Chapter Nineteen

Please Put Down Your Hands, Because I See You


Erik continued to stare at the closed door for a good minute or so. She thought he was an attractive—no, a very attractive man. He let out a shaky breath and stood up. His confusion turned briefly into something thrilling that expanded in his chest to the point of bursting, before quickly descending into...shame?

When he had first brought Christine to the house on the lake, it was after months of meticulous planning and weeks of careful preparation. He had truly believed that if he made sure everything was very comfortable for her, and if she was swept along by the beautiful music they made, then she would just assume he was handsome while accepting the fact that she was never to see his face. He hadn't minded deceiving her—truly, he hadn't thought about the fact that he was being deceptive. It hadn't worked, anyhow. Before ever she saw his face, she was horrified by him. The moment she came through the mirror and discovered that he was not an angel or a ghost, but merely a man—a man who loved her—she reproached him, she was revolted by him, and she rebuked him. But he hadn't felt shame for any of that. He had felt justified, and certain that she would come around, in time.

So why, when Éponine said he was attractive, did he feel overwhelmed with shame, as though he had deceived her? It was entirely her choice to be here, and he had been honest with her from the outset. He told her in no uncertain terms how horrifying his disfigurement was. She knew he was certainly not an angel, nor anything like one. He continued to mull it over as he went into his room.

Éponine was young, but he would hardly call her impressionable or naïve. In many ways, in less than half as many years, she was probably more experienced with life than he was—with ordinary life, amongst ordinary humans. At times, an old woman looked out of her eyes, and broke his heart. She was well acquainted with darkness. She was not one to be easily deceived or trifled with. And yet, he felt terribly responsible for having somehow given her the impression that he was attractive. But Christine, the innocent, pure-souled, honest and simple girl, who had so little knowledge of the world? At the time, he had felt no shame in convincing her that he was a literal angel sent from heaven by her dead father.

He crumpled up the stained shirt and tossed it into a corner, exchanging it for a new one. He tried to make sense of the contradiction as he impatiently did up the buttons. He put on his waistcoat and a cravat, continuing to frown and ponder.

And then, it slowly dawned on him that the seeming contradiction was nothing to do with anything inherent to either Christine or Éponine. It was a change that had taken place in him, and he was just beginning to understand it.

He rummaged around in his chest of drawers and fished out a mirror. He took off his mask and examined his face with a sigh. First, the side that looked halfway decent, and then, turning his head...

He closed his eyes and swallowed. Maybe Éponine hadn't meant anything by her remark. Maybe she had only been teasing him. But he didn't think that was true. There were signs that she really meant it, or at least thought she did. And if she was starting to harbour any certain feelings or attraction toward him, he felt he owed it to her to put a stop to it now. The sooner the better—the easier it would be for both of them. Because once she saw his face, she would see that there was absolutely nothing in Erik that could possibly attract. He could only repel.

A short time before, he had somehow allowed himself to believe that he and Christine could build an ordinary life on a completely false premise. He thought he could leave the cellars and have an ordinary house with ordinary doors and windows, and an ordinary wife who loved him for himself, all the while hiding from her his face, his past, and all the darkness and death that he contained. Such a life would have been just as much a farce as this little house of his with furnishings and décor that pretended to be perfectly mundane, all the while existing beneath the Opera House and concealing a torture-chamber. "I'm sick and tired of having a forest and a torture-chamber in my house and living like a mountebank, in a house with a false bottom!" he had told Christine. So his solution would have been to build a life and a marriage with a false bottom?

But when Christine presented herself to him as a real, living bride, it was not until all such illusions had been dispelled. She knew his face, she knew what murderous lengths he had been willing to go to. And it was not for love of Erik that she did it. No, it was for love of Raoul. She loved that boy so much that she was willing to bind herself forever to a monster—with eyes wide open, knowing entirely what he was capable of—to save Raoul's life. She valued that boy's life more than her own future, because she loved him. And the young chap had felt the same about her, which was why he had descended all the way into the depths to save her, ending up in the torture chamber. And when Christine stood before Erik, resolute, determined, and sincere, all for love—but not for love of him—that was when he had felt overwhelmed with sorrow and regret for what he had done.

And somehow, all of this related to why he would not deceive Éponine now.

He smoothed his wig, replaced his mask, straightened his cravat, and with determined resolve, he went to her bedroom door and knocked. "Éponine? I need to speak with you."

"Oh—ah, wait a minute..." There was nothing but the sound of fabric. "All right, you can come in."

He opened the door, and she had the blue dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, with her coppery-brown hair frizzing and crackling in the candlelight, falling all around her shoulders. A dress and undergarments were laid out on the bed, and her nightgown and shawl lay discarded on the floor.

"Oh, you're not dressed," he said awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. It isn't that urgent."

She stepped closer toward him. "No, don't be sorry, I should have been done by now, I probably took too long washing myself up—look, you're all dressed. You look nice. You wanted to speak with me? What about?"

He cleared his throat and scurried backward, pulling the door closed. "It—it can wait. Until you're decent."

Éponine gave him a wry smile and slipped herself between the door and its frame, blocking it from closing. There was a playful glint in her eye. "I'm covered head to toe. There's no need to blush! What's gotten into you?" She smirked. "Do you think I'm a little attractive, too?"

Why did she have to be like this? Did she enjoy tormenting him? In his own home? Was it amusing to make him squirm and flush and lose his ability to speak? He couldn't even find his tongue. She wouldn't be acting like this once he dispelled her illusions about his being "a very attractive man." After that, there would be no question of such behaviour.

"All right," she said, somewhat pensively. "Keep your head. I'll be out in a minute." She shut the door.

He waited impatiently, his agitation increasing and his resolve faltering. He had been so calm and resolute, and then she had to fluster him like that. He was happy she was becoming more comfortable here—he wanted her to be comfortable, after all. But it was leading her to be more inquisitive, and forward, and playful, and provoking, and—to be frank—adorable. And he was trying not to think about that, because it was going to make it harder to do what he needed to do.

After what felt like hours, she joined him in the drawing room, dressed in yet another ill-fitting dress. This one was an olive green silk that really set off her hair and her eyes, and he decided he was going to have to send this one to be altered to fit her as well, because she looked so lovely in it. Her hair was still loose, and he desperately wanted to run his hands through it, but he couldn't. He had to focus on what needed to be done, after which, there was to be no question of anything like that.

"What did you need to tell me? Or speak to me about?"

He fidgeted and couldn't meet her eyes. "I need to be open with you."

She perched herself on the arm of a chair and gave him her full attention. "Go on."

"I—you—I..." He looked at her helplessly.

She gave him an encouraging—if a little confused—smile.

"What you said...ah, when you made me choke on my tea."

"That you're a very attrac—"

"Yes," he interrupted her. "I think it's time that you see my face."

Her expression grew serious as she stood from her perch and stepped closer to him.

Erik took a deep breath. The best thing to do was just get it over with. He felt like there was a knife all twisted up inside of him. Why did being good and doing the right thing have to hurt so much? Did it ever get easier? With shaking hands, he slowly removed his mask. Finding himself unable to look at Éponine, he stared down at the floor and waited for gasps, or shrieks, or the sound of her fleeing in horror.

But there was only the ticking of the clock on the mantle, and the crackling of the fire, and the faint rustling of silk. And then, she was there in front of him, quite close. And in her upturned face, he saw no trace of horror nor even of pity. Just...interest and tender curiosity. And something else in her eyes he couldn't quite decipher—soft and warm.

She started to reach up with her hand, but then seemed to catch herself. "Can I—will it hurt you?"

"No—no. You may." Her reaction was unnerving to him. He was prepared for fear, horror, disgust, abuse, hatred. He was not prepared for this.

She slowly reached up with her hand—it was her left hand, the maimed one. She must have taken the bandages off when she got ready that morning. Erik stared at the twisted and puckered flesh of her palm. She noticed the direction of his gaze and looked at her own hand, letting out something between a laugh and a stifled sob. Then, gently, she reached up and stroked the side of his face. He closed his eyes to prevent tears from falling. What was she thinking about? Why wasn't she expressing disgust or fear? He caught her poor little hand and pulled it over to his mouth, holding it there, pressed against his lips. He opened his eyes and dared to look at her, but she was shimmering through his tears.

"You were born like that?" Her voice was so low and raspy that it almost couldn't be heard.

He nodded, still pressing her hand over his mouth.

She continued to stare at him with an unfaltering gaze and a peculiar expression. "You said you wanted to be open with me."

He nodded again.

"You must have thought I would take back what I said, if I saw your face?"

Nod.

She gave him a sad smile. "Erik..."

That low, gravelly timbre her voice took on whenever she was evidently trying to sound soft and sweet really did things to him. With her other hand, her right hand, she took his hand and led him over toward the chairs by the fireplace. He still held her left hand, but he let it drop from his mouth. Both of her little hands in his. He didn't know what was happening to him—probably, he was dying. He could feel the blood about to burst out of his veins. In the past—how many hours had it been, since she'd tried to remove his mask? However many hours it had been, there were too many emotions packed into too short an amount of time, too many enormous and overwhelming emotions and sensations, and it was too much for him to bear. Even the soaring score of the most transcendent and electrifying opera would not be able to capture the height and depth and largeness of the emotional landscape they had just traversed.

She made him sit down, and she stood in front of him, quite close. The front of her skirts brushing his knees.

"There," she said, her voice still low. "You're so tall—this is better."

He swallowed, still not able to speak. He was trembling.

She took his head in both of her hands, her poor mangled hand on his disfigured cheek, her small, warm, slightly calloused hand on the other. Her eyes boldly roamed his face. Then she looked him squarely in the eyes and said, "Erik, I think I might... Well anyway, I like you better than anybody I've ever met in my whole life."


A/N: Welp. That escalated. (Another chapter title that's taken from "I'll Be Your Mirror.")