Author's Notes: To those of you who are still reading – Thank you for coming with me on this ride. To those of you who wrote reviews / shared comments with me – thank you SO SO much! I have a few more chapters coming, and possibly some little blurb of an epilogue, and they are entirely thanks to my reviewers.
This is the last chapter with Erik's POV. This one is to satisfy my own hankerings for jealousy and rivalry and sacrifice.
Thank you all again for keeping me going and loving what I love. We are family.
(if you are on Tumblr, find me and my drawings there – my handle is CoatNTails)
Cold rain assaulted Erik when he stepped out into the graveyard. It soaked into the shoulders of his tail coat, and trickled down the back of his neck. He felt the impulsive longing for his cloak. But it was put to far better use inside, where it remained to keep Christine warm. He sniffed, and accepted the discomfort. It was a just beginning, he thought. The rain was witness to his first murder. Only fitting that it should be there again, to witness the cost. It would be a friend to him, in the end. It would extend the darkness of night into the morning, and hide his face. And what small discomfort there was might help distract him, just a little, from the real pain.
He slid through the graveyard, skirting wide around the Daaé tomb, and emerged onto the avenue. Brisk were his steps as he began the long trek into the village. He counted them, felt the length of his strides. He imagined the distance as it grew between himself and everything he desired most in the world. He didn't notice that he was weeping until he heard a strangled sound in the dark, and realized it came from his own throat. He hunched into the rain and surged forward, pushing himself on, whipping himself like a tired carriage horse to keep moving forward. Though he was powerless to stop the anguished sounds that kept coming with every breath.
The walk was long enough that Erik managed to regain some semblance of self control by the time he entered the village. Once he reached the buildings, he hugged the walls out of habit, and crept through the sleeping town like a thing from the wild that did not belong there. Through the glaze of rain, he spotted the weak light at the door of an inn. And heard the whuffle of a horse posted somewhere in the stables nearby.
It wasn't difficult to distract the stable-hand. All Erik had to do was choose a good position, and throw his voice to the copse of trees at the far end of the courtyard. The sound of distress in his voice came naturally. He didn't have to feign it at all. He only had to hurl it the twenty-five yards or so to the other side of the street. And such a piteous sound it was, that the stable-hand went to investigate it immediately and without fear.
Erik snatched a bridle from the hook on the wall, and slipped into the closest occupied stall. The bay mare inside spooked at his sudden appearance. He allowed her a long moment to sniff him before he moved closer. Lucky for him, she accepted his touch. A few pats and murmured assurances later, and she accepted the bit without fuss. He slung his wiry frame up onto her back without fear or hesitation, and she responded naturally to the sense of control he projected. She was his in only a matter of moments.
The stable-hand didn't realize anything was wrong until he heard the tlot-tlot of hoofbeats over the cobblestones.
It was a long ride into Paris through the rain. The road was muddy, and Erik was quickly chilled to the bone. But he welcomed it. Every pain to his body, every numbed nerve. He welcomed them all and seized them gratefully as he put mile after mile between himself and Christine where she slept in paradise.
He shivered in the street beneath the Vicomte's rooms.
The tail coat had gone. He'd run his mare hard, and she was steaming in the rain when he'd arrived in Paris. He had nothing to curry her with, no blanket to dry her, so the tail coat had to serve. She was reasonably dry, and tethered in a hidden place, and he – he was in the street looking up at the town house windows of the Vicomte de Chagne.
Why had he come here?
His muscles spasmed in another attempt to generate heat. He could feel the chill of morning fast approaching. The rain was letting up, pre-dawn light was easing itself into the sky, and he could barely make out the face of the building before him. Dawn would come soon. He'd need to hide himself before then... But still he stood in the street before his enemy's door. He grit his teeth so hard that his jaw ached. He slid his thumb repetitively over the rasp of rope at his waist, taking comfort in the feel of it.
The rattle of a coal wagon coming up the avenue spurred him into motion, and he slid towards the building before him.
The decorative facade of the architecture lent him innumerable handholds, offering a quick and fairly easy ascent to the upper story bedrooms. His only difficulty came from his own cold-numbed hands, which he managed to ignore. The first bedroom he came to was unoccupied, as was the second. But the third held the object of his search, and Erik had to brace himself on the balcony rail while he struggled with an unexpected surge of murderous hatred.
All he had to do was go through the window.
He could probably reach the bed without even waking him.
He didn't even need the rope. He could use his bare hands. Wait a moment, warm sensation back into them, so he could feel the life in the Vicomte's body under his fingers.
Feel his own hands squeeze it out of him.
Hold him close enough to see every flicker of thought in the Vicomte's eyes as they regarded each other in that dim, pre-dawn light. Close enough to feel every spasm, hear every choked sound, feel the fear in every quivering fiber of the Vicomte's body.
And when he went still, Erik could push his thumbs into the softness of his eye sockets in punishment for gazing on what was not his. He could tear the flaps of his ears away in punishment for hearing what he was not worthy to hear. He could rake his fingernails over the fair countenance of the vicomte's face to leave him as horrible as Erik himself was.
All this he could do, if he only went through the window.
How he ached for it.
And no one would even know. It would be like an angry ghost had invaded the upper story bedroom. No one would know who had murdered the Vicomte de Chagne, except Raoul himself.
And Christine.
Erik recoiled against the wrought iron of the railing, feeling his murderous rage cool. She would know instantly. He must never do something so hurtful to Christine. He could never break his sacred promise to her. Why had he come? What did he hope to find here? His revenge could never be. He needed...
Erik swallowed, feeling cold and sick and unbearably rebellious at the realization. He needed Raoul. Raoul would provide what he could not for Christine. Raoul and his fair face, and his money, and his position, and his boyish adoration, would give Christine a life where she could be happy.
He gazed through the glass into the bedroom. The Vicomte slept, unaware, wrapped in rich fabrics in the shelter of a canopy bed. A bed that he would share with Christine when night fell again. Erik's breath seethed through his clenched teeth, and burning tears streamed from his eyes. Eyes fixed on the sleeping Vicomte. Unblinking eyes that gleamed yellow in the predawn light like a cat's, if anyone in the room were awake to see them.
The lock was simple, and easy to catch. The window let out the faintest creak as it opened with the push of Erik's hand.
"...I entrust you with the most precious treasure on this earth," Erik whispered to the sleeping figure of Raoul, letting his voice into the room where he dared not let his murderous self go. "I bid you to take care of her, Monsieur. Let everything you do, henceforth, be in exultation of her. Cherish her above all other things in life. Endeavor to be worthy of her. ...For if you do not... then may my curse be upon you. And may you suffer, as I shall suffer. May you feel, in every moment, waking and sleeping, the ache of loss that I will feel. And may Hell hunt you to your last breath. ...Love her well, Monsieur. And give her all that she should have. Fill her days with light, and make her forget all about me. ...Love her... I beg you. Be the man that she sees in you. Be all that she needs. And I will be indebted to you, forever."
Raoul woke with a start.
He sat up in his bed, feeling something amiss in the room. The cold struck him suddenly, and he looked to the window to see the curtains ruffled by the cold night air. No – morning. He could see the soft hint of dawning light. Had he left the window open? He could smell rain on the cold air – how foolish of him. But the previous day was a blur of anticipation. He wouldn't blame himself for being absent minded. All his thoughts were for his wedding day – and if it was morning, then the day was upon him! He wove his fingers behind his head and lay back down, his face plastered with the wide smile of a love-sick fool. Today was the day. The beginning of true life. Today, the boyish dreams of childhood would become real, and give him all the fulfillment he could ever long for as a man.
Today was the day.
The cold made him shiver, and he flipped the coverlet aside, rising from the bed. He strode across the room to close the window and throw the latch. The smile wouldn't leave his face.
Today, Christine would make him the happiest man on earth. And Raoul looked happily into the future, across time, sure that he would succeed in his quest to make her the happiest woman in return.
Author's notes: Obvious nod to Leroux is obvious. Because I love love love Erik creeping on Raoul, and his glowing yellow eyes.
I really don't want to write the final chapter, you guys D: I don't want to make Chrissy sad. I'll write miserable Erik all day long - he loves to be miserable. But Christine is too pure for this world. Halp.