A/N: Hello, everybody! Chapter six of Constant Angel is about to begin! Muchas gracias to all of my reviewers, I love you all :)
Just as a quick note, this is the only story that will be continued on this account for some time, as it is the only one close to Christmas in the timeline. (I took some liberty with the timeline and made Christine's flight before the end of the year rather than in the beginning of the next one.) I like writing in the style of the holidays when they come around, and would prefer to focus on that aspect. On my other account (PeaceLoveBeatles18) Only Life Goes on Within You and Without You will be worked on for most of the Christmas season.
The next morning, Erik felt as though he'd been poisoned. Every muscle in his body was on fire and his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. He attempted to sit up, but found it too strenuous.
As if on cue, Juliet appeared carrying a bowl of broth again. Erik growled in frustration and rolled over on his side, away from the little prima donna who looked far too much like Christine. "Go away," he mumbled.
"You look as though you've been to hell and back," she informed him, a slight depression on the bed indicating that she'd sat down.
"Mademoiselle, if this is not hell I don't know what is," he replied, pulling the blankets up under his chin without turning to face her. Suddenly, he was cold enough to have his teeth start chattering.
"It's only hellish if you chose to let yourself think so," Juliet reminded him irritatingly.
"Must you repeat the same thing over and over again?" he grumbled, shivering beneath the bedclothes.
"I wouldn't have to if you didn't do the same," she retorted. Erik gave no reply, remaining huddled up with his back turned to her. "You have to eat something, you know," Juliet said.
"I'm not hungry," he said, and this was true. His stomach was roiling and heaving like a ship on a stormy sea.
"You will be later," she predicted.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked, partially in annoyance at her prying and partially in true curiosity. Juliet was silent for a long while, so long that Erik wondered if she'd left and in his fevered state he hadn't heard it.
But then she spoke. "Because no one deserves to go through something like this alone," she murmured. Erik was really starting to wonder why this particular subject touched her so deeply.
"I'll leave the bowl on the hearth if you want any later," she said, getting up. "I have rehearsal now, but I'll be back later." Juliet walked out the door, skirt swishing across the stone floor like waves gently whooshing in and out on a beach.
Erik winced as his muscles screamed in protest when he heaved himself out of bed. The bowl seemed to weigh a ton and the spoon weighed at least half of that. The broth was warm and mild, and as much as Erik was loathe to admit it, it soothed his turbulent stomach a little and eased the pain in his head.
Suddenly weary after so little exertion, Erik managed to get back in bed, but left the sheets at the end of the bed. Sweat was running down his back and heat seemed to be radiating off his skin.
Whiskers tickled the back of his hand. Weakly, he looked down. Ayesha nuzzled his hand delicately and curled up against his leg, purring comfortingly. He stroked her ears gently and fell slowly into an uneasy sleep.
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Juliet pulled her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck as she rushed through the passageways. She was getting to know the way better and was able to go faster and more effectively.
No sooner had she gotten back in her room and started to pull on her rehearsal outfit than there was a knock at her door.
"Just a moment, please!" she called, hopping around the room while lacing up her dancing shoes. When she opened the door, a surprise greeted her.
"Good morning, mademoiselle," Gaston said, bowing low.
Juliet was sorely tempted to slam the door on that smug, handsome face. "Bonjour, Monsieur Gaston," she said hesitantly, not meeting his eyes. "You'll have to pardon me, I was just making my way to rehearsal and I don't have time to talk." She tried to inch by him, but he moved to block her.
"That's really too bad!" he exclaimed. "Would you allow me the honor of walking you to rehearsal?" Oh, fabulous, she thought. No getting out of this one either.
"Sure," she said. Once again, he held out his arm for her to take and Juliet mentally steeled herself before slipping her own arm through his.
They walked in silence for a moment, and then Gaston asked, "What's all this business with the Phantom of the Opera, then? I've been told any number of ghost stories you care to mention and I could swear I saw a man with his description riding a horse as black as coal dust last night."
Juliet nearly yelped. "Well, I don't believe he would have a horse, as he is rumored to live beneath the Opera House and you can't just house a horse underground. He amuses himself by leaving notes for the management of the Opera Populaire, plays tricks on the dancers and singers, and things tend to happen when his demands aren't met."
"Didn't he abduct some poor girl a time back?" her unwelcome companion asked.
"Oh, Christine Daae? Yes, he was her voice instructor, and if the rumors are to be believed, he fell in love with her to an extreme degree and brought her down to his lair after sabotaging his own opera."
"And he wears a half-mask?" Gaston inquired.
"During the performance of his opera, Don Juan Triumphant, he hung our previous leading man and attempted to drag Christine down to his lair. She pulled off his mask to reveal his deformity and he felled the chandelier as a distraction. Her fiance, Raoul de Chagny, saved her. It's been relatively quiet around the Opera House since then, I would hazard a guess to say that he's died of a broken heart," Juliet said, explaining.
"Surely a monster such as that would not be capable of love. He sounds positively horrible. The deformity most likely extended to his brain," Gaston scoffed.
They had arrived outside the dancing studio. "Yes, well," Juliet said, pulling her arm from his and fighting the urge to vigorously scrub her arm to rid herself of any trace of his touch. "I have rehearsal now, goodbye monsieur." She trotted into the studio.
She hadn't danced for some time and was therefore quite stiff as they stretched, but soon she was mostly limbered up. Gaston's questions thoroughly disturbed her and caused her to be continually distracted throughout the entire rehearsal. Add to the fact that she was worrying about Erik and it equated to a very off-beat prima donna.
"Julie, what are you doing?" Meg asked after Juliet incorrectly executed a turn for the third time that day.
"Sorry Meg, I'm just a little off today," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "My mind keeps wandering."
"Your expression is a mixture of nervous and worried," the blonde said, putting a hand on Juliet's arm. "Is it Gaston?" she murmured. Juliet allowed herself a tiny nod. "If he keeps bothering you, talk to my mother," the girl advised her friend.
"Mademoiselles Meg and Juliet," the aforementioned woman's voice rang out sharply across the practice room. "The time to socialize is before or after practice, not during. Kindly focus on your dancing."
The girls exchanged sheepish looks and returned to their rehearsal. This time Juliet made a serious attempt to focus and she managed to shove both Gaston and Erik into a tiny corner of her mind and left them there. And then, thinking that they, in all likelihood, would not get along, she thoughtfully separated them into opposite corners of her mind.
By the end of rehearsal, Juliet knew that she had overexerted a muscle in her leg. It was nothing sleep and copious amounts of stretching wouldn't fix, but at that moment it was bothersome.
"It's lovely to have a prima donna who can dance," Madame Giry said. "Christine could dance, but she was prima donna for such a short amount of time and there were such power struggles between her and La Carlotta." Juliet's cheeks glowed, part in embarrassment and part in pride.
"Thank you, Madame," she said, bowing her head to hide her pink cheeks. The dance room was empty except for the two now and Juliet whispered, "Erik is very ill at the moment. I'm trying to get him off of morphine, but it isn't going smoothly at all."
Madame Giry's eyes softened with sympathy. "I've been telling him he needs to stop taking it. Good luck, and if you could keep me informed I would be grateful. For a long while, I was one of the only people he could call a friend. As a result, I feel quite close to him and I wouldn't like to see any harm come to him."
"Of course," Juliet replied.
"We would like you and Monsieur Rosseau to have a rehearsal with just the two of you to run the scenes you do together. Is an hour from now sufficient time?" Madame Giry inquired.
"That would be fine, I'm just going to go check up on Erik now. I'm confident that I'll be back in time," said Juliet, making her way out the door and feeling her stomach sink like it had been loaded with rocks and tossed into the ocean.
Two steps out the door, her stomach gave a lurch right back up past it's original place. Standing in the hallway and talking up a group of giddy chorus girls was the newest patron of the Opera Populaire and brother to the Vicomte: Phillipe de Chagny. He was notorious for chatting up girls shamelessly and had even gone after Christine at one point. In 'the pastry incident' as Juliet called it in her mind, Gaston had offhandedly mentioned being good friends with Phillipe.
So much for the idea that opposites attract, Juliet thought. The only reason they're not twins is that they're not related and look nothing alike.
Seeing Gaston round the corner in the hallway, Juliet hurriedly turned and scuttled in the direction of her dressing room, attempting to avoid detection at all costs. Her deep red skirt swished across the light gray stone as she made her way to her dressing room down the wide, ornate hallways of the Opera House.
Opening the mirror, Juliet slipped inside the passageway where she was immediately met by Ayesha, which surprised her. The cat rarely left Erik's side. She yowled at her urgently, trotting back off down the damp, faintly lit corridors. Instantly, Juliet knew that there was something seriously wrong with Erik. Grasping her skirt in her hands tightly, she ran after the feline.
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Dizzily, Erik stumbled into the washroom and fell onto the cold tile floor. He had intended to get some cool water to splash on his burning face, but now it was all he could do to just lay there and let the cool from the tiles soothe some of his aches and pains.
His reprieve was short, however, for soon his stomach began to roil and churn painfully, making him cry out and bite his lip hard enough to draw blood. He curled in upon himself, pressing both hands to his vengeful stomach. Bile began to rise up in his throat and he only narrowly managed to get his head over the large chamber pot before the contents of his stomach made a reappearance. When he finished he coughed violently and attempted to wipe his mouth, but he retched again and again, his body quaking.
Even though there wasn't anything in his stomach he continued to be sick, his abdomen contracting repeatedly and painfully.
Between retching, he saw through pain bleared eyes that Ayesha was standing in the doorway, meowing in alarm.
"Juliet," he rasped, hunching over the chamber pot again. "G-g-get J-juliet." He knew it was foolish to try to converse with a cat, they couldn't understand human speech after all, but Ayesha must have gotten his general meaning. She went running in the direction of the tunnels and Erik slumped down, trying to control the quivering spasms that wracked his body. Hurry, Ayesha.
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"Where is he?" Juliet asked Ayesha, feeling singularly foolish about talking to a cat. Ayesha veered off in the direction of the washroom with the worried young woman in hot pursuit.
The door was slightly ajar and she pushed it open, gasping at what she saw. On the floor in a crumpled heap, covered in his own vomit, was Erik. He was conscious, but just barely.
Breathing through her mouth to avoid smelling the acidic contents of his stomach, Juliet knelt beside Erik after filling a glass with water from the pitcher on the wash basin. She held it to his dry, cracked lips.
"You need to drink this," she said softly, knowing that among other things, his head was probably thundering with pain as well. Erik shook his head, wincing even at that little movement, indicating that he thought it would all come right back up again. "It might come back up, but you're dehydrated. You need liquids." With a breathy sigh, Erik parted his lips and allowed her to trickle some of the cooling liquid between them. Pausing slightly, they waited for a sign of his body's acceptance or rejection. Thankfully, it stayed down and she gave him another sip.
"Can you walk?" she asked. He rolled his head to look at her and fixed the prima donna with a withering stare that stated loudly, What do you think? Even at his lowest point, he was still sarcastic. "I'll mark that as a no," she said. "Put your arm around my shoulder and we'll just take this one step at a time." He hesitated before carefully putting one thin arm around her shoulders. Juliet put her arms around his waist, avoiding pressure on his abdomen, and they laboriously stood up with agonizing slowness.
At the first step his knees buckled, making the pair pitch forward and nearly fall. "Just go slowly. One foot in front of the other," Juliet whispered. "You can do it." After a long, difficult exodus to Erik's room, Erik was laying down on the bed, eyes shut, breathing labored.
Juliet looked at the vomit-stained shirt and knew she couldn't leave him in it. Rummaging around in his vast armoire, she pulled out a long, flannel nightshirt. "You can't stay in that shirt," she said, sitting down on the bed. "It'll just make you sicker." After giving her yet another look of tired annoyance, Erik's fingers fumbled stiffly with the buttons of his shirt, unable to undo them.
"Let me help you," she said, delicate fingers quickly unbuttoning the lightweight, stained white shirt. Easing him into a sitting position, she slid his arms out of the sleeves and felt her cheeks heat up as he sat there without a shirt. Long strips of scar tissue ran across his alabaster chest and looking at his back revealed more there. She recognized them as whip marks and shuddered at the thought of what his past must have been like. Sliding the flannel nightshirt over his head, she proceeded to gently remove his pants, averting her eyes and blushing furiously the whole time.
Once Erik was tucked under the duvet, Juliet went into the kitchen and boiled a kettle of peppermint tea which she set on the hearth with a cup next to it. The peppermint would help calm Erik's stomach whenever he chose to drink it.
Quickly, she cleaned up the washroom, narrowly avoiding retching herself. She brought along the stained shirt and dropped it in her empty laundry basket, spritzing perfume into the air, masking the scent.
Even with all of that, she managed to arrive to rehearsal five minutes early and wandered around the room twisting her fingers together. Then, she made up her mind. Why should she let Gaston intimidate her? He was a disturbing person, no doubt, but hew as still only a man.
The vocal instructor and Gaston arrived together. "Ready?" he asked, his dark blue eyes radiating eagerness, a challenge, and that determination that still sent shivers over her skin.
"Definitely," Juliet replied, meeting his gaze evenly. For the next few hours, they engaged in a fierce battle of voices, running the scenes until they were gasping for air. Gaston and Juliet seemed to mesh extremely well as Don Jose and Carmen, so much so that people started filling in to watch. Every note radiated tension and chemistry.
"That will be all," the vocal director said in a dazed voice some time later.
"That was amazing," Gaston said in an amazed voice, coming up to Juliet.
"Thank you," she said, briefly shaking his hand, but he stopped her.
"You've been avoiding me, mademoiselle," he stated, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.
"Have I?" she feigned oblivion, smiling sweetly.
"Yes, and it has left me grievously wounded," Gaston proclaimed, placing a dramatic hand over his heart.
"I'm very sorry," she said, fighting off a repulsed shudder.
"Such a wound requires compensation," he said. "Would dinner tomorrow night suit you?" Juliet opened her mouth to say that she was quite sorry but she was busy, but Gaston breezed right over her. "Splendid! I'll pick you up around eight, then." He left her opening and closing her mouth in shock.
Juliet walked slowly back to her dressing room, massaging her temples gently. What on Earth have I gotten myself into?
A/N: Annndddd, fin! Did you like it? Dislike it? Want to throw it out a window? Tell me in a review!