Chapter Eighteen
In Which Erik Is Given Cause to Spit Out His Tea
A/N: Still angsty but also back to some cuteness. They're doing their best and I want to give them both a hug.
"Come on," Éponine said, rising to her feet and holding her hand out to him.
"Where?" Erik asked, his voice still quiet and broken-sounding.
"You need to eat something. And I'm cold. Start a fire for us?" Her hand still extended, she closed it and opened it again, shoving it closer to him. "Come on. Get up."
Reluctantly, Erik took her hand and stood up. He still wouldn't or couldn't meet her eyes. His smooth dark hair was all dishevelled and slightly askew—was it a wig? Normally so well-dressed, he was in his shirtsleeves, having discarded his coat and his waistcoat, and his shirt was coming untucked.
"Look at you," Éponine said sadly. Still holding his hand, she took a step closer to him. "You don't look well. I don't like to see you like this. What can I do? Tell me what I can do, how I can make it better. I should never have touched your mask. It was wrong of me—one of the worst things I've ever done, I think, and I've done a lot of really bad things." She clucked her tongue and reached up to smooth his hair, but he flinched away from her. She let her hand drop and just looked at him helplessly.
He smoothed his hair himself, straightening it (it was definitely a wig, Éponine thought). Then he cleared his throat and finally met her eyes. He looked like there were things he wanted to say, but he couldn't.
Éponine never had a shortage of things to say, especially whenever she was in the company of someone who wouldn't speak. "Please stop looking so sad. Tell me how I can make you happy. You have a lot of reasons not to be sad, Erik. You're really a very good singer, you know? And even though I didn't like what you were playing at the organ just now—I mean, in the first place, I don't much like organs. It's not a very nice instrument, is it, an organ? I don't know why they always have them in churches. They don't really make you think of heaven, do they? Heaven should be all kind of floaty and tinkling, and organs aren't like that at all, they're all sort of heavy and dark and judging-like. They make me think of the other place. Anyway, I don't much like organ music, but it's still very good when you play it. It makes me think about the streets when there's no moon out and it's cold and I'm all by myself, and it's a little frightening, but the night is beautiful, too."
Around his mouth there was something like the birth of a smile, and his amber-green eyes were almost soft.
She tugged his hand, which she was still holding, and turned toward the door. "Come on. You get a fire started, and I'll look for some breakfast."
He followed her, and when she glanced back at him, he still looked like there was something he might want to say, but she doubted he'd ever come out with it. Leaving him in the drawing room to get a fire going, she went into the kitchen and put a kettle on for some tea, and put bread and butter on a tray. Then, reflecting on the fact that he hadn't eaten supper, she added some cheese to the tray, and the leftover cold chicken. She sang to cheer herself, and tried to believe that everything was going to be fine. But the more she thought about it, the more serious the transgression of trying to remove his mask really was. She felt overwhelmed with remorse. It was still wrong for him to hurt her, but he would have had every right to turn her out on the street immediately for her profound violation.
The kettle whistled, and she made the tea, picked up the tray, took a deep breath, and returned to the drawing room. She found Erik in his chair, gazing into a roaring fire. She set the tray down on a little table that stood between the two chairs which huddled around the fireplace, and she plopped herself into the chair opposite him.
"You should eat," she urged him. "You must be hungry." She had eaten the night previous, and her stomach was grumbling, and he hadn't eaten at all. She slathered her bread with an obscene amount of butter. It was harder and harder to remind herself not to get used to this. She took a big bite of bread and, with her hand covering her mouth, urged him again to eat.
Seemingly just to get her off his back, he nibbled a little bit of bread and some cheese, which he washed down with some tea. Maybe he was still too upset to eat very much.
"Look..." she said softly. "What you did—I don't want you to ever treat me like that again. You had no right. But you did have every right to be that angry, and more. When you tell someone 'This is my mask, it's my face, don't touch' they oughta listen, and respect that. And when they don't listen, and when they take something you didn't give them, it's...it makes it hard to trust anybody after that. So, you were right to be angry. What I did was maybe unforgiveable."
Erik was looking at her with an expression of infinite pain. His eyes were shining, possibly with tears. "No, Éponine. You're not unforgiveable."
"Then—can you forgive me?"
"You want Erik's forgiveness? You are asking Erik to forgive you?"
She nodded.
"It is done. You are forgiven." He looked like there was more he wanted to say, but he was struggling with it. Éponine was busy eating, because if he wasn't going to eat, then she wasn't going to let the food go to waste. So they were both silent for a while. Finally, he said: "I never wanted to hurt you or frighten you. I wanted you to be very safe and protected here. But sometimes not even Erik can control Erik." He gave a melancholy sigh.
Éponine frowned. She wasn't scared of him, but it was a little different now. And she did believe him, that he hadn't wanted to hurt her. But he'd still done it. She didn't know what to say, or how to fix it, or if it was even her job to fix it. Looking over, she saw his cup was empty, so she poured him some more tea and gave him a helpless smile.
They sat in silence for a little while longer. Éponine didn't even try to fill the silence, because she was too deep in thought, her mind spinning. Finally, she said, "I'm really glad you stopped me in time."
He looked at her questioningly. He didn't know what she was talking about.
"Before I took your mask off? I hope someday you'll want to let me see your face, and you'll show me. But it should be your choice, not mine."
Erik's expression darkened. "You don't know what you are wishing for, Éponine."
She tilted her head and studied him, trying to imagine how bad it could even be. The worst thing she could imagine would be if all that was behind the mask was just infinite black space, like the bottomless bottom of a really deep river. Like part of his face had just fallen in and inky blackness had swallowed it up.
But even then, he would still have those magnificent eyes, and that sharp jaw, and the strong arms which lifted her so effortlessly, and that voice like nothing she had ever heard before. He would still be possessed of that effortless grace that made his every movement so fluid and elegant in a way she had never seen before. He would still be so gentle and kind, even though from what Éponine could gather, people had not been very gentle or kind to him, and it was probably hard for him to even know how. He would still be clever enough to build this house underground that no one was able to find, and he still had the kind of heart that made him certain he was dying just because he loved someone so much. And so, even if his face was the very worst thing Éponine could even imagine, he was still—
"What are you thinking about?" Erik asked her. "Why do you look at me like that?" He took a sip of tea.
Éponine answered honestly: "Do you know, Erik, that you're a very attractive man?"
He spat out his tea and looked at her like she had spoken the absolute most shocking words in any language. Éponine, laughing, stood up, took a tea towel from the tray, and started to dab at the front of his shirt.
"Useless," she frowned. "That's going to stain I think."
He sat there, frozen, mouth agape, just staring at her.
"Why do you look like that? Hasn't anybody ever said that before? It's true." She smiled at him.
He still sat, motionless, shocked, and silent. He was beginning to frighten her now.
She had an impish impulse to kiss him as she had in the shop, but she wasn't sure he would be able to take it, so instead she just lightly booped his nose (or rather, the mask over his nose) with the tea towel, and said she was going to go get dressed, and he should change his shirt and put it in water or something, and she would be back in a few minutes.
As she stepped into her room and turned to close the door, he was still sitting there, but he had followed her with his bewildered eyes.
