A/N: Just to let you all know, I've got absolutely nothing against the movie. In fact, I've been in love with The Phantom of the Opera ever since my sixth grade field trip to go see a San Francisco production of the stage show. During the week leading up to the trip, my teacher would read to us a children's version of the Gaston Leroux novel, and then play songs from the Highlights CD starring Michael Crawford, and on the day of the trip itself, the whole class had to dress up appropriately for the theater's ambiance. So as you can expect, Phantom has had a special place in my heart from the time I was twelve, and ALW's recent film adaptation was only the second movie ever that I obsessed over and absolutely HAD to see (the first being Gone with the Wind…another tale where the girl falls for the wrong guy. Sigh). Anyways, I adored the 2004 movie (to hell with what bitter old critics have to say!) and as for Gerard Butler's portrayal of the Phantom—swoons—but nevertheless, the temptation of a sillyfic was just too strong to resist, so here goes.
Erik sighed as he stared forward, glaring into the darkness that was his undisputed domain. His eyes—one an unearthly blue in hue, the other horrifically discolored—took in his Gothic environment of brass candelabras and softly glowing lights without really seeing anything. Before him, a little toy monkey atop a music box fixed its perpetual smirk on its owner, dutifully clapping its tiny cymbals at intervals.
It was so quiet…as it had always been before she came into his world. As it would always remain now that she was forever gone from it. Erik's chest heaved with a pain he would have never dared express had there been witnesses present. It wouldn't do well for the Phantom of the Opera—loathed, persecuted, but, most importantly of all, supremely feared—to express such a weakness.
Yet he couldn't pry apart the tongs of sorrow that were constricting his heart, no matter how ridiculous that notion might be. His heart was made to sustain his life, and nothing more. Above all else, it was not a heart that had been created to fall in love.
Nor would it ever love again, now that Christine Daaé had left the Opéra Populaire. His Christine. His beloved little angel.
Erik continued to brood sullenly into the darkness. It was so quiet…
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
He unwittingly winced as he watched new cracks and spiderwebs appear on his tall, already-smashed mirrors. Had a new mob materialized to shout and howl at his grotesque deformities? The urgent thought pounded in his mind as he leapt up, displacing his monkey music box in the process.
But if this was a mob, where were the torches and pitchforks? And why, curiously enough, had the collective scream sounded so much more like a feminine, hyper-excited squeal rather than a shriek of horror?
His questions were answered soon enough: A sea of females stormed past the legendary underground labyrinth, and charged in a lustful frenzy toward a flabbergasted Erik. When they caught sight of his form—fitted into a fashionably tailored black suit, complemented with a dashing midnight-colored cape, and topped off by that signature white mask—the girls yodeled again as one, nearly blowing out poor Erik's eardrums.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! IT'S HIM!!! WAH HE'S SO SEXY!!!" they screeched shrilly.
Before the hapless Erik even knew what was happening, a stampede of brightly colored skirts, heady perfumes, and supersonic voices had engulfed him. Within a matter of seconds, invading fingers were tugging at his cape, tearing at his mask, petting his hair, groping his face, and caressing his mouth. To his immense horror, some of the particularly feisty ones were even making highly unwelcome encroachments towards his thigh areas.
"OH, PHANTOM, WE LOVE YOU!!! WE WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES!!!" the ravenous girls bleated, while Erik preoccupied himself with wrestling off several pairs of wandering hands that were grabbing at his belt.
"Enough!" Finally fed up, he let out a thunderous roar that never failed to command others' attention.
And it worked here as well. Blessed silence once again descended upon his cavernous lair, while Erik gave his abused ears some time to recuperate. He smoothed down his hair, tugged his suit and cape back into place, and checked to make sure his half-mask was still fitted snugly over the aesthetically challenged portion of his face.
With growing unease, he noticed about a million or so pairs of bright, adoring eyes fixed eagerly on his every move as he did his grooming.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he demanded testily, every bit as curious as to how these women had gotten here as he was angry at having his cherished privacy ripped apart.
"We're your phangirls!" piped up one of the bolder girls, who was wearing a hot pink T-shirt with homemade lettering that spelled out in glitter 'The Phantom is a Sex God!'
Erik blinked. Phangirls? As in fans who happened to be girls? His fans? Since when the hell did the Opera Ghost have phangirls?! After all, he was the man who was supposed to look like a walking corpse! Granted, his most famous incarnations on Broadway hadn't been so deathly hideous, but they'd never been what one would call classically handsome, either. Or at least, not so handsome as to warrant any phangirls for the hideous madman often likened to a gargoyle writhing in Hell but dreaming of Heaven.
"Fools!" he scoffed at these maniacal self-proclaimed phangirls. "Can you all not see the horror before your very eyes?!"
And though it pained him to say such words, he spat his last sentence out while raising a hand to point spitefully at his perfectly chiseled nose.
Wait a minute!
Perfectly chiseled nose? His perfectly chiseled nose?! What was going on here? Ignoring the swoons and squeals of his worshippers, Erik stalked up to the nearest broken mirror and stared at his reflection in the spiderwebbed glass.
An extraordinarily arresting, masculine face stared back at him: sculpted of cheekbones, searing blue of eyes, sensuous of mouth, nigh-flawless of features. The deformities that were supposed to scar his visage were neatly hidden behind an alluring white mask which barely covered his eye and about thirty-five percent of the area around it.
By some miracle, the Phantom of the Opera had been transformed seemingly overnight from the macabre creature he was best known as. Instead, he was now tall, handsome, dashing, virile, well-dressed, darkly seductive…
Ouch! Which suicidal 'phangirl' had just dared to squeeze his rear end?
Erik trained his most fearsome glare on the responsible party.
"Who do you think you are?" he snapped furiously at an unnaturally beautiful girl with shimmering blonde hair and a golden tan that looked quite unbecoming to Erik's conservative, nineteenth-century eyes.
The fair-haired butt-pincher turned dewy violet eyes at this new, improved, and GQ-approved version of the Phantom.
"Don't you recognize me?" she asked, furiously batting her false eyelashes at Erik until some of the fluttering synthetics nearly flew off.
When Erik set his lips into a thin, surly line and failed to reply, the girl went on, "Well, my alter ego is Allete Daaé, Christine's younger, rebellious, and way prettier sister who's an even better singer than she is! And I love you, Hot Phantom Guy!"
Before a dumbfounded Erik could form a single coherent syllable, another remarkably lovely girl shoved 'Allete Daaé' out of the way and hyperventilated into his face, "Me too! By the way, my alter ego's Carina, Mme. Giry's other daughter, whom nobody ever talked about because she's so talented that she was touring Europe while all the hangings and chandeliers crashing were going on!"
A third pretty girl stuck her dainty nose forward and sniffed, "I'm supposed to be Desiree, the girl with the mysterious, but no doubt terribly angsty, past. Have you already forgotten, Phantom? You saved me with your killer fencing moves one evening like a knight in shining armor—and, uh, a really twirly cape."
"Ooh, I'm supposed to be Vivienne!" someone to Erik's left squawked out, straining to be heard above all the other females sobbing out their life stories. "I'm the really beautiful and talented new star soprano of the Opéra Populaire that you're immediately captivated by and take under your wing!"
An impertinent redhead sashayed to the front of the ranks and declared, "And I'm Hayley! Nice to meet you, Mr. Phantom!"
Erik frowned. Hayley? What the hell kind of moniker was that supposed to be?
"That is not a French name," he pointed out bitingly.
'Hayley' shrugged, unconcerned.
"Yup, I'm a really creative and original one. See, I get to be a rich American heiress with a spitfire personality who goes on a tour of France and has a romantic encounter with the mysterious Phantom of the Opera while attending a performance of Don Juan Triumphant!" she explained, a smugly pleased look on her face.
A million feminine, whining voices set up a cry afterwards, each trying to impress the rather unimpressed-looking Erik by rattling off their heartbreaking pasts. These woeful tales only grew more and more ludicrous as every imaginable tragedy was tossed out and then inevitably recycled four or five times.
Erik let out an exasperated growl. How many times had he dreamed of being just decent-looking? His imagination hadn't even dared flirt with the notion of being actually handsome. And now, oh irony of all cruel ironies, he was handsomer beyond his wildest notions…and regretting every single detail that made up his accursedly perfect face.
Several somebodies were going to be getting letters from the Opera Ghost! The actor! The director! The casting director! The costume designer! The makeup artist!
Erik cringed again when a multitude of hands assaulted his torso, trying to unceremoniously rip his shirt off. So, these were the consequences that came with being portrayed by the same Scottish stud who'd turned Count Dracula into a sex symbol and Attila the Hun into Attila the Hunk!