Trigger warning: Approaches a topic of murder and violation (rape) being discussed, it's a bit gritty and will continue to be. Please read onwards at your own discretion.

If you chose to do so, I hope that you are able to enjoy this "special". Many thanks, Enigma. :)

(It truly isn't my intention of making such Erik specials so dark, but it just seems to come naturally! My apologies.)

His Nadir - Chapter 15

Delirious. That's what he was. Erratic seconds passing in a flurry of emotions that were so hard to describe as they flittered past his mind's gates. If he were a conductor, his hands would tremble with the baton, while waving it to and fro as if possessed.

Yes. His rationality had taken leave of his senses, and oh – was that truly her perfume? For one glorious beat, he could imagine her adoring smile simply gifted to the monster at her side. Erik's concern would truly rely solely on the strength of his heart, the rapidly pulsing unlike the agile muscle it had been. If he dropped dead now and one peeled back his mask, a grin would lie still on his corpse. Not that his face was much different to that of a three week dead carcass. No – there was no need for death when his living mate rested her lily-pale hand on his arm. Such delicate little fingers, gentle ringlets that asked for a scrap of attention…Erik would be so gentle for her, if only he was permitted such liberties as touching her beautiful curls, resting a beastly broken hand upon hers.

So much divided them.

But beside him, her height only coming up near his shoulder – dare he say it – ever so sweetly contrasting with his looming stature. What a perfect dream. He barely noticed her slight trembling and a bitter thought entered his mind.

What did she have to be so terrified of? She had not seen the monster, so why did she shake? Why did she turn away at the sight of his soft caress?

Because she knows, even without the mask. Because your touch is made of death and death is all you are. Because she will never love you, even if you could bestow the world on her doorstep. Only creatures of light are eternally beautiful.

He did not deny it.

Christine only left his side, slipping her arm from his to inspect a flower. It was acceptable really when she looked so at home there, crouching in the vibrant grass. Beauty admiring beauty.

"What flower is this?" it was almost endearing to see her try and hide that curiosity. Such a casually said query, but oh so revealing of his dear petite rose.

I know you, Christine. Do you think I would so miss the sharpness of your mind?

"A common weed," the words were harsher than he intended.

Would you want the weed removed, Madame? The beastly little thing that ruins the garden? Memories pushed at the corners of his mind, and with great force he focused on the silky top she wore, her legs protected by jeans that provided no relief at all.

From his sharpness, the little pout turned her lips an unkind fuchsia pink. Turning his eyes away lest they reveal some of the rolling emotions he took a great deal to supress, he was thankful for the coldness that was pervasive in his biology.

"It's pretty, what's it called?" her voice betrayed lightness that told him she ignored his brusqueness.

Yes, she was an angel.

"Hedge Blindweed. It crawls through hedges as the name suggests," he dryly commented, unable to stop drifting closer to her, "Do you not wish for it to be removed? Weeds are a truly hideous blight on the garden,"

Liar. Liar. Liar.

Her frown deepened, fingers delicately tracing the edges of the white bloom. His heart triumphed as he stood unnoticed only a few centimetres away. It was not a game for frightening the girl, but a way of acclimatising her of his proximity. If they were to spend this life together, it would be best he started as soon as he was able – never mind he had already begun. His mind was impatient, with each smile desiring more from her. Needing to take her hand, instead of asking, asking, asking. Asking allowed rejection. Rejection, the pain his muscle within refused to be tortured by.

She had made the mistake, offering such gentleness, such proximity and cruelly ripping it away, on that terribly harsh night only a few days ago. No! He could not allow such torture, tantalising beauty who had drawn so close to recoil in horror. Horror he had spent a lifetime being hurled. No, not from her, his beauty, his Christine who he cared so tenderly for. Who couldn't look past the smallest bit revealed flesh.

No, she was different. She. Was. Different.

Was it wrong to be so wounded by the cruelty from a goddess? That malicious haze had taken his senses and demanded his recompense, show her what he had suffered – suffered from humanity that recoiled in horror.

His world was paradise. Yet all she could see were the bars that enclosed her.

Then she would see the bars, again and again until she no longer wished to see them. Until they turned as invisible as they were in reality.

His eyes shuttered at the thought of her misery, yet he knew that once she was past this stage of mourning, she would bloom. She would.

She would.

They wandered through the ripening vineyards, him regaling her of Greek myths to do with Dionysius, the origins of the fruits, where they travelled once he sold them for a reasonable price. Christine absorbed this information eagerly, shoulders slowly becoming more relaxed and vibrating less during the process of the afternoon's walk.

A pleasant surprise, to say the least.

He tried to retain the bubble of pleasure within the confines of his mind, yet slowly, he felt it seep into his bloodstream. Sensation was amplified, the tingles of pins and needles humming through him. He worked out eventually that it was warmth that heated his veins sufficiently. Had he ever been 'warm' before?

He'd felt the waspish sting of sand in the eastern continents, the sun's harsh burn on his neck, painful pricks of humiliated tears, wicked flakes of a cigarette stub buried into the puckered flesh of his back, the joys of the searing heat of blood dripping from wounds from the vicious whip of leather. Even the creeping age in his joints that took hours for the aches to recede. Those had been all sorts of heat, he presumed. Coldness was a pleasant alternative to any of them.

But this warmth was so un-seemingly pleasant, so unusually unharmful that he wasn't impartial to it at all.

He vowed silently to himself as he looked at the angel on his arm, I swear I will do all I must to make her mine. Forever.

So often it tempted him. So often, to be a man, to eat, sleep and breath as she did. Take that soft hand and place death's kiss upon her fragile skin. To lull her into bliss and look her rapture in her divine glory. To close the insufferable distance that oft became his saving grace, even if that 'grace' was for a demon.

To offer her a ring, as sacred as one would wear the crucifix for eternal devotion promised to their deity.

Yet her scorn would send Charon to collect him, her fear would send him plummeting to the grasp of hell and no longer could he worship his Christine. How hard he tried to cater to her every whim! Nothing ever seemed to create more than a smile that he would be able to carve in the face of her mannequin. No, she did not hide the look of desolation in her eyes, as if it would make him foolishly regret all the things that had made her be brought to him. But her bright anger would continue to flash in dismay, her long defiant trips within his domain, ever trying to forget her present circumstances.

However, as much as he could see the faults of his plans, to bring her – even perhaps as a bride – to his country mansion in the idyllic English countryside, isolation had seemed to have given him some benefits. Of course, no more distractions…That puny princeling had been distraught. The petty tears he had sniffled from the camera feeds had filled him with a malicious sense of joy. All those trinkets no longer adorned her, curving pieces of garish metal and tack that dared to encroach on HIS silver throat to wield. He had mined that voice with the dedication and care that an artist would take years to finish his most glorious art piece. She was his Don Jaun Triumphant. He the Modern Prometheus. His creation of living flesh and bone, graced with the most imperial voice. It had been HE who had defied the Almighty, who dared to create overstepping the bounds of nature and would reap the benefits of her love.

But once again, he in the gift of giving her life and a whole soul once more, meant he did not have the power over whom she loved.

One day. All good things came with time of course. As long as his hideousness was never revealed to her, his angel would have a chance of falling in love with the illusion. No, with the reality of a man.

Erik had only needed her to laugh and it was over. Mirth lighting her eyes of chestnut and swirling curls. The radiant blush of her cheeks. She a bedazzling ray of beauty. All he could think of was how perfect she'd be in his perfect garden of Eden, in the far away continent of England.

And his ruse was over. No longer could he deny the sweat on his hands that belonged to the rushing of his heart, the faintest tremble of her shoulders that forced him to hide in the shadows and watch her as she travelled home. She needed a new coat. Lightweight, waterproof. Floral.

Would she notice if her old one disappeared and another turned up in its stead? A red bow would adorn it, just like that scarf she would hold in her hands on her bed. That was when the tears would start to fall, the prayers of desperation would begin and it was all he could do to stop himself from reaching out and lull her to sleep with his voice. To make the lines of her despair fade into the ones of youth that she so little used. But it was the day, the day she stopped to look at him was the first time he had ever saw the truth.

She was the one.

He had often wondered whether there were true soul mates in the world. Whether two humans had ever been crafted before time's edge and their atoms would collide when they were made of a living being. Obviously, it was not something he tried to dwell on, but it was a circulating thought ever since he had come across such a 'theory'.

Was it a surprise that he had planned things? That one day, he would teach her for that voice which so subtly begged for aid, that he would scoop her from the ground as one would rescue a precious, budding flower that was about to be trampled? One look, one laugh, one smile. Compassion that had he never had felt the taste for. He had felt it as if his soul had just carved the space for another to exist in tandem with him. Erik would have sworn the earth froze in that very moment he saw her.

They had met eyes, so long ago she would have been unlikely to remember. Why, she had just been a naive little girl! So lost, so helpless – god it had almost shocked him at how easy for a beast such as him would be able to magic her away right then and there, on the very fantasy she had loved.

How so many years later, they would meet again and his heart would wake that long forgotten tendril of connection so strong that it burned him. He had been so cruel at first, but it had been necessary. He wouldn't lose her again! She had been the reason that he hid for so many years after he ventured into the 'new world', endured the endless lecturing of the greying law enforcer, all that one day his heart would be restored in less than a moment. A world shattering moment it had been.

He decided that he disliked America. Too ungoverned, busy, raucous places instead of the European peace of music and sunlight. Smog choked you, streetlamps blinded you, skyscrapers like glacial shards of concrete monstrosity entrapped you. People spoke too.

Erik decided he did not like this bit of America at all. Perhaps he would drive so far that he would simply meet the end of the world and at last he would have some piece and quiet. He had not been lacklustre however, in his year away from the esteemed 'Daroga' – a nuisance he had been glad of shedding if he would be able to make any edgeway at all in the new world. The police inspector would have made things entirely more difficult for him had he been here, checking his business and sniffing at his highly-classified paperwork. Slowly, with a few threats, mysterious disappearances of some government officials which did not suit his pursuits, Erik's interwoven business begun in the US. Erik's fondness of the temperament in England had made him pursue in making a secondary (or third if you counted the basement suite under the Opera) home there after seeking the thrill of the far western world. England had been the idyllic peaceful haven that appealed to a deeper recess he did not like to think about; where most retired to the sleepy sights of Spain he would retire in a surly grey country that didn't even have the right temperament for many delicious items he could produce. However, he had indulged in the idea, knowing that one day he would be thankful for it. He had actually bought the land for that maid of his – and knew that the peace there would serve as a balm on a wounded soul. As much as he disliked humanity in general, the girl had been a unique case. Erik had felt partially responsible for her, given the situation he had been involved in. Was it pity that lay in his heart for her? The fact that such a timid thing could be so poorly treated often stirred a restless anger in him.

He had a fondness for broken things, as much as he did beautiful. He shuddered to think further about such curious tendencies, however.

But he had supervised, while he had spent the five years in France, for the creation of the mansion on his land. It was in preparation when he would truly 'retire' or that whimsical fantasy of another sharing it with him had been impossible to ignore. In comparison to England, America had the bustling world that he had perhaps been striving to find. France was France – it's artistic tranquillity rarely changed. Yet it still had been Europe and Erik had tasted its fruits for long enough. It had been nearing his end stay in one of the cities, he had long forgotten which for nearly all of them had similar characteristics, when on that ordinary day he met her.

The girl had the step of youth. A touch more than the rest of the cohorts her age. It seemed to be of some sort of school trip to the local mall, probably doing an insipid survey or some such on the people that visited there, but the girl so caught up in her daydream had wondered aimlessly far. So much so that she had managed to travel to the far corners with the most beautiful pieces of architecture for the eyes of someone who valued beauty over purpose. Silly girl! She should know better than to approach the outside world, rather to report herself to the staff of the area.

She reminded him of a stray duckling that would be maliciously carried away by some winged-beast or gulped by a lurking sea monster – perhaps even siren – and that would be the end of that! But here she was, toddling along, looking at the magnificent architecture and scribbling doodles of it on her whiteboard with a stubby pencil. There were some hideously round glasses (that was most likely the cheapest option a penniless person could afford) perched on her button nose and a few curls rebelliously avoiding the hairtie. Erik found himself stopping on his way out, the sight of her more weighted than the collected debt in his pocket.

The girl was humming softly to herself (too softly to hear whether she was in tune or not, yet showing promise), only to plop herself down on a bench and starting on an intricate arch that acted as frame to a small mosaic; one that acted as one of his many doors. His fingers twitched as he watched. She was getting it wrong – all wrong! She was completely missing the keystone and making the arch too wide and too flat. Completely out of alignment. It was meant to be a lancelet, not an equilateral – oh dear. Erik squinted slightly, perhaps it wasn't so terrible. It needed work; it was not as good as his sketches. The girl obviously had a keen eye of an observation, he noted as he heard the stern lines of a cross being made over the drawing. The tip of her tongue had disappeared. Instead, a face of complete disgust reigned when she looked to the arch, and then looked at her crossed out drawing again with intense concentration. She had no eraser. On closer investigation he saw that the hairtie was only an elastic band.

She screamed impoverished.

"You'll want to make the arch narrower. It was far too wide the first time, girl," the words were out before he could stop, the act of ventriloquism coming naturally from where he hid in the shadows.

The girl jerked up, the dreamy haze melting from her eyes. But instead of looking frightened, a curious sort of look prevailed her features. He almost thanked the musical nature of his voice then and there.

"Why can't I see you?" she asked in a sweet bell tone, looking around in their deserted corner of the mall for his shadow. His eyes narrowed at the intrusion; how did she even think that she would get to see the likes of him! Hah!

The words, 'I'm a monster' almost sprung from his lips in a mad glee, imagining the girl would run away in horror back to the group of children – where she belonged – but his next thoughts were interrupted by her tinkling voice, "Are you an invisible spirit? Papa says that they can haunt buildings,"

Spirit?

That was a new one.

His lip curled under his mask. Yes, a spirit was all he could ever be! How kind of the ignorant child to say so. Oafish brat. His fingers curled preparing to leave the child who so assumed such things. The girl could use a healthy dose of reality. Abandonment was not a thing to be taken lightly. Nor was running away.

"Please wait! I'm sorry," the girl could seem to feel his fading presence. Erik's cold eyes narrowed as he looked over his shoulder.

"Can you…Can you help me with my drawing? I wanted to get a good sketch before I have to go back," big brown eyes pleaded with him from afar.

He had nowhere to be and he found himself turning back to her, the clenching in his muscles already knowing it was a mistake.

"Yes Child, I am a ghost. I know all about this place," his rasping voice took the impression of the spirit she so described. He could almost see the disbelief on the teacher's face as she later regaled the class of her adventure with a phantom, "You need to make sure that the keystone is pointed, mimicking the arch," he added.

Her eyes took on a bright glimmer at the sound and for a moment he was fumbling for the exact word to describe them.

Angelic.

Listen to himself! Erik choked back a snort – had he a nose to complete the action with things would have been a different matter. When had he ever described something earthly as 'angelic'. Music was angelic. Opera could be angelic. The final reveal of a grand opera house birthing the world with splendour for years to come, was angelic.

"Were you here when this was built?" once again, her eyes flittered across the deserted area, lips pouting in annoyance.

He allowed himself a mirthful smile, feeling the mask scratch at his face with slight irritation. Damnit. He'd have to reapply the softener again. Perhaps a bearded mask would work better. At least then when hiding in the shadows he'd be allowed some comfort. Not that he deserved much human comfort, for he was a monster through and through. He felt the blood dripping from his finger-tips- even the compressing gloves did not stop the illusion. He felt the blood splattering against his mask, the creases of it mimicking human perfection. How the red ichor had dried under his nails. Humans didn't wear masks. No, the kind they wore was concealed in their flesh, tongues and shifting eyes. Erik once put a stop to that with his bare hands.

But he couldn't imagine doing such a thing to an innocent – she reminded him of the maid. But more...Vulnerable. Less shattered. A budding life that needed no tending, for it sat straight and true in the light. Something was protecting her from the harsh realities of the world; the winds that would leave a wreckage in its wake. A parent, perhaps, that was uncorrupted was the walls that surrounded her.

Was it a prison or a haven? Was it foolish or was it commendable? Ha. As if he knew! He never had the choice of seeing the world in rose tinted glasses, seeing everyone as a potential friend rather than foe.

She irked him, with those big foolish eyes, just asking to be broken. He wanted to terrify her! Roar to her that her insipidly cruel parent lied, the world was filled with monsters. Monsters waiting to hurt and maim and kill.

She would be a victim one day, he regarded her with steady eyes, noting coldly of the desperation that seemed to become apparent with each passing moment. As if the girl feared for her sanity.

Those terribly pouting lips signalled the tears gathering in her eyes.

Something in him recoiled at the pulling emotion coming from the centre of his chest. The mask only mimicked the pain as it dug in when his brows furrowed in confusion. What in the devil is this?

He didn't know what pulled him to answer once more, "Yes, I was here when it was built. I designed this place, in fact,"

He knew something was wrong when the smile – that evanescent smile – felt like the first touch of morphine to his veins. What was this drug?

The girl turned to her drawing, sketching a new outline. The angle was just a bit too sharp from his current viewpoint however, to catch what exactly she was drawing. Narrowing his eyes with gnawing frustration, he slid just a bit closer, though still within the shadow's protection to the girl.

He noted with satisfaction that it had a better shape than before with the shading being created in effective strokes and light fingers. A quick study, it seemed. What would she draw when she was older? A tanatlising curiosity told him of all the ways he could push her to reveal more about herself, or place a bug on her, using the dark web to collect her details and safely storing them away for further notice. And that voice of hers…There was potential there perhaps for an instrument to be made out of it.

A flawless, angelic voice.

A power to rival his own.

"…pirit? Spirit? Are you still there?" the wavering voice jolted him from his thoughts and with stark apprehension, he knew by then that this was a dangerous line of thought.

Though his retreating footsteps didn't echo, it may as well have because the girl sat up with a cry, "No! Wait! Please!" those eyes were quickly filling with those tears she seemed so keen to shed and a roar of anger reached her in a harsh whisper.

"Go away child! Run! Run back to civilisation, before you're taken too,"

He didn't need to look to hear the wild terror making her footsteps pound, the crash of the pencil left that careened onto the floor as she ran back the way she came.

Gone, as if she had never existed at all.

Though he himself longed to run, he only panted against the darkened wall as if it had been he who had made an escape. From the light, the pencil rolled towards him and he shifted away from it until his back reached the corner. Yet still it followed him in the darkness.

He flinched as it haltingly nudged his shoe.

For God's sake, it was just a pencil. Hardly a threat.

Erik made a sound of disgust, before reaching down. Collecting the item by holding it between two black fingers, he regarded it cautiously. White flowers dotted a magenta background, the tip far too blunt for drawing.

Hardly a threat indeed, he huffed.

Yet, instead of discarding it, he reached and tucked it in the inside pocket of his blazer.

But somehow, it was not quite a trophy.

Nadir wanted to throw the remote at the TV. A native curse brushed his mind and it took him a great deal of strength not to say out loud.

He still kept the vow of refraining from swearing. So many years he had kept it, keeping alive that childish youth that was never allowed to hear such dirty obscenities. Much less say them.

Even when Reza died, he never once swore. Never once tarnished his grief with the vow he made as a man, made parent.

Even when Rookheya's urn sat in his home and tiny needles threatened to rip him apart from grief, did he relent on his promise.

When he vowed to find the girl, even when he had to look on the man that should have become something more, did those damming words slip from his mouth. Control. Restriction. Dedication.

But he held the newspaper in his hands, and the headline read, "STOLEN SOPRANO FOUND DEAD". To his horror, a surprising image of the girl came along with it, bearing a high resemblance to the Christine Daae. He found it ever so easy to condemn such actions. Perhaps the girl had been trying to escape? Or mistakenly angered Erik too far? Both reasons were entirely plausible. The body in the image was brokenly set upon hard tarmac that had been found half submerged in the Bios, (which confirmed that Erik was indeed in France), with the signature mark of strangulation.

Garish bruises marked the female's pretty (or now deathly pale), neck and it had been snapped as a sort of morbid finish – as if Erik was truly proclaiming to the girl, "Ha! That's what you deserve!". Mud-smeared clothes that marked the girl's middle-class status were on her, as if she hadn't been permitted to change even after four and a half months, which made Nadir shudder at Erik's oafish behaviour. What struck him as odd, was the fact no sign of the lasso was there. Yet when he thought about it, such mode of killing made sense. He was a known assassin for that specific method of murdering and if others heard of a murderer with that peculiar talent of garrotting, it would put him in danger of being discovered by old forbidding enemies.

Girls got strangled all the time, Nadir was forced to admit. It was a truth that had haunted him since Clarice and that awful situation.

The article read that the body had been examined, but no signs of violation had been committed. The girl had died a virgin.

Was it terrible that he felt ashamed from the amount of relief that rushed through him at the news? That Erik wouldn't commit that atrocity, even if he had enough blood on his hands that would fill twenty buckets.

He had been offered the opportunity before, but in truth, it was that very situation which had turned Erik against his employers – Well that was a thought for another time.

He had more to focus on. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck and he knew his skin was slightly paler than usual, as he gripped the paper in his hands.

Something wasn't right. Nadir had never believed in something as the sixth sense BE (before Erik), but had come to use it far more when Erik had come into his life – hell his life had depended on it more than a few times because of Erik! Long ago he had honed his extra sense to sniff out those yellow eyes staring in the darkness, to know when a silent panther stalked him like prey, to feel when the air shifted and know that wasn't the sound of his own breathing.

Something wasn't right. Before he could ponder on exactly what was amiss with the situation, he was jolted by a vibration and a soundtrack that pierced the silence. Fumbling for his cellular device, he pressed the call button.

"Phillipe?" his voice asked gruffly, his tongue like sandpaper.

"You've heard the news about –" he coughed, "About what happened? It's gone viral," that tired tone of a sleep deprived CEO resonated. Nadir could almost see the painstaking blinks to keep awake. The poor man had most likely been woken by a frantic Raoul.

Nadir frowned, "Yes. I have,"

"And?" Philippe snapped sharply at his doubtfulness.

Nadir almost shrugged at the TV in his hotel room, "I don't like it,"

"Jesus Christ man, neither do I!" the man almost roared from the other end, "Raoul's barely holding it together!" a fist banged harshly on a wooden surface, "I haven't had a wink of sleep in God knows how long and now all we get is a news article on her bloody death, and you're telling me you don't like it?" the harsh rhetorical made him blink.

"I believe –" he started but was interrupted by another voice.

"Let me talk to him," a door closed. In an undertone, he heard from Philippe, "Sure, just don't expect any sympathy from the old geezer,"

He felt the shove of the phone and there was another slam of the door.

"Sorry about him," Raoul said harshly, not sounding apologetic at all, "What were you saying?"

Nadir looked at the article in disgust before putting it aside, "I believe, that there is something wrong,"

There was a hacking sound of laughter, "Phil was right, you're totally –" there was a sharp breath, "You know what if you're just going to dismiss this then why bother?"

Underlying all the harshness, Nadir knew the pain that was breaking the brave act. All it would take were a few words to wedge open that hairline crack. He almost regretted what he was about to do.

"I am not dismissing it, as you are so keen to believe," he enunciated carefully, "I think there is something wrong with the article,"

"What do you mean? Are those fools missing something? Isn't this what we paid you for? Tell me!" the hairline crack was widening. There was no hope of a smooth recovery now. For either of them.

"I will," he struggled to keep an even tone in battling his urge to tell the boy to calm down, sit and listen for just a few moments.

"I'm listening," Raoul snapped as a thin veneer to cover his desperation.

Nadir took in a slow breath, his jade eyes flickering to the image on the page, "What I believe, is that the body is not Christine Daae," he paused, swallowing, "I think is that she is still alive, somewhere in France,"

There was a small gasp with a sharp sound of the phone clattering to the ground. He knew then that the pits of the earth had opened from that one, tiny crack. One that they were destined to descend. Together.

Did you know that when I tried to look up 'can a noseless person snort' I only got articles of a noseless Dog called 'Sniffles' (who in my opinion looked ever so slightly demonic in the image that I saw) and others that asked whether such and such was appropriate to snort. (UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT SNORT THINGS. PERIOD. UNLESS SPEIFICALLY PESCRIBED TO YOU BY A LEGITIMATE DOCTOR FOR THAT PURPOSE) – I am not getting a law suit here … ':) So the mystery remains unknown…My guess is that they have the ability to make a noise – but it more relies on the back of your throat rather than the nasal cavity…So perhaps that's why Leroux Erik is more likely to scoff – plus it's much more elegant to say he scoffs, than snorts, right? XD I suppose that's also another reason why he does morphine by injection than any other…Uhm method. Swallowing pills is not fancy enough for Erik…IT NEEDS DRAMA! FLARE! AND VERY SHARP AND SCARY POINTY THINGS!

No. I am NOT afraid of needles. Nope. Not one bit. I'm not.

*sees needle*

*screams*

Yes, ok. Maybe slightly nervous around sharp pointy things that insert into your skin…But I'm really NOT afraid of them.

Changing topic; what I find about Erik that's interesting is that he's like me. (no, don't worry, I ain't a Punjab-ing murderer). But when I'm writing him, and those moments where's he's trying to classify what the hell he's feeling… which is done a lot in fics is also something very Asperger's syndrome. Some Autistic people find it really hard to classify their emotions. At the end of the day for example I get mad really easily, or there's something that I feel right at the centre of my heart that I can't describe, one of the processes I have to go through it wondering what it is I'm actually feeling and what's caused me to feel it. Why talking to other people helps me, because there's an outside perspective!

But in short, Erik barely feels kindness at this point, let alone knowing how to classify something he's never received. (Nadir's efforts doesn't count particularly because Erik doesn't receive it as a kindness nor knows how to describe Nadir, much less understand his 'good' motives because he never thinks anyone is going to be nice to him) So in this circumstance, it's going to be particularly difficult for Erik to even begin to know the 'good' things because he's never experienced this thing before and because he is so set against weakness. What's made him strong is cruelty, cruelty, and oh, cruelty. He observes kindness as a human fault or mortal weakness because he's used people's kindness against them and achieved a positive (for him) thing through it. Psychology 1o1 haha XD

(I got an A in Psychology for a level 2 assessment, so I know something about it, I'm not just making stuff up haha :P)

And Erik has no therapist (no Nadir does not count) and no one to help him process this. Him doing it by himself is going to be difficult with his mind swimming with the chance of poisoning these emotions that finally come from a purer source.

Some may not like the fact he's kinda nasty about meeting Child Christine. 1. He IS nasty at this point – so embittered, so un-kind, prideful, selfish (not that he gets much better haha!) and 2. in a way he's jealous of Christine's circumstances. He's had no major socialisation too, let alone meeting a child who's as 'nice' and "vulnerable" as Christine. But – this is a turning point.

Erik clings onto words sometimes, because they – in whole – epitomise and categorise what he's feeling. Once again, that trait is also Asperger's Syndrome (may know of it being called as 'high functioning' but I don't think that's a good name for it) because categorisation of things is really important. For example, he is asking why, what, how very often. He wants answers. And why? Because he wants to categorise these pieces of information he doesn't have and see how they fit into the bigger picture. Think of 3 squares, and there's one bit of information. You need to sort out which bit of information goes in which square…That's pretty similar to how it works.

I am not an Autism/Asperger's Syndrome expert, but I know how I work (ahem, mostly) and Erik, is like Albert Einstein – an eccentric genius that only lives once every millennia who's ALSO Autistic…

Sorry, trying not to ramble here! Just that this is quite a small theory and I love being able to involve this in my writing! :) I don't really think that there's an Erik who isn't autistic haha (even if they don't show it as much as others do. Thinking about Charles Dance 1990, maybe Erique Claudin 1943? Though Dance certainly had a thing for not making too much eye contact if I recall? – sorry it's been a while since I've watched it)

Personally, I don't suffer from making eye contact (not every autistic person suffers the same symptoms to the same degree), but I can certainly relate and understand many other things of his personality!

(P.s Anyone like the play on words for the title? :P AHAHA)

Thanks to all my reviewers! : Ikujoutsi , Chevesic, TheTenthMuseSappho and Batty Dings! You are so so so awesome to keep reviewing and you're very very appreciated!

Also, *apologises for the insanely long A/N* thanks for reading this far – I'm actually stunned if you do read till now (tosses you your favourite phantom – apart from my phantoms ha - and cookies) Lurkers,, please don't be shy! I would love to hear what YOU think too! :D

Merci,

Enigma out (for sure this time ;)