Chapter 58 Drugs
"Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it." Fyodorov, Bel Canto, a man who taught himself to become the perfect audience
I HAVE OFFICALLY FINISHED MY SCHOOL LIFE FOREVER! NO MORE GOING BACK EVER! (except for exams…how scary is that?)
I have a suggestion to you all, I know many of you are fellow readers/cameos in the wonderful naomipoe's "Attack of the Muses" if you don't already read this phic I demand you do, its 5 stars and a definite laugh and a half. Also definitely look at Phantom Companions (the best Phantom/phangirl phic ever) and The Last First Kiss by Wandering Child, incredible EC tale with a very cool twist.
Hello my loverly readership! Josh sends his thanks, he now understands why I love writing this phic so much. I told him he could come back in a few chapters or so to perform the next instalment of Pre-Chapter entertainment, so look out (get a bomb shelter ready). Now I've had a couple of people complain about my pre-chapter scribbles, and to be quite frank, if you don't like them, don't waste my time telling me to get rid of them. I know there have been a few lately and I enjoy writing them. They're a current time release rather than a phic release (that makes sense to me, but I don't know about the rest of you). What ones I (or Josh) do write from now on will be more spaced out because I finally managed to sort out my plot (and it was difficult, let me tell you) but really, they're only a bit of harmless fun, written both because my muses came and bashed me over the head with a stick and because the chapters they were a part of I couldn't figure out what else was to happen in them. So there.
Regamivew replygagizmos
Sapphire-aria: I am not romantic! Never have been never will be. Thank my year 10 English teacher and the appalling Romeo and Juliet movie for that. Besides, what was wrong with the seduction in the last chapter?
Phantomluvr: Again? You've got to be kidding me! Yes the rabbits are odd...and my brother wants to know how old you are
Mlle. Opera Ghost: Thanks! That boat thing sounds like fun!
UndermyAngelofMusicsWing: Welcome back! I hope you got through it all, tis a hard task all in one shot, as to the family, forst chapter, ah the wonders of having a plot device double to cover my tail-feathers, are you a fellow Aussie!
MissDusk: Thanks! I was wondering who that was from, welcome aboard, you will find Naomi's stuff under Attack of the Muses, I should bring Christine into it, I should be sooner or later...eventually...after exams...
eriksangelofvoice: Josh will be back with more, he just got inspiration then, so hang out a few chapters and hell reapear. I finished the scene there because I dont like writing the really dark stuff, I just cant get it to flow, so i stick, as naomi calls it, with the half porn (at least I think thats what she said) ecause the power of suggestion is sometimes better than the deed itself
CheetoBandito15: Hello and welcome. what have you got against my cameo chapters? Ok they are rather stupid, but reading them in time to the phic when you have to wait for updates probably adds to the feel than reading it all at once (which Im very impressed that you managed btw) cameo chapters dont always make sense to iuncameoed people I guess. thanks for the French tip, I did find Mon chat on the net but I decided on mon minou (which apparently is kitten) because i liked the look of it better (I'm odd when it comes to words) and I figured Erik already had Ayesha.
StakeMeSpike04: Josh thinks its cool you think he's one cool cat, he'll be back soon i promise
Ethalas Tuath'an: Josh is 16, two years younger than me, I ended the chapter there because I cant write those scenes that well, (gasp! It's true!) well ive tried and its just messy, so I stick to half way and rely on suggestion and imagination to take you the rest of the way.
Cap'n Meg: Yes you were, I told J you'd been there from the start, my family is very musical (says me who cant play an instrument to save her life...unless you count the cymbals)
Phantomsecretlove: Ah, so loyal you are to review my minion
Phantomlover05: Thanks! welcome to the DBCA I saw you joined
mrs. malfoy: Dont have a shower! Have a spa bath!
PJBG: Erik Leroux, always Leroux, nothing beats the original, i just asked him very politely to use Webber's songs which he grudgingly agreed to, Gerik is delicious, but Im the original bookworm.
daughterofdarkness87: Yup, it really was is yeah he's my brother, i didnt write a single part of it apart from changing the spelling mistakes.
Reltistic: My brother takes one look at me on the computer and claims I need therapy...I'm inclined to agree. Josh says thanks, he'll be back sometime soon, and Shaun says "'ello"
Phantomfreak07: I know! Hmm...I was wondering where Gerry had wandered off to...oh well, still have Erik(evil laugh)
Sirrius's Sister: Thanks!
Fantome de l'Opera: Josh says thanks, he's a strawberry blonde, apart from the time we dyed his hair black to play Danny in Grease, what's scary is we used to never hang out together when we were younger and now we've discovered we're so alike!
naomipoe: Josh made you laugh out loud! How come I cant do that! J says hi, he apologizes for any crude or awful things that may have run through your head after reading his thing (actually thats me saying it, but i know he'd apologize sooner or later...may still crack bad jokes though) You did help! Your cookie was brilliant!
Des Ires: Did you know I hadnt actually considerd someone getting burned...ok I dont often think that far ahead, a whole new door has opened up for me...wow...(falls through the trap door Erik contructed and into a dark pit) Oh great
Twistedeverywayforerik: Wow...that was random, I dot want kids i dont think, I just dont handle co dependancy very well (probably because I love so deeply when i do love that loosing someone would kill me) and I couldnt handle the Barbiedoll Bob the Builder stage...eurgh!
La Phantom: Hey! You studied Freud! I've got a psych exam in oh...11 days...should study, never fear, blackmail will appear!
MasqueradingThroughLife: Hands off my Erik! J is impressed he scared you that badly
Miss Black Shadow: Sit in a wierd stunned silence...its good for the brain, J thinks its awesome you want to hear his CD, he's gonna be a part of the Guiness World record attempts in a week, most people playing an acoustic guitar rift at one time all unplugged.
Ahem...chapter Fifty Eight
Adriana was whirling around the house by the lake, dressed in the finally completed Eternal Dawn as Erik emerged from the room, yawning sleepily. He leaned against the doorframe in amusement, watching as she spun her arms out, tossing them over her head to allow the long sleeves to trail behind her. He smiled as she started to sing a tune she often whistled as she worked, she was as bad as he was when it came to having a song in her head.
"Dancing bears,
Painted wings,
Things I almost remember,
And a song, someone sings,
Once upon a December."
"So you finally finished it," he stated, silken voice purring over his tongue Adriana stumbled, and spun,
"Gah!" she gasped, "Oh, yeah, like it?"
"It suits you admirably," Erik purred, taking her hand and brushing his lips across her fingers, she giggled and flung her arms around his neck,
"Thankyou," she murmured, slipping her tongue inside his mouth, Erik wrapped his long arm around her waist and raised his other hand to run his fingers through her straight silky hair. Each kiss they shared grew more intoxicating and spiced, like a drug to which they were both addicted. (Dammit! More drugs! Always with the addictions! Erik: Will you make me pancakes? Authoress: No. Erik: Please? Authoress: Why should I? Erik: -undisclosed information- Authoress: Be right back!)
Adriana sighed and buried her face in Erik's neck, having to stand on the tips of her toes to reach that high, "Why did you have to be so tall?" she muttered, Erik's chest shook with laughter, "You come up with the strangest observations," he chuckled, she shrugged, "Part of my makeup,"
"I see,"
"Said the blind man to his deaf son," Adriana lowered herself onto the soles of her feet and rested her head on Erik's breast, flinching as her toes cramped, "Ohuhow,"
"Poor little Wraith," Erik taunted, still running his hands through her hair.
"Poor Wraith indeed," she paused carefully, "I went and got the newspapers Nadir brought this morning, there's been another attack,"
"Again?" Erik pulled away and looked at her troubled face, "That's the seventeenth so far,"
"Eighteenth," she corrected sadly, "Monique, the second youngest daughter of Lord Casterig." She swallowed, "She was only seventeen,"
"His aim grows higher," Erik noted, "Do they still believe it's me?"
Adriana nodded, "They're talking about reopening investigations, but the managers put their foot down and said that there was no way investigations would be disrupting the Christmas season and that the police could wait until at least mid way through January before ripping up the stage,"
"Amazing, they did something right for once," Erik murmured, he looked down at Adriana, "This is important to you, isn't it?"
She shrugged in reply, "How can it not be? My life is down here with you, and no one has my permission to take that." She shivered slightly in his arms, "Plus I read the coroner's reports, no one deserves to die like that."
Erik winced silently, he had both seen and performed excruciating torture and death on innocents, but the fetishes of this copy of himself running around turned even the Phantom's stomach. "Then Monique was just the same as the rest?"
"Ish," Adriana replied quietly, "Not so many scratches and cuts this time, it was done only a few streets from her families townhouse, one of the servants was visiting his beau and cut through an alley, and," she paused and pulled away from the comfort of Erik's arms, "Hang on, they quoted it in the paper," she ducked beside a chair and hunted amidst a stack of papers until she sound the one she wanted, she struggled up from her long skirt and sleeves and handed the sheet to Erik. The Phantom accepted the page and cast his golden eyes over it briefly he read aloud, (yes the papers are written in French, but that's a language I don't speak. I am working on Dutch, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Latin though. I can read languages better than I can speak them, so we have to employ a little poetic licence and ask Erik to read them in English). "While walking back to my masters from the home of an acquaintance, I slipped along a back alley to shorten my trip. With only the light of a small lantern, I saw a huddled shape bending over a stretched out form. The huddled shape was muttering in a strange language to himself, for I discerned from his voice that he was a man, a mixture of broken French and other words he was crooning, "Payment in blood, payment for my defeat…" then several phrases in a harsh tongue which I could not identify…and then he whispered to the form beside him, "Blood little Monique your blood, your blood draws him in. You are beautiful now, like Pygmalion I have shaped you to beauty and I now love you for it." At his words I started, for I served a young lady by that name, I stepped forward and held my lantern high, its pitiful light illuminated the torn body of my mistress, a stiff rope around her neck and her dress slashed open. I half choked, then looked to the huddled shape, it was a man, covered by a white mask and smeared red with blood, he sneered and spat at me, then whipped a cloak over his shoulders and ran, pausing to throw some kind of white powder into my face, for I grew dizzy, and the last thing that greeted my eyes were his midnight blue eyes laughing balefully at me before I fell to the ground."
"And then the police found them," Adriana finished. Erik nodded and lowered the paper.
"Well, what are we to do?"
Adriana shrugged helplessly, "I don't know, every time I think I find something to follow, some other piece of information stuffs it up," she ground her teeth in frustration, twisting the sheer pink gauze of her sleeves around her fingers, "I'm missing something, I know I am, but I cant figure out what! I've been through it all six times this morning and I still don't know what it is!"
Erik raised an eyebrow and tossed the paper casually onto the stack, "Then why were you dancing?" he asked, Adriana rubbed her hand over her forehead, massaging her temples, "That was to try and help me think, as well as getting rid of this damn headache,"
"Ah," Erik held out his arms and closed around her in a firm embrace, he kissed her temples, cold lips adding respite to the pounding in Adriana's skull, "You will think of it, my Wraith," he assured her, she sighed and rested her blonde head against his fine frame, linking her arms loosely about his waist, "Eventually," she closed her eyes, enjoying the hug. Above her, Erik smiled at down at her warm, plump figure, she was unbelievable at times, even sweet in her odd tempestuous way. He kissed the top of her head, breathing in the vanilla, plum and nutmeg scent of her hair and gazed across the lake, his golden eyes hardened. Nothing was more persistent than a phangirl on a mission, and nothing more vengeful and dangerous than a man who didn't exist…the mimic would pay.
Pygmalion is a man from Greek folklore, he was a sculptor who carved a statue so beautiful he fell in love with it and prayed to Venus to bring his statue to life, which, touched by the depth of his love, she did.
And I had to post the rest of Fyodorov's quote, it's the most brilliant speech, "Don't you think? It's a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see."