Paladin38
What was and what had been twisted within Erik's mind, distorting his sense of time and place. He felt himself drifting, his body weightless as delirium tightly coiled around him, impeding his thoughts and hearing. He felt something cool against his left cheek, something welcoming and gentle. But before his eyes there was only darkness, and faces.
Terrible faces, mouths with missing teeth, empty eye sockets staring at him. He remembered cold—endless, bone-chilling cold. There were no blankets for warmth, for shelter. Uncomfortable burlap sacks were fitted through the bars and straw lined the floor, but there was never anything more. Nothing for the devil's son.
-o-
Sophia wrung her hands, wanting to do more for him but knowing the fever needed to pass on its own. She draped a cold, wet rag against his chest and another over the left side of his face. He grunted occasionally but didn't wake, the sounds leaving his mouth indistinguishable.
She was exhausted, her eyes so dry that they burned, but she couldn't leave him. She feared that he would die of fever. In all her life she had never seen anyone become ill so suddenly, though judging by the weight of his discarded clothes he had undoubtedly been soaked to the bone. The sheets were damp where he lay, but he no longer sweated once the fever progressed.
Erik groaned, his fingers tangled in Fidelio's fur. The dog whined with him, furiously licking his master's face, lapping up beads of water from the rag. She hadn't moved the dog out of the room, mostly because he was too big for her to handle, but also because the animal had growled when she reached for the rope Citrine had fashioned into a collar. With his paw raised in the air, he would stand throughout the night and await his master's acknowledgment.
"Rest," she whispered to Erik, not knowing what else to say or do.
-o-
The voices he remembered. They carried through the tent, those shrieks of laughter and fright. Each night it was the same cruel cycle of sitting alone and waiting for the inevitable to come. Erik wasn't certain why he continued to fight for his pride. Young and wiry, he was no match for the gypsies who tormented him regardless of whether there was a paying crowd or not.
He shivered as he heard the same simple tune from an accordion being played again and again. If only they had allowed him to touch an instrument he could have mesmerized the crowd, but the gypsies didn't want a child who played the violin or sang. They wanted something that would make women turn away in horror and would make men's skin crawl the moment its hideousness was revealed.
And so he waited, his heart thumping madly, his anger increasing as the jeers grew louder and he knew the crowd was coming closer. He braced himself for the inevitable, the wounds from the previous night still throbbing along his back and sides. Still, no amount of pain could keep him from fighting back, as he knew there was a world beyond the dark canvas borders which made up his little hell. And no matter the price, it was worth fighting for.
-o-
He would be more comfortable without his mask, Sophia reasoned as Erik squirmed from his side onto his back. She knelt beside him on the floor and turned the rag over, knowing that he would cool faster if the rag could be placed over both sides of his forehead.
He grunted again, seeming to protest as Sophia patted his collarbone with the damp cloth. She sponged his shoulder, which soothed him into silence again, and for a while he rested peacefully and finally fell deeply asleep.
When Sophia was certain he was fast asleep, she rose from his bedside and walked downstairs in search of a fresh pitcher of water and additional rags. She glanced briefly in the water closet mirror at her bruised face before tucking a thermometer into her pocket. Startled by her reflection she pushed her hair behind her ears. Her father was not the sort of man who hit his children. Other than bumps and bruises caused by her own recklessness, she had never been injured in her life.
"You'll live," she murmured to herself as she walked out of the room, finding she could no longer face herself or the memories her reflection conjured. There were other things at hand, more important tasks and duties.
Sophia paused at the foot of the stairs and considered donning her cloak and waking Citrine, but she didn't want to leave Monsieur Belmont alone for too long.
Halfway up the stairs she heard the bed creaking and grimaced. She heard him through the door and prayed that he was still in bed, as she knew she wasn't strong enough to lift him off the floor.
"Monsieur, may I come in?" Sophia asked as she peered through the doorway.
He was still on his bed, his hands clinging to his pillow. His eyes were slit open, the rims red and his face flushed. Sophia knocked but he didn't acknowledge her, so she entered his room.
"I brought you water," she said loudly, hoping to jar him back to his senses.
"Don't take it," he muttered.
"Monsieur, you need to drink something," she said as she stood nervously at his bedside. She feared that if he didn't recognize her he would lash out. Even if his strength were diminished, he was still bigger than she. One strike from his arm and she would be on the floor.
Sophia left the water basin on the service table and squeezed out two more washrags. She waited until he settled down again before she knelt beside him, turning the rags over to bring him relief while adding two more. For a while she watched him breathe, noticing that the sudden cold made him shiver. Removing them again, she touched his left cheek, gently running her finger down to his jaw.
Erik watched her briefly, his eyes darting around, searching her face.
"Drink," she said.
Once she placed another pillow behind his head she brought water to his lips. The majority spilled from the side of his mouth, but when he had his fill he turned away and closed his eyes.
"Christine," he whispered.
Sophia studied his tense jaw and wondered whom he spoke to as he slept. He said no more and she rose to her feet to return the cup to the service table.
-o-
They were there, filing through the tent opening. So many cruel, grinning faces all straining for a better look. They paid the gypsy as they entered, each coin dropped into his thick, dirty hand accounting for yet another person gawking into his cage.
"Come, come see the devil's child."
Erik shuddered, trying in vain to ignore the people crowding around his confines. He kept his eyes averted, his attention focused on the simple toy fashioned to look like a monkey with cymbals.
"I'm not the devil's child," he murmured to the toy before hitting the cymbals together.
-o-
He groaned again.
"I'm here, Monsieur. It's Sophia."
"I'm not the devil's child."
Erik turned toward her, his eyes opening wider though his expression didn't change. Sophia brushed the back of her hand along his cheek and sighed. He was still much too warm and she was becoming frustrated, not knowing what else she could do for him. If she placed more rags on his skin he would cool too quickly, but if she left him his fever would rage.
Sophia returned to his side and slipped the thermometer between his lips. Within seconds the temperature rose to 40.5 degrees Celsius. He shouldn't have been warmer than thirty-seven degrees.
"My God," she whispered as she pulled it from his mouth and dropped it into her pocket again. She had to do something.
She had to remove the mask.
"Monsieur," she whispered.
He exhaled hard, his face turning away from her, his mask buried in his pillow.
She frowned at him. Erik had asked her never to remove his mask. She considered how angry he had been at the time but told herself that this wasn't a matter of his pride. He could die if his mask was left on, she told herself, or she could remove it and reduce his fever faster without chilling him again.
He wouldn't be without it for long—merely an hour or so before she wanted to have him awake again and he could have his mask back. He didn't need to know she had taken it.
"Please, Monsieur," Sophia continued. She sat beside him, gingerly slipping her fingers beneath his mask. "Please don't be angry with me."
-o-
The door creaked open and feet pounded into the cage. For months Erik had attempted to convince himself that if he didn't look him in the eye the man would go away. His name was Gouche and he ran the show. When the circus closed for the night Erik saw him in the shadows as he made his rounds to collect money. He lingered around the acrobats and hit the bars of the animal cages to make the tigers roar and lash out. With slow, calculated moves he always approached Erik last.
"They will never return for you," Gouche said in his ear as he grabbed the burlap sack covering Erik's head. He snatched the monkey from Erik's grasp and tossed it aside.
As he did each time, Erik struggled, holding the bottom of the hood, refusing to be humiliated. The crowd jeered, some throwing rocks or rotten food through the bars. His arms and torso were already bruised and covered in flea bites.
Gouche wrenched Erik's head forward and forced him to the ground before he flogged him. Erik struggled to sit up through the first three blows but it was a battle quickly lost. The only thing he could do was hold back his fear, to sit stone-faced until the crowds tired and walked away, satisfied that they had gotten their money's worth of horrors.
-o-
He was gasping for breath. Sophia pursed her lips and slowly lifted the mask away. His struggles had ceased, exhaustion claiming him again. She ran the cool rag over his chest and began to hum, more to comfort herself than the delirious man before her.
Her nose wrinkled at the first revelation of scarred flesh. She had seen men pock-marked and she had seen hands and arms burned, but this was neither caused by disease nor fire. This was different.
Erik flinched as the cool air hit his exposed face and Sophia released the mask. He turned away slightly but didn't wake, and when it seemed as though he were asleep she gripped the side by his jaw, closed her eyes and pulled it off in one swift motion.
Bracing herself, Sophia took a deep breath and opened her eyes to see what he never intended her eyes to view.
-o-
With one violent tug he was exposed to the paying crowd. A hand grabbed his hair and forced his face up for all to see.
Erik stared back, hoping to shame them for laughing, for pelting him with objects as well as their cruel words.
"Is it real?" a woman asked.
"Aye, it's real. Look at him breathing," a man answered.
"How did you find this thing?"
"Relinquished to my hands," Gouche answered, jabbing Erik in the ribs. "By a poor young woman who wouldn't tell me her story."
It took everything he possessed to hold back the tears but somehow he managed to wait, to hold his breath and reserve his pain for later, for the solitude that always came.
"Does it speak?"
Gouche laughed then, a terrible, wheezing belly laugh. "Sometimes, when the moon is full, it hypnotizes nymphs with its voice and devours them whole."
The crowd shrieked with laughter as Erik sank to his knees, unable and unwilling to stand before their taunts a moment longer.
"I'm not an animal," he whispered. "I'm not a beast."
The straw beneath him changed before his eyes, replaced by stone. His child hands changed to a man's large grasp. The cage turned invisible and his eyes were trained on something small and sparkly.
A ring.
Erik glanced up, knowing what he would find, yet still he had to see her again. There was Christine, her eyes dry as she looked from him to a fistful of coins.
"Why, Christine?"
"You're a monster," she answered.
Behind her stood Gouche, not aged a day, holding the key to his old cage.
"Lock him away," Christine said before she turned. "I'm finished here."
-o-
Sophia brushed away the tears streaming down Erik's face. She turned the rag over again, covering his red, distorted forehead. It was impossible not to stare at his exposed face. His nose was misshapen, his lower eyelid pulled down, his brow missing. His cheek was like clay left to dry, uneven, dried in spots and broken in others. She could tell where the mask rubbed against his cheekbone and irritated his skin.
But as terrible as it was, Sophia cooled his fevered skin, turning his face so that she could better see her work. She placed her bare hand along his cheek when he struggled and caressed him gently where no one had dared to touch him.
Sophia checked his temperature again. It had gone down to thirty-eight degrees, which wasn't quite what she wanted but showed improvement. She noticed he had started to sweat and that goose bumps covered his arms.
"It's breaking," she sighed, glancing at the clock. It was just after five in the morning. Citrine would be in the house soon.
When Sophia took the thermometer from his mouth he grabbed her by the wrist.
"Monsieur!" she panicked, attempting to free her hand.
-o-
A hand turned his face away from Christine and Gouche, a gentle hand, a soothing hand against his bare left cheek. At first the person beside him had no face, only a voice, which he couldn't understand.
He wanted to struggle, to protest her touching him. He feared she would shriek or laugh or turn away in horror.
Though he couldn't see her, he knew she was about to leave him, so he took hold of her, imprisoning her against his side. His eyes darted around. Christine and Gouche were gone, the music box, the ring, the cave walls…gone. There was nothing but this woman whose wrist he held.
"Monsieur!"
He turned toward her once more and saw her face, his clouded mind slowly remembering what had come to pass and what were distorted recollections. It was Sophia behind the bruises who stood before him. Of all the expression in the world, hers was not one with which he was familiar: Relief.
"Don't leave me," he murmured, his grasp loosening.
Her hand slipped away from his and he held his breath, waiting for her to disappear. Instead she bent forward and kissed his forehead, her gesture sweet and sincere.
"Rest," she said, clasping his hand. "You gave me an awful fright, Monsieur."
"You," he said weakly, turning his face away to cough.
"Don't speak, Monsieur. You need to rest."
"Your face."
Sophia looked away. "It will heal," she said quickly.
He wanted to apologize for everything, for not knowing how to treat her well, for being ignorant in protecting her from harm. He wanted to promise her that he could care for her if she gave him a chance, but he feared her answer. More than anything, he wanted to beg her to forgive him for his appearance, for the one thing that would never change.
"Forgive me," he pleaded.
Sophia squeezed his hand tighter. "There is nothing to forgive."
-o-
Within moments he released her hand and Sophia removed the washcloths on his chest and forehead. She grabbed a blanket and draped it over him, watching as he turned on his side and exhaled, his body finally at rest.
Sophia bent down and moved his hair from his face. She studied him again, her eyes darting from the good half to the scarred half. What a curse, she thought, to know what it would be like to have a normal, handsome face—but to possess such scars that no one would ever be able to look at one side and ignore the other.
"You said you think you're in love with me," she whispered in his ear. "Will you remember in the morning?"
Sophia kissed his forehead twice, once on each side before she settled into a chair at his bedside, exhaustion taking its toll.
His eyes rolled open and looked into hers, recognition coming immediately.
"Sophia," he whispered back, his voice strained from thirst. "I do."
A/N 40.5 degrees C is approximately 105 degrees F.