Note: Glad you all liked that bit! Here's a bit more. Again, tech week, things are slowing, but I'm writing something particularly raunchy that should be up pretty quick. Thanks for reading! WRITE SLASH, PEOPLE! HELP THE DYING FANDOM!
25
Erik knows that Raoul cannot see him from where he waits in one of the ceiling tunnels of his lair, splayed out to spy. He has not returned home in close to a week, and does not intend to return soon. When he stormed out that night he with him only his white mask, and it still rests over his finely boned face. He has not yet the courage to come from behind it again. Courage and resilience seem to only truly fail when his fate shifts to something other than solitude, and for only a moment he experiences happiness. It is only a moment, only a spark in the darkness, but as he loves it he detests it. Part of him would prefer to kill the boy and be done with it.
Such a thing has never been so easy as when he first laid eyes on the suitor, and now it may never be harder. He had set doubtless in his mind to do it the moment he saw Raoul streak black across her face. Erik had already killed him in his mind by the time he separated Raoul from the portrait, and nothing, no loneliness, no misery would be worth sparing the little demon again.
Raoul had saved his own life that night, by gathering the courage to kiss such a face. Erik takes his eyes off of Raoul, and buries his hands in his dark hair, hissing one, two silent sobs deep in his chest. One little action and Raoul has opened him, a wound that will not close it seems, and has reached out and ripped to expose the beating heart he has kept hidden behind a lifetime of hatred, betrayal and delicious murder. One kiss. Another. Clever, clever boy.
Erik steals another look. What is he doing now? The Vicomte picks fantastic times to get naked. Erik is grateful he has finished bathing, because the last thing he needs is to watch another man bathe. His trousers, still almost falling off his hips, are the only clothing he has on. His honey hair hangs dark and wet around his face, and drips water that glistens in the candlelight onto his back and shoulders. He is lovely. A beautiful young man.
Erik hates him, wants to hurt him for all of these new things he brings upon the scene. Beat him, starve him- Erik feels something sink when he realizes he can not possibly hope to put him in the water again. Raoul screams in the water, a horrible, familiar sound of sorrowful fear, dark terror and hopeless dread. Erik knows that fear better than anyone. It is what drives him.
Especially when the thought always returns: he will have to, eventually, release the boy. Erik does not want to, in death or in life.
