A/N: I love this show, so I decided to write a fic. I'm not sure if there are any others, but if there are I'd be very pleased if anyone should leave a review telling me where they are hidden... *snickers*
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I know it was wrong. I know he was the very personification of evil, sweet-talking anyone he could get into performing his wonderful Finale, then packing us up and leaving another bewildered family staring at the last place one of their loved ones had stood. He killed people for entertainment. But somehow, that didn't change anything.
I saw him on the nights he would run over the plans with a few of the other players. He would pull a colorfully painted diagram over the wall, getting "Charles" to help him with it; and then he would give notes. The Finale, as I'm sure anyone could imagine, had to be just perfect. There could be no flaws. After all, on many occasions at rehearsal he had announced that without perfection, it's hard to convince someone to join us - no one wants to be less than perfect.
I could tell why his eyeliner was blurred, making his eyes look dead and bruised. He hardly ever slept: rehearsing during the day, singing the life out of himself after sunset. The lights, the make-up, the strain were all building up and making him even more testy; driven and attracted to the seductive gleam of magnificent admiration, he kept us working from five a.m. to the time our plays would start. We would then retire at one, after the audiences had cleared out and everything had been returned to its place. And, although he had a seperate tent from the rest of us, it was always the sound of his voice reciting lines that lulled me to sleep.
He just never stopped working.
One morning, I awoke unnecessarily - it was still an hour before we were due to start work. I tried to get back to sleep, it was precious to all of us since we got so little of it, but something nagging in the back of my mind kept me wide awake. So, I pulled on my clothes and wandered out onto the set, sitting down on one of the steps that seperated the ampitheatre from the actual stage. It was still dark, naturally, and I spent a few moments examining the pale glow the moon used to illuminate my surroundings, when a silky voice to my left said,
"Do you think steel really is as cold as moonlight, 'Catherine'?"
I was about to turn and address him, but he was very agile, and stood before me in the time it took me to blink. What I could see of his pale face was shadowed, but he stood with a direct and commanding manner, his arms folded across his chest. It took a moment for my mind to register the fact that he actually wanted me to answer.
"I... don't know," was the only reply I could come up with, adding a slight shiver. "I've never been stabbed before."
He chuckled, a dark, hollow sound, and slowly approached me, taking a seat at my side. "Well, it's not," he whispered emphatically. "Nothing is colder that moonlight, 'Catherine', and I want you to always remember that."
I nodded, unable to speak. He was so close, and seemed to be taking pride in the fact that he could enthrall and terrify me at the same time. But then a thought struck me.
"What about you?" I asked, my heart pounding as he cocked a black eyebrow at me as a smirk slowly inched across his face. He was colder than anything I had ever heard of, seen, or experienced, and there was no way that the silver beams of light could compete with his icy heart and cold stare.
"Aah," he sighed, almost arrogantly. He reached a hand up and brushed my cheek with the tips of his frigid fingers. "I think you'll have to be the judge of that..."
Within an instant, his lips were upon mine, freezing my mind and eliminating my ability to think. He smelled of sage, and some sort of deep cologne, and on his lips hung that stale, coppery taste of blood. His touch was electric, and I couldn't help but begin to understand why he was so obsessed with fire.
He wanted to burn me, too.
He pulled away just a moment later, a cruel smile on his enticingly sadistic face. "Am I colder...?" he whispered, his black eyes full of cynicism and his voice layered with authority.
I nodded.