A/N: To my lovely readers and lurkers, I apologize for the long absence in updating. Please do review, I love to read what you are feeling and thinking!

Trigger warning: self harm, drug abuse, language. Read at your own discretion…And enjoy!

…

Heartless

She stood in front of the sloped mirror, her hands splayed out on the wide granite countertop. Makeup products were scattered across the counter, and billows of steam rose up inside the high ceilings of the bathroom, clouding the air behind her shape in the mirror. Liquid foundation and various lipsticks were unscrewed and pushed to the side, leaving a large enough space for five jagged lines of white powder – sitting like strikes of lightning all in a row, as the sky might look before an all-consuming storm.

Christine sang as she finished the wings of her black eyeliner, drawing them further out onto her face than ever before. She colored in each eyebrow with a brown pencil, singing softly along with the song that played out of her phone, propped up against the edge of the mirror.

"When will you start loving me?" she whispered. "Could you, should you even love me?"

The song ended slowly, fading off into static before the next song began to play. "Why is there always static?" she asked herself aloud, the woman with dark lidded eyes in the mirror. "And why does it sound louder than the songs themselves?" She added a bit of powder blush to her cheekbones before dipping a finger into the first, twisted line. Once covered, she shoved it into her mouth, rubbing the finger along her bottom gumline.

"Oh, Erik, what will you taste like? Will you kiss me with cocaine on your lips?" She smiled at her reflection in the mirror, smoothing her hands down the fitted, leather corset that Athena had lent her. "Will you curse me for stealing from you? Will you punish me?"

She wore a dark purple, velvet miniskirt below the corset, with black tights and red-bottom ebony pumps. She was determined to look her very best, this evening…that Erik might be distracted by her beauty, instead of concentrating on patching up her scratches and scabs. Yet she still wore some of the bandages he had put upon her – she found herself reapplying some of the larger ones after she'd had a shower, wanting him to know how much his arduous care was appreciated.

Christine snorted another line before stepping back, surveying the somber, wide-eyed creature in the mirror. She smiled down at the new baggy of cocaine that she'd snagged from Athena, having thrown her a couple wads of cash in return for the score. She could feel the shadows growing out from between her shoulders, already…but for some reason, this evening they felt different. There were no sweet brushes of feathers, no fluttering of something heavenly – these wings grew like muddled slime, dripping their life force down her bare shoulders, reaching out into the air with gray, sinewy fingers. She shivered, her flesh suddenly feeling cold…as if something was coming, something great and terrible…out from the hidden interior of her heart.

And she knew she could not stop it.

"Christine! Are you done yet? I just saw his car pull into the drive," Athena announced from the other side of the door. Christine's heart burst into an anxious flurry, and she bent her head down, finishing up the lines that were left on the countertop. "What does he drive?" she asked as she threw her head back, chasing the repulsive, bitter drip with a small bit of red wine.

"It looks like a Lamborghini Aventador…damn, I think it's one of the newer ones. It's all blacked out, the windows, everything…okay, he's pulling into his garage now…"

Christine threw open the bathroom door, striking a pose in front of Athena who turned away from the floor to ceiling window at the end of the hall.

"Well? Is it seductive enough?" Christine giggled, throwing her long red curls over a shoulder, ignoring the nausea that began to swirl inside of her stomach. Athena reached out, steadying her by the sides of her arms.

"This time you're bringing your phone with you, just in case something happens. Oh, and don't forget the baggie of coke…he'll probably be wanting some of that. Unless, I don't know, he's a dealer…but all good dealers dig into their own stash, anyway. So I think you'll be fine."

"Do you think…" Christine murmured, her confidence waning for a sheer moment, "that he'll like this? I mean…the way I look?"

Athena grinned, shaking her head as she released Christine's arms. "He'd be downright insane to not instantly fall in love with you. But just remember, you don't know anything about him…so if he starts to get violent, get the fuck out of there, okay? Get out of there and come straight here. I don't care if you have to take off your heels. But you better run. Promise?" she held her pinky out, and Christine hooked her pinky into Athena's, nodding eagerly.

"Yes, I promise."

Swinging her backpack over a shoulder, Christine brushed past Athena, descending the staircase slowly in the already painful, sky high Louboutins. Athena stayed at the top of the landing, downing the rest of the wine bottle that she held in the crook of her arm. As Christine reached the door, Athena leaned over the bannister one last time, waving the empty bottle of wine at her friend. "You look stunning," she called out, and Christine smiled in the crack of the open doorway, the golden light from the sunset striking against her pale cheekbones. As the door shut, the evening light was cut off, and Athena was left alone in the shadows. She lingered inside of the darkness a bit longer, remembering the day Christine's father had died…the warmest day they'd had yet, that year. Athena's eyes blurred with tears for her friend, remembering the sight of Christine in the funeral home bathroom…with cuts upon her wrists and a needle jammed into her veins.

"I promised you I'd keep her safe," she whispered in the dark, setting the wine bottle onto the ground. "And I'm so sorry that I failed you."

...

By the time she reached his property line, the sun had completely dipped below the horizon. The wing-like gates had already been shut at the end of his driveway, but there was a front walkway leading up to a massive stone door. The walkway seemed long and winding, with an almost sinister feel, as it led up to the gray scale, stone and glass house.

The penitentiary.

Christine followed the twisted path, her heels clicking upon the pavement, only visible by tiny lights that were in the shape of skulls. The wings of a monster ached between her shoulder blades, dribbling black sin all over her chest, and down the curves of her slender back…she shivered again, wondering why this high was a little bit different than the rest; as it took her beloved, blue-black wings and melted them into something else. Something that was downright unpleasant, that stuck to every inch of her skin, burning into the faded scarring on the insides of both wrists.

When she finally reached the front door, she felt unusually small and insignificant under the looming shadow of the smooth, dark stone. Her heart ran a thousand beats per minute as she steadied herself, right before reaching an arm out to press in the button for the skull-shaped doorbell. Christine pulled her arm back, swaying in her five-inch heels, squeezing the baggie of cocaine in her other hand as the door began to open.

With a flood of light from behind his figure, Erik emerged in the doorway, and Christine, having rehearsed a couple of lines that she might say to him – forgot every single ounce of preparation she had planned with Athena.

He was dressed in dark slacks, with a crisp red button up shirt tucked half in at his waist. The top three rows of buttons were open at his neck, and she could see the soft outlines of his chest, with tiny bits of dotted, sparse hairs. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing thick forearms that were covered in black and grey ink – she could recognize the shape of an open, toothy mouth, as if it belonged to a beast of the underworld – but her eyes could not stay upon the tattoo long enough to infer anything more, for she immediately fell into the light hazel gleam of his eyes. His hair, though pulled back before, now fell in dark waves, with gel covering the roots near his scalp. It looked as if he had just let his hair down after a long day at work, with a large tendril tucked behind his left ear. A black leather mask had replaced the white one, and in the light that shone behind him, it looked as though it were not a mask, but a mere shadow falling across one half of his face.

He was power, he was the mirror above his bed…he was the scarlet ropes that had been left tied to the bedposts, matching the exact color of his shirt, as well as the blood that had been left behind on the sheets…

"Christine," he spoke stiffly, his eyes traversing her body momentarily before snapping right back to her face. "What…are you doing here?" his mouth hardened into a line as she paused, taking a deep breath while swaying upon her heels.

"I…I came to see you…to thank you, for what you did." It was the first thing that came to her mind out of the oblivion that his presence created, causing her confidence to crumble slightly. She held up the baggie of cocaine, dangling it in the space between them. "I brought you this, because –"

"You stole from me." His eyes narrowed as he stared down at her, crossing his arms against his chest. "You went into my bedroom. You rifled through my personal items…while lying to my housekeeper about some ruse, about my permission having been granted." Erik stood immobile, breathlessly contouring the air around Christine, sweeping her into his insurmountable, pressurized fury.

"I did, but I didn't know I'd have to go through the bedroom…I didn't mean to look through your things," Christine said quietly, staring at the ground.

"A book of mine is missing," he hissed, pulling his top lip away from his teeth in a snarl. "It is of little importance to me, yet nonetheless…you stole it because you could. Even though you could hold the world in your fucking palm!" A bright red, violent light flickered within his eyes. "You, the troubled little girl with enough fame to drown her. Should I feel bad for you? Is that what you want to hear? That I pity you, just as you pity me?"

Christine felt tears prickling the edges of her eyes. "Stop it," she whispered, her eyes glued to the metallic tips of his leather shoes. "Please stop…"

"I could have thrown you out of my front door. Then called the police to remove your gangly, bleeding body from my landscaping. But I didn't, did I? I clothed you, I took care of you, I never pitied you until…until you stuck your thieving little fingers into my things. Do you like the feeling? Of taking something that isn't yours? Does it give you a greater high than your precious white powder?" he sneered, releasing his arms from his chest, grabbing her fiercely by the shoulders, shaking her. "Answer me, now! How the fuck does it feel? Did you like what you saw? Did you rub your face around in the blood I left behind? Answer me!" he growled, digging his fingernails into her skin. Christine pulled back away from him, her eyes wide with terror and hot tears.

"You are exactly what Eleanor told me you'd be!" She cried, clutching her backpack to her chest. "You pitied me from the beginning, didn't you?! You thought if you helped a sick little addict, that it might make you less of one! But you are too. You need it too! And you know how it feels to need it…and you still mock me, you still scream in my face as if I'm so terrible! I'm terrible, yes, I know…but what makes you so different than me? The fact that you can hide yours? That you can get as high as fucking hell, and no one will even know or care if you die?" she was screaming now, her heels planted firmly in the ground, unmoving. Erik fell silent at her words, his sharp, labored breathing growing louder. He stared at her as she panted for breath, never faltering for a moment, even in her five-inch Louboutins.

"I don't care," he spat, "about dying." Christine stepped closer to him, trying to ignore the intoxicating aroma that was his cologne and sweat intermixed.

"Yes, you do. That's why you haven't done it already," she answered softly, cocking her head at him. "You have enough, hell, even a third of what you have stashed could kill you. So you're wrong, or you're in denial. But you want to be alive. You just don't know how to do it without…without filling the gaping, empty fucking hole in your chest."

Erik's mouth fell slightly agape, his eyes blinking rapidly as if desperately trying to fill the spaces, the silence that was about to stretch out before them. But no words came out of his mouth, and he licked his lips, his eyes falling away from her face for the first time.

"So here," she shoved the baggy of cocaine into his chest, forcing his hands to come up from his sides, lest it might fall on the ground between them.

"It's more than I took from you. You can have all of it." She hesitated for a moment as his fingers wrapped around the baggie, waiting for him to say something to keep her from leaving. She felt hot white fire burning within her belly as she gazed at him, who now seemed stupefied at the argument that had thrashed itself between them. Christine's heart bent its head low in defeat, slumping its shoulders in the shattered, make-believe fantasy that she had placed him inside of. It had just been one night, after all…she could try and forget him if she wanted to…

Waiting any longer would be pitiful, even for her. She turned upon her heels slowly, swinging her backpack over one arm, the tiny skull lights of the pathway staring up and over at her, laughing, screaming the words that Eleanor had so very plainly written within Christine's mind…

"Don't," she heard him sigh softly, and she stopped for a moment, her back still turned to him. She waited with bated breath for him to continue…for him to nudge her back to the fantasy; to the eclectic, spellbound feeling she had whenever he was near.

"Don't go. I…" His voice was very low, rumbling and tender within the deep of his chest. "I'm not completely heartless…"

Christine turned back to face him, her backpack sliding off of her arm and plopping down onto the crisp pavement of the walkway. She stared into his eyes, watching him as he knelt down on the ground, brushing his head against her knees as he picked up the backpack.

"I'm not either," she whispered, watching him stand back up to his full and imposing height. "But nobody knows that. No one…except," she breathed, noting the way that he now looked at her; a reddened, sorrowful gaze, "You…just you."

Erik let out a long sigh, tucking a thick lock of hair behind his other ear. "Come inside, Christine…unless you still wish to leave." His eyes beseeched hers, needing something from her…a piece of her, perhaps. Her heart jolted to life at the sadness gnawing at his features, at the deep regret he must have felt for his berating behavior. Christine smiled at him, smoothing her hands down the sides of her velvet miniskirt.

"I did dress for the occasion," she murmured, moving into a slight curtsy while bending her head, as if it were the beginning of a dance between partners, or friends, or lovers…

And for the very first time, she saw this man humble himself before her…ducking his head and his body into a bow, while pushing the heavy door all the way open. Christine stepped inside the foyer, looking up to admire the glass chandelier once again. She followed him all the way to the kitchen, where he stopped in the doorway to turn around, holding the baggie of cocaine high in the air.

"To those of us who still have a heart," he said quietly, and she smiled at his words, feeling as though they were the only two people left standing in a shadowed auditorium. It was a familiar place where no one knew her name, where love could be found in the darkest of corners…and her father beamed up at her, his hands clasped together while tears ran down his face.

It was there, inside of this feeling, this memory where music sprang forth like water from a shattered dam, running through all the cracks in her heart, filling it to the golden, scarred up brim.

…

A/N: This might be the first time a woman has ever put him in his place…

Please do review if you can! Your comments, emotions, and/or feedback make my entire week. Thank you for reading! Love, L.