Disclaimer: Please don't sue. I don't own POTO... All I own is an overactive imagination.

Summary: Continuation of Dilemmas. ErikRaoul slash fic.

Warning(s): homosexual content, slash!

Pairing(s): ErikRaoul

A/N: Well, someone brought it to my attention that they were acting kind of OOC…. well, I agree completely, they are. Now the question would be, what am I going to do about it? To tell you the truth, I have no idea. More than likely, I'll just keep writing the way I have been and maybe, just maybe if I write a different fic, then I'll have to pay better attention to characterization. But until then, I hope you enjoy and please don't forget to review. For all I care, just write "hello!"

Thanks for those who already reviewed the other fics and sorry this one took forever, school was ending and finals and moving to my own place was crazy.

Will this one have a plot? Well I don't know yet, it's gotta go somewhere that's for sure.

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The Hardest Thing

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By: Lucifer Rosemaunt

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Last Time:

"I was also hoping that," Raoul couldn't believe what he was about to say and had to look away again. He was starting to find that corner very interesting, "since that's already a habit, that you would continue the other pattern that's formed with our meetings."

Erik immediately knew what he was referring to. He looked toward the same corner and found that it was indeed very interesting to look at. He could feel a blush starting to emerge. It was the same thing he had been contemplating before Raoul awoke.

He just couldn't get into bed with a naked Raoul.

Could he?

-.-

Raoul couldn't believe he had just asked the phantom to join him in bed, but it was for his health, well at least partly. Erik's home was underground and rather chilly. Another body in the bed would provide the much needed warmth that Raoul wanted. He voiced these thoughts out loud, trying to seem reasonable instead of desperate and move away from the strangely perverted feeling he got when he had asked Erik to join him in bed.

The only reason he had yet to pull the blanket up over his head and try to forget he ever asked was the fact that Erik was actually considering it.

And Erik was truly considering it. The Vicomte had made a very good point. Although he was used to the temperature under the opera house, he was certain that the Vicomte would surely feel cold. That was the reason why Erik had added two extra blankets over the blonde when he had been unconscious.

He was definitely leaning towards jumping in bed with him, but at the last moment, he looked toward the music room which was still in the mess he had left it in earlier. It was that vision of destruction that made him remember who he was and what he did. He was a monster. He destroyed things. He didn't deserve the things he wanted. He slowly brought his hand up and gently touched the white porcelain mask that rested upon his face. He couldn't have the Vicomte. He couldn't because in the end, he destroyed everything that he wanted and had. That fact was perfectly clear, though he may love Raoul (which he still hadn't completely admitted to himself), it would never work out. How could it? The blonde had a life outside of the Opera Populaire; in fact, there was no more Opera Populaire since he had burned it down.

With that last thought, he was certain that whatever had passed between them wouldn't work. There was no longer a reason to be in the same city, much less the same building. Erik had heard before the night of Don Juan Triumphant that the Chagny's were leaving Paris, and now that he thought about it, he had heard Raoul's mother ramble on about what better care Raoul could have in the main estate and away from a city like Paris. Erik wondered what Raoul was planning. He was pursuing a phantom while in the process of leaving the city.

Erik finally looked at Raoul and saw that the blonde was nervously fidgeting with the blanket.

Raoul stared at his hands. It was déjà vu all over again. At first, it always seemed like the phantom would acquiesce to his requests, but then his eyes would harden and then, well, the last time he had been banished from Erik's sight while injured. He followed Erik's eyes towards the music room and saw that his organ had been destroyed. He was about to comment upon it, but he realized that the phantom was deep in thought, and since Erik's expression seemed quite dark, he thought against speaking. It must have been devastating for the phantom to see his organ destroyed, Raoul decided. That organ was the only thing really keeping Erik company and sane, well at least relatively sane. The organ was Erik's life. Music and talent consumed his very being and waking hours.

When he finally realized that, Raoul looked at Erik and realized that he was about to be rejected again. Raoul really wasn't anything. He had nothing to offer Erik now that the Opera House had burned down. But... but, Erik didn't know he was rebuilding it. Erik didn't know that he had already started to rebuild the very thing that he loved. The only problem now was the burning question that if Raoul had any place in Erik's life once music and opera were back in it. Christine had only been a part of his world because she was music and she was the opera. She would surely be brought back and then he'd have competition... again.

He would lose the battle, he was sure of it. Place him against music, opera, and Christine and he was certain to lose the competition for Erik's attention. He was starting to realize just how absurd his infatuation was.

And that was the conclusion Raoul ended up with. It must be an infatuation. He had thought it love. He had thought that he would be willing to do anything for the phantom, but he figured that he must have just been blinded by lust or something. He was on rebound from Christine (that was it); and he easily ignored the fact that he had been the one to break the whole engagement and relationship off. He didn't need to be attached again so soon when the last relationship he had failed.

He would not and did not love the phantom and he would kindly retract his comment, or rather the request he made. Surely the phantom would understand that he had simply been hurting from Christine's betrayal and Erik had been the only person he could have turned to. He saw no need to be rude since the phantom had been inordinately kind to him which was against his very nature.

Raoul could barely ignore the pain he felt when denying his emotions, but he was too afraid to be hurt again and would push the pain down for as long as he was able. He would just have to learn to live without a relationship that was doomed to end.

Erik had silently watched as Raoul seemed to think things over, and when the Vicomte finally looked up to meet his eyes, he could swear he felt his heart breaking one more time. There was nothing in that gaze that had been lingering in his mind every waking and sleeping moment these past few days. All he saw was a sort of resolve, from what he could only guess, and a detached openness one usually reserves for acquaintances. So Raoul had made his decision before Erik could make his. So the blonde had seen him for the monster that he was? That was fine, Erik decided.

He had wanted to make sure that the Vicomte no longer had those types of thoughts and feelings towards him, but he felt a little disappointed and hurt that the Vicomte beat him to the act itself. The phantom had struggled back and forth with these emotions for the last days and in a few seconds Raoul had decided to relinquish all feeling he had of him. It was painful and Erik became angered with the thought. So the boy was exactly like Christine. He was nothing but a fickle, spoiled brat who knew nothing of the meaning of love and loyalty.

Erik sneered at Raoul and before Raoul could say anything, Erik spoke in his normal mocking tone, "No need to beg, Vicomte. I will have to decline. I only bed whores once. I have only loved once."

And before he could see the expression on Raoul's face, he turned and walked towards the deeper rooms of the cellar to continue what he had been doing before the Vicomte had invaded his home, finding his solitude (which he never really had to look for since it always seemed to find him). Once walking past a corner and he was sure Raoul could not see him, Erik leaned heavily against the wall. He hated Raoul at that moment. But moreso, he hated himself. It was best if they did not meet again. It would be better. Raoul would be off to who knows where and Erik would be left to die under the very building that ever gave him a so-called life.

It used to be easy, Erik mused. He used to be able to detach himself from society. To keep himself an arm's length away from any other human being with the exception of Madame Giry. It did help that most of population also avoided him, but he had never needed the company. Now, alone in a cold passageway of his own home, he realized the hardest thing for him now would be to keep the darkness that once consumed him at bay. He had walked away from light and straight into the deepest pits of loneliness. He would let Raoul find his way out and he would let Raoul leave from his home forever. There was no reason to pain himself further when whatever they would have shared had been fated to disaster and more heartache.

His plan to keep Raoul away had ended its hiatus and was now fully in effect, to Erik's dismay.

.-.-.

Raoul was in shock. He hadn't been expecting that at all. He was expecting a rejection but not that cold, harsh demeanor. The Vicomte stared dumbly at the phantom's retreating form.

He tried to think of the upside of the whole situation. Erik had set him free from any restraints. He had wanted to be free and the phantom had given him the opportunity before things got too out of hand, before breaking their connection would be harder.

He slowly got up from the bed and slowly began to put on clothes that were still damp. He could no longer feel the cold or his sickness. It vanished into the hazy numbness that had fallen over his mind when Erik had left. It was the sort of numb confusion he felt before he realized that Christine had never truly loved him. It had been after the incident when this whole fiasco had started.

Christine had kissed Erik. Well, she had kissed who he thought was just a phantom, the Phantom.

She had kissed him and he then felt the burning jealousy of watching someone you love get kissed by a girl you knew would never be good for him. He was certain that she would never love him like he loved... wait, he didn't love the phantom. He didn't, Raoul pushed those thoughts from his mind, pushed the pain he felt whenever Erik popped into his mind in the back of his heart. This was the second time he was leaving this lair and leaving because his heart had been broken. Again, Raoul corrected himself, he couldn't have had his heart broken because he had never loved the phantom.

Somehow, he found himself upstairs, in the opera house itself. Walking outside, he barely registered that the rain had decreased to a drizzle, but then again, as he got on his horse, he barely registered that he could feel anything at all. The horse, only slightly bothered by the rain, trotted its way home with no direction from Raoul. He looked up at the gray skies ignoring the fact he couldn't quite keep his eyes open because of the rain. So much for staking his claim at the opera house. He had not more claim. He just might retract the money, but he knew that he never would.

Raoul couldn't feel and couldn't think. He couldn't comprehend how everything kept returning to heartache, returning to rejection and denial.

He rode all the way home and didn't fully hear his mother complaining to him. He didn't really remember changing his clothes to something that should have warmed him and kept the cold at bay. He couldn't feel the fire that the maid had started in his room's fireplace.

And as he got back into bed to hopefully forget all about this second incident, he detachedly commented to no one in the room, "It seems that not all my tears have been cried."

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A/N: Don't forget to R/R (Read and Review)!

Okay, not the best work ever, and I'm starting to now realize that I should have just put all these stories into chapters of one story so that you don't have to go looking for which was before which. Too late now, but I might start the next one like that. Not this one though (why? I don't know, I just don't feel like it.)

My grammar sucks a lot right now. I don't understand why, but I've been bogged down by work and my writing has been so intermittent half the time I need to re-read what I wrote in the previous chapters. Sorry about that. Sorry it took so long to update, too. It's not that long, but the next installment will be longer (chapter-wise and plot-wise hopefully). No more of this crappy angst (okay, maybe not 'no more') but more action to go along with it! I had really meant for them to get together in the end of this one, but it just didn't happen.

But thanks to those who reviewed – reviews remind me that I have a story that people actually read.