looked pleadingly at him.
He gave in. Just this one more time surely wouldn't hurt anything.
They trudged along in the near darkness.
They were halfway to their destination when Erik heard the hum of a motor engine.