Kat097: You're right, being worshiped is nice.

Adison: Alligators are in season, what can I say? As for friend-plugging— (grin) I aim to please. Sometimes I miss, but the intent is nevertheless there.

ElfLover: Actually, Erik's neuroses are my neuroses. I actually have peacockaphobia, or, you know, whatever, and zombies are pretty scary despite not being real, but Paul trumps them both. Paul. (shiver) We call him Pablo Diablo, and this is in no way an understatement.

Mandy the O: You can't be my Mini-Me! I'm shorter than you are! You can be the Chief Executioner though. Every world ruler should have one of those.

Musique et Amour: So. Fop death-by-alligator equals a declaration of love from Stalker Erik. I really wish you would have told me this before. I would have put alligators in everything.

CHAPTER DEDICATION to Hoshi for naming the alligators.

A/N: There's in-jokes all over the place in this chapter. Sorry. Well, not really, but you know what I mean.

Chapter Three: Death of Madame Giry

I couldn't help sighing to myself a bit testily. The fop was more trouble than he was worth, all things considered, and undergoing the requisite mourning period for him was not something I looked forward to, although of course the fact that I wear black pretty much constantly was helpful. So I did the proper thing and, before going to see what a mess my alligators had made of his little fop body, I went to my room and found a black armband. At least, I found a pale pink armband that thought it was black, and used that. Improvisation is one of my chief joys in life, along with acting out. The truth about the whole chandelier thing is that it was just performance art.

Then I went to the door of the alligator pit, steeled myself, and pushed it open.

The bathroom looked back at me.

I frowned, blinked, muttered to myself, scratched my ear, scritched my back, patted my head and rubbed my stomach, did a backflip, wrote a sonnet, composed a Roy Orbison song, danced the hula, fathered children, changed my shoes, made some lemonade, pierced my ears, picked a bouquet, started a collection of Rod Stewart vintage LPs, and did other things that, basically, indicated my state of befuddlement and confusion. Then I realized that I had, in fact, opened the wrong door.

"Oops," I said to the room at large.

I found the door to the alligator pit, tried to steel myself again but I was already half-steeled still from the last door I opened, and opened the door.

The alligators made some "Welcome Home Erik," noises that sounded like, "Gahnaharrracck!" followed by some smacking of chops and low growling noises that, eventually, I discovered were actually coming from me. I looked around and located the body of Raoul. He was undeniably dead, but less badly mauled than I had expected. In the midst of my lecture to the alligators, I found it rather amusing that they had point-blank refused to eat him. I suppose even alligators have standards.

I shook my finger at them admonishingly nonetheless.

"Now look here, Richard—" I've named an alligator Richard. It seemed best. "—this eating people has got to stop, you hear? I know it just comes naturally, but look at me. You may not know it, but wearing skirts is what comes naturally to me, and do you see me in a skirt? You do not. You see me in trousers. All the time. Except when I'm alone, but that's hardly the point. Doing what comes naturally is not correct in ninety-nine percent of all known situations." My attention was diverted to another alligator. "Richard!" I named this one Richard too, so the other Richard wouldn't feel alone. "Richard! Give me Raoul's shoe this instant!"

Richard ignored me, as I had suspected he might. I was about to lay into him as well when once again I was distracted.

"Richard—" This was another Richard, totally different from the first two. "Oh, Richard, you appear to have eaten the fop's leg. Bad Richard, bad!"

Richard gave the alligator equivalent of a shrug and slid off his rock into the water to go seek entertainment elsewhere. This upset me rather, as Richard was my favourite alligator and, up till now, the one I could count on to pay attention to me. I don't like being ignored.

The quickest way to not be ignored is to shoot someone, so I shot Richard.

No, not my favourite Richard. A different Richard. A Richard that I wasn't too fond of.

Now, I don't want to get too disgusting here and lose my audience, but if anyone ever tells you that alligators aren't cannibals, don't believe them. I sighed harshly, or, to put it a different way, harshly sighed, slammed the door, and marched off to find the alligator nets.

Half an hour later they were safely ensconced in their individual pens, and I was able to collect the fop. "Collect" is, in this case, an incredibly appropriate word. I carried him to my bedroom and lay him next to the inert body of Christine.

Staring down at the two of them, I clicked my tongue in a sad way, muttered something sentimental and maudlin about being together in life as they were in death— well, apart from a little blueness on Christine's part, and Raoul not being quite all there.

Then I went to do something I thought was enormously appropriate.

It involved writing.

Not, as you might think, a funeral dirge to commemorate the deaths of my beloved and my beloved's beloved— at times like these its only natural to look for a silver lining to the cloud, and so I wrote a bleeding hilarious one-shot on the death of the fop, and uploaded it to the fanfiction website.

People who know me say my sense of humor is distinctly macabre. Interestingly enough, people who don't know me say the exact same thing.

Once that was done, I got understandably distracted by a few updates, though I'm not going to mention who by because I've been accused of commercializing my life, but rest assured that Ms. Battlecry was duly cussed out in exactly the manner she deserves.

Finally wresting myself away from the archaic computer, I headed upstairs to find myself a little consolation.

Consolation presented itself in the form of Madame Giry, a former girlfriend of mine who appears to have a soft spot for me still. She hit me with her cane when I emerged through the trapdoor into her room.

"Ow," I said mildly, rubbing the spot.

She hit me again.

"Ow," I said, angrily, rubbing more.

She hit me again, harder.

"Ow!" I said vengefully, stopping rubbing and reaching for her to enact my judgement.

She smiled and said, in her cute French accent, "Ha! That ees zee old Erik! Remember when wee were yong and wee beat on each othair all night long—"

"Yes, I remember, but I don't do that anymore."

"When did wee stop, Erik—"

"When you dropped the 'oiselle' part from 'madam.' It got me worried."

"Why did wee stop, Erik?"

"As I recall, you broke my leg." She hit me again. "Ow! Knock it off!"

She put the cane down and threw her shoulders back dramatically. "Why are you heer, Erik? Were you still my beau, I would not have let you through the door without grabbing—"

"Please, I beg of you, no more trips down Memory Lane. My body can't take the abuse."

She sniffed and shrugged. "As you weesh. Tell mee why are you heer. This is a bad day, and my patience is already much tried. "

"I came for consolation, Madame Giry, and a little help."

"A leetle help?"

"Yes. With funeral arrangements. You see, there were a few mishaps down in the lair today—"

"Don't tell mee that all dose othair versions of you invaded again."

"No, thank God, nothing that bad. There were a few deaths, however."

"Deaths belonging to whom?"

"Christine. And Raoul."

For a split second, I thought she was going to cheer, but that would have been too decidedly out of character. She decided to smile thinly instead.

"And you need me for what, now?"

"Well, I had thought of a funeral, but I think I've randomly decided on a seance instead."

Her eyes lit up, and she grabbed her Ouija board, her crystal ball, and her cerulean sequined leotard from the cupboard. "Leed the way, Erik!"

I tried to, but she got all excited and pushed ahead of me into the secret tunnel. "Eet ees very dark in heer."

"It is, at that."

"Do you keep rats, Erik?"

"No, the rats keep me."

"Ha ha, very funny—"

I was the one with the lantern, it was pitch black ahead of us, and the stairs do tend to loom up rather suddenly. Or, rather, loom down—

There was a brief, startled shriek, and then the sound of a body tumbling down them.

I paused on the top step, peered down, and reflected that this was, indeed, turning out to be an incredibly bad day.