Note - I must say that I am still cautious of continuing this story. However, I have so many wacky ideas for these characters that I just had to give it a shot. I still like the idea of the first chapter standing alone, so maybe I'll split this up into two versions. Well, let me know what you think and whether you're disappointed in any way.
(The Pantom of the Opera and its characters do not belong to me, with the exception of Joelle, who is solely my creation.)
Meanwhile...
Joelle gathered him up off the street, steadied him, and then helped him brush the wrinkles out of his shirt. "Come," she said. "Your night of homelessness is done. You will live with me."
Erik tried to protest, but she cut him off before he had even finished inhaling to speak.
"This is not open for discussion."
He simply hung his head, as though he were going to nod, but got too tired to pick his head back up to complete it. Joelle led him into her tiny apartment, and as she closed and locked the door behind him, she gestured with her head to the bed that took up most of the room in the apartment. "Take your boots off and sleep for a while." She instructed.
"Aren't you tired?" He asked.
"No. But if I become drowsy, I'll go to sleep. It's no cause for concern."
Erik looked at the little bed and frowned. Wasn't that a little inappropriate? Or did she have other motives in mind that he had not picked up on? Joelle read his thoughts instantly.
"Don't worry," she said, a sarcastic light shining almost undetectable behind her eyes. " I sleep hanging upside down. Did you forget?"
It struck a nerve. He had forgotten. At one point on the street he realized that he knew this girl's name and face, and that she knew him very well... but he didn't know why. Even after she had told him she was once an exhibit in the freak show, in his memory he could not place her there. Now he could. They had called her Dracula's Daughter. And they had filed her teeth down to make her look more the part. He realized she had not smiled at him with her lips parted all night, and now he remembered why. However, that was all he could remember of her. He thought in his mind he'd just be quiet and play along until the rest came back to him. With a sigh and a pitiful glance to show he was sorry, Erik sat on the corner of the bed and began unlacing his boots. He was exhausted.
Joelle shrugged her forgiveness at him and began busying herself with straightening the room as he laid down, nervously, on the bed. He'd never been offered a place to stay before, and he wasn't sure about the etiquette that went along with sleeping in someone else's bed. Joelle noticed this, but did not let on that she did, as she knew how sensitive he was when it came to his pride. Instead, she nodded at him casually. "Go ahead and get under the sheets if you want, friend. They're clean." She said. "I just washed them this afternoon." She added, looking out the window, "or, yesterday, I guess." In truth she had never slept in the bed, and only washed the sheets periodically when she was nervous and ran out of things to clean. Yesterday had been a very anxiety-ridden day for her, knowing Erik's opera was going to be performed that evening, and knowing there was a good chance he'd either be shot, or hang himself. And even though she had successfully prevented either of those things from happening, and now had him safe in her little hide-out, her stomach was still hard and cold as steel and her blood still ran hot through her veins. She found it necessary now to arrange the books on her bookshelf by how many times she'd read them, instead of by genre or author. Luckily she did not flush or sweat or tremble at all, otherwise she would have been totally useless as a comforter to her friend.
Erik lifted his heavy body off the bed and turned the covers down, glancing up once at Joelle to make sure this was ok with her, and when she gave him a nonchalant half-grin, he climbed under the sheets and laid his head on the pillow. Within seconds, he was asleep.
Joelle sat herself down at her desk that was pushed up against the wall beside the bookshelf just inside the door, and began scribbling things in short hand, as the bookshelf was now very organized, and short of repainting the walls, there was nothing she could do to improve her little apartment. This was her form of meditation. She glanced over her shoulder to check on Erik, and found him sleeping peacefully, his eyes moving under his eyelids as he dreamt. Her nerves began to calm, and she went back to writing. Slowly her shorthand bled into printing, and then her printing stretched itself and began dancing, becoming beautifully sculpted calligraphy. Two complete sentences of nonsense in these beautiful letters had graced the page when Joelle was suddenly wrenched out of her path to euphoria by a loud, vicious cry.
She whirled around, her eyes narrowed in reflex after the initial shock. Erik, having thrown the covers off, was sprawled out awkwardly and panting on the bed. His brow narrowed and then flew up in surprise and pain, and his arms tugged ferociously against some invisible force. Joelle's expression changed from that of a wolf mother protecting it's pack to one devastated at the loss of a pup, as she fell from her chair and onto her knees at the bedside.
"Oh, God." She breathed. He was soaked in sweat. She knew this nightmare very well. For years, it had invaded her mind every night. Despite how she fought it, it kept returning. Sleep for her became like competing for control over her own psyche, the dream driving her out of her bed for weeks, which drove the dream to appear while she was awake. It had taken years of searching to finally be able to remember what had come after this terrifying event in her life...and his, too. Erik yelled out once more, and she pulled herself together and got to her feet, going and grabbing a towel from the bathroom. Still twisted with concern, Joelle sat herself on the bed next to him and began sopping the sweat off of his forehead, face, chest and neck. As she did this, she shushed and crooned him, humming a lullaby they both knew very well.
It was simple, in a minor key, and had just a twinge of hope in its distorted intervals. After a few moments, Erik began trying to relax, but the nightmare battled with him. At about the time Joelle would start to think he had gotten out of the dream, she saw him feel the crack of the cane once again. She kept humming, then got an idea and changed songs, thinking it would be better to bring in something new- something that had no connection to their childhoods. This seemed to work brilliantly, as by the time she had finished humming the first phrase, Erik had relaxed, now only stirring slightly and breathing heavy from exhaustion. Soon that abated as well, and he curled himself up and rubbed at his arm. Joelle continued the song, covering him up with the sheet and rubbing his arm for him, slowly. She couldn't help but smile widely at his action. Surely she would have been right to expect him to have outgrown this little bedtime comfort. She herself had nearly forgotten about it, but took up her role as arm-rubber before she had time to think about it. It had been forever, but she still knew all of his gestures, his likes and dislikes, his sounds. They came back to her so easily, it was like the ten years they had been apart had not existed. But then again, they had been so close during their time together it really was no wonder. She had been like his big sister, taking over the role of both friend and mother for him almost daily from the time she was sold to the carnival when she was six, til he had escaped when she was thirteen.
Deep down she was still bitter about that, despite how desperately she tried to let it go, and how convincingly she had told herself she'd succeeded at doing just that. Whenever the memory entered her mind she immediately set out to angrily ripping it to shreds and throwing the debris to the wind. She knew it should have never mattered, but it had hurt her so deeply at the time that it became hard to forget. And the shame that went along with knowing she should have cheered him on instead of cursing him like she had made matters that much worse. Seeing that he was resting peacefully, Joelle removed herself from the edge of the bed and returned to the table and her calligraphy.
She decided she might as well work while she waited for him to wake up, so she got out a scribbled wedding invitation, found the appropriate cards, and got to work copying the invitation out in beautiful letters. Erik did not stir for quite some time. There was a stack of about fifteen finished invitations in the corner of the desk when his eyelids slid open.
For a while, Erik lied there silently, regarding his friend. He had not really paid much attention to her features out on the street, and took them in now with some degree of interest. Her hair was a deep brown color, like chocolate and caramel, and was done up in a perfect french braid up-do. It was not hard to see the Transylvanian characteristics in her face. Her cheekbones were prominent, but not high, and her nose had a small bridge that ended in an almost triangular nose that pointed slightly downward. Her eyes were large, deep-set, and shaped like a cat's, but turned down so that the bottom lid was almost a straight line, and were a shining, foggy hazel color that seemed to look through things before looking at them. The brow above them was thin and long and perfectly straight, and sat down close to the eyes. Her mouth was small and pulled upward ever so slightly at the corners, complimenting her pointed chin, and when added to her low eyebrows and deep-set eyes, gave her the most malicious of expressions. Erik also noticed that Joelle was not exactly of an ideal weight. It wasn't that she was fat - no, that implied a sloppy physique and pampered lifestyle. Nothing about her was sloppy, and it was extremely obvious - judging by her dress and current living arrangements - that her lifestyle was quite the opposite of pampered. She was no ballerina, that's for sure - delicate little Christine would have been dwarfed by the woman - not only in height but in build as well. Joelle was ... thick. Her shape was still feminine, and firm, but was on a much greater scale than any of the women her age he had seen in the ballet corps or the chorus.
"Did you sleep well?" She asked suddenly, turning around to look at him when he did not answer.
"Yes, actually." Erik admitted, sitting up and smoothing his hair back. "How did you know I was awake?" He asked as he slid out of the bed and began to make it.
"You stopped breathing so loudly." Joelle said with a playful smirk.
Erik returned the smile, then asked, "How long did I sleep?"
"No more than a few hours. Good thing, too, I might not have gotten any work done if you hadn't."
He didn't tell her he couldn't remember the last time he had slept more than twenty minutes without waking up screaming and having no idea why. He picked up one of the invitations, read it, and said, "beautiful," before setting it down. "So you're a calligraphist." He stated with interest.
"Yes. After years of searching I finally found I had an obscure talent that I could make money at without compromising my reputation."
"Your reputation?"
"Yes, as a stuck up, overly clean widow of a well cultured high-society duke or something."
He became interested. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, but it's been so long since we saw each other... are you a widow? Or is that too personal?"
"That's not too personal at all, Erik," she answered gaily. "No, I am not a widow. But I do refuse to marry, so I guess in a sense my spouse has died - or at least the idea of him."
This seemed very sad to Erik. "What made you decide this?" He asked, frowning.
She sighed. "That is a little too personal," she said, whereupon Erik apologized, and then she changed the subject. Rising from her chair, she regarded him and said a little loudly, "Well, you'll be needing some clothes, won't you?"
Erik looked down at himself. Yes, apparently he did need some new clothes.
Joelle took out a scrap of paper and wrote down Erik's sizes as he dictated. "Did you want a new mask, too? Or are you giving that up?"
"I must have a new mask." Erik said, trying his hardest to conceal the emotion and eagerness in his voice.
"Very well." Joelle said, and wrote that down also. "I have a friend who can make you one custom fit, but we won't be able to see him until next week, as I will be very busy. We'll find a temporary substitute until then." Someone threw a pebble at the window. Joelle seemed not notice. She folded the list and put it in a pocket. "I'll go get these things now," she said as she put on a hat and matching gloves. "There's a piano in the closet," she said as she buttoned her last glove and opened the door. "I'll return as soon as I can."
