Woo. Two in two days, and they aren't drabbles. Sheesh, I need a cigarette.

Addressing the current status of the non-defining plot chapters: because it is slash, even porn has a purpose. Quite frankly, and I get on my friends about this, I can't stand plot-what-plot. My porn (if it is indeed delivered. bleh. Ever have one of those days?) is a character advancement. However, after this, the plot is going to get sticky and ... well, that's my blabbing for today. Thanks for reading!

30

Erik did return, but not until hours after Raoul had taken a bath, changed his clothing, and crawled into the swan bed for sleep. He has not found it, not even in this darkness Erik has created for the preservation of them both. It is impossible for even Erik to look around and see what lies in the midst of the sacred silence. He never sleeps around Raoul, much less in the same bed, but there is such an unnatural tenderness about him at this hour that Raoul does not feel threatened as he should. He lies on his side, with his back curved into the front of Erik. He cannot see, but he senses Erik's presence somewhat risen off the bed, propped on an elbow perhaps, and with the other hand absently explores the landscape of the younger man's body.

Bruises sprinkle the skin, and when Erik's fingers run across the slightly-softer flesh, still in their rainbow cycle, he presses down, into it. He likes hearing the shift in Raoul's breathing, the subtle little half-note that stops in his throat when Erik inflicts such a mindless, faintly present pain. More so does he love the feel of Raoul relaxing against him, when Erik abandons one bruise for another and trusts him not to prod the others, though he knows Erik will. Perhaps he enjoys being betrayed, Erik does not entirely know. He wonders what it would be to find out.

His fingers are finally warm rather than icy, and he trails them along Raoul's shoulder, down his arm, and over the stretch of his well-muscled flank. He quivers, beneath Erik's fingertips, and the Phantom flattens it to a palm, reposed and lacking all the powerful cruelty his hands are capable of. He lowers himself resignedly into the sheets, head on the pillow with his mask lifted away, and moves forward to press his lips to the dark honey hair. His fingers curve around the jut and indention of Raoul's hipbone. There is an even larger bruise there, he can feel; evidence of his abuse.

Animosity that seems ages old now still eats at him, and fuels the abuse, but there is a part of him somewhere beneath that does not enjoy hurting Raoul nearly as he once did. He is so young, a boy hardly in his twenties, barely breaching past manhood. There is a deeper sympathy in Erik, one he has repressed since the first days of Raoul's abandonment: the younger man is not entirely unlike himself. He, too, was left to die by the woman he loved. There is no emptier feeling in all the world, no loneliness or misery to compare to being unwanted. It is a pain Erik understands.

Raoul is not asleep, he knows, as he tucks his hair from his neck and runs his fingers through it, over the skin just behind Raoul's ear and the nape of his neck. Raoul shivers, and in response Erik circles an arm around his front to pull him closer than before, sharing what little warmth is left in his body with one he continues to hurt. It is the least the worn body of the Vicomte deserves, as compared to a hard kiss on the temple, and leaving him on the floor with his own, painful arousal. Erik holds back a smirk. The young man was very brave today, and that is all the reason that keeps him here tonight. He may never be so tender again.

There is a sadness in these after hours, and it lingers around them like the storm in a sky Raoul has not seen in almost a year. He has changed since then. He wishes they were elsewhere, anywhere, and it sickens him that he wants them together. He wants Raoul beside him, just as this, silent and tired and weary of a day well spent.

Erik may even begin to like him, and not only because he is particularly skilled with his hands. He has a defiance to him, a determination to continue. Every scowl, every glare, every indignant aversion of his eyes drives a strange point into Erik, an attraction, and a desire to protect. If there was a ghost of a half smile on Erik's face, it melts away when he remembers Christine.

Raoul's hand covers his own, and Erik resists the urge to recoil. He lets Raoul continue to touch him; a warm palm over his forearm.

He breathes Raoul in. "I'll destroy you," he murmurs, a dry statement, empty. Raoul stirs. "I will. I have. I've taken the fight from your soul. I've taken your worth and traded it for your life. Your peace of mind," Erik exhales. "I will be your end, as I was hers." He rolls away from Raoul, flat on his back in the surrounding softness, and absently traces the white contours of his mask. It is there, all the time. "Don't you see how I don't want you."

Raoul rustles in the sheets, but Erik can hardly see what he is doing. He shakes his head. "I'm all that's here, in this hole in the ground. You're all that's here. We can't go back up there because things will never be the same," Raoul lifts his neck in the darkness, and his eyes catch an unseen light source, reflecting brief pale blue. He gazes into their black canopy. "To stay down here is to waste away," Raoul lowers back down, and Erik can see the outline of a sharp profile, the straight nose, the angle of those soft lips as they move with his speech. "I'm wasting away, I think. You said I was mad, maybe it's true," Raoul blinks, and swallows hard with a dry throat. "Why should I want you here like I do... you were never my angel of music, I was never bound to you." Erik wonders if that is true. "I must be mad. There is no other reason."

Erik remains uncomfortable in the silence, and he sits slowly up, catching Raoul's attention. Enough affection for one night, the boy has had more than he needs. Erik sparks with irritation as he feels a hand in the crook of his elbow, stopping his ascent. With one hand, in the cover of darkness, he peels his mask off. It is a long moment before either man speaks.

"Let me go with you," it is an earnest, hollow request, but Erik's mood has taken a bitter turn. He takes his arm back, roughly, from Raoul's fingers. "Don't leave me down here, take me with you," he says, but Erik stands, and pushes him back onto the bed.

"I can't," a growl, low and dismissing. He knows his way through the dark as he once again leaves Raoul alone.