26
What Erik cannot see is over his studio, where Raoul has gathered the canvas and easel up from the ground, and left it standing again. Reluctantly at best, Raoul picks up the vile of linseed oil, and turns it over, once, twice. Erik has not returned again. It has almost been an entire week. It is strange how Raoul feels able to cope now. Guilt, however, us not a vanishing plague, and it moves him to restore the coal-marred painting.
He lifts the tiny lid, and gently dribbles some on the fingers of his right hand. He moves them in slow circles over the streaks, each turn showing clear the dried paint beneath the coal. It lifts, slowly, but surely, with minimal damage to the image. If necessary, he will have it almost finished in another week.
Not an hour passes, and Raoul feels a presence behind him, body heat, and he does not turn. He knows Erik has returned, but he will not initiate conversation.
"I struck you," Erik begins, extraordinarily calm and civil, but still hinting a cool, toneless surface. Only his eyes flick to Raoul when the young man turns to regard him. "I gave you my word I would not, and I broke it. I apologize." Erik's insane pride, generally so stubborn he would likely trade his life for it, seems quieted tonight. Not absent, hardly restrained, but willing to compromise.
Raoul considers this, and after a moment steps back beside him, so Erik is not behind. He prefers to see where Erik is.
"It's not like you to apologize," Raoul murmurs, softly. Erik's shoulder is against his, and neither men make to move. Erik's mask is still off. Raoul gestures to the painting, and lowers his eyes in dignified guilt. "I'm sorry," Raoul finds the words difficult to say in Erik's looming presence. "...for what I did to you."
Raoul sees in Erik that shift in mood, and temper. He came prepared to only extend his civility so far, and to drive it further is a difficult task. Instead of striking out again, he draws in a chilling breath, and can only stare at the painting. Expressionless. He touches Christine's mouth, still visible and a dwindling red beneath lifting coal. "What is it but a painting?" he says, aloud. "A vision I can't keep."
Raoul watches. "Condemned to wait for her," Erik's eyes flashed over to his, but Raoul only raised his brows. "The both of us."
Long moments pass in the space between them, and Raoul discovers that silence is the longest distance between two places. There is always a gap unfilled and a something unsettled between them. Raoul finds them agony. Erik has not beat him yet, or threatened, and he takes it as good, even for such an irrational soul. He is quiet. Deciding, perhaps. He always decides, but when he speaks his voice breaks from the haunting sound it carries, and the result is a low murmur – not sorrowful, not pitiful, but practical and toneless.
"You are brave, Raoul," the use of his name always catches Raoul's attention, and he forces a hinting smile down. The other man does not meet his gaze. "My own mother would not kiss me, because of this face. Since her loathing, her curse, no woman ever has."
"You captivate," Raoul reminds him, more a confession than a statement. Erik does not seem to notice. He does not smile, but there is a wry, mirthless note written across the sharp features, and the twisted features, and Erik taps a forefinger to the swell of tangled flesh beneath his eye, what should be a perfectly shape cheekbone as the other.
"All chains of the human condition are broken the moment this shield is shattered," he says. He nods to Raoul, firmly. "You are brave, or mad. Resilient perhaps. A prisoner," Erik seems to not even be breathing, as his eyes shift darkly to the other mans. "You are my prisoner. You must not do such a thing again, because I will not spare you." He is cold, closed, as he was the night Christine was banished from the Eden she destroyed. "I don't want you, Raoul," he murmurs, so soft it is barely audible, and inhumanly bitter. That is what Erik is, hardly human. He has made himself into something different. Higher or lower, he makes the choice, but there is no in between. He takes his leave. "You are still my prisoner."
Raoul nods, thoughtfully, and turns back to the painting. He does not watch Erik go, but he knows the Phantom has not left yet. "And you are still mine," he says. He does not know if Erik heard before he left.
