Erik's house felt very crowded.
Christine had been visiting for several weeks, and still the sight of her standing before his organ or lit in the glow from his fireplace startled him. But, as he walked with Nadir into the dining room, he realized there were now two other people aside from himself occupying his home.
Two was too many. Far, far too many, and far, far too much. When would he ever learn to keep away from people?
Erik had mostly only been an intruder in the houses of others. He had seldom been a guest, and this was his first time being a true host to anyone. He tried to remember the ridiculous, useless lessons that his mother had bestowed on him, that even from an early age he'd known weren't worth paying attention to.
His mother taught him how to behave amongst guests, but there was no use to it, nor opportunity to put it into practice, when the anticipated parties would arrive and Erik would promptly be sent to his room in the attic and locked inside. He would only be allowed out later, after everyone had left. Sometimes not even then. He didn't think his mother ever suspected he knew, but he had always had very acute hearing, and there were many evenings when the house would be silent for hours before his mother came to retrieve him.
He resented it, but he never accused her. Some part of him realized that she needed time away from him even then, and the guilt on her face when she would at last come to fetch him said all he needed to hear.
In any case, he went through all the proprieties he could recall. He set them each a place at his table. He made a pot of tea and presented them with a bottle of wine from his most prized collection. He was thankful for Ayesha, even moreso than he typically was, because without the delicacies he kept stocked for her, there would be nothing remotely decent to offer from his cupboards.
After what seemed an extraordinary amount of time wasted on meal preparation, he emerged from the kitchen with three plates of smoked salmon and caviar, and a whole loaf of bread. He set one plate in front of Christine, another in front of Nadir, and placed the bread between them to be shared.
Then he knelt down to present the third plate to Ayesha.
Once everyone was served, he rose again, uncertain what should be done with himself. He debated joining Christine and Nadir at the table, but that thought was shot down quickly. He had not shared a table in far too long to be anywhere near comfortable to be on the same level as them, and he knew well that to sit where one dines would only place an impossible expectation on him to eat, and that was as unthinkable to one such as Erik as it would be to strip down to one's natural state in a room full of unsuspecting strangers to any normal person.
And that was what really terrified him. He had been ghost and angel for so long... He had forgotten how to be a man, if he had ever known how. He had fallen out of practice with trying. He thought in every sense that he was finished seeking mankind's approval, and yet here he was, in the presence of the only two individuals whose opinion of him actually counted for something.
In the case of Christine, it counted for everything.
He debated for a moment longer before going to stand in the doorway of the room, in a corner partially concealed by shadow. It was perhaps the most comfortable place he could find for himself, but it wasn't long before the memory of his mother's voice forced him to relearn how utterly uncomfortable it was to be watched for the other party aware of his presence.
"Do go away now, Erik. You know I cannot bear to have you watch while I am eating."
He turned to leave, but froze with a foot half out of the room. Christine and Nadir had not uttered a word to each other, and it was customary for people to chat while they ate in each other's company. But they did not know each other. They only knew him. And, as the host, was it not right for him to assume responsibility of the conversation? To put them at ease?
Not that any rusty attempt he could make at casual talking would ever be mistaken for ease. But what was something that could be spoken of casually? A mutual topic?
The weather, perhaps, as mundane and dreadful a subject as it was... Or...
They were in an opera house, were they not?
"I..." It was proof just how out of practice with all this nonsense he was when his voice, the sole thing that never betrayed him, wavered at the first word out of his mouth. "I understand that the managers plan to stage a new production of Faust this season."
He had hardly finished speaking, and already it felt as though they had rejected him. His body did not tense as it once would have with such horrid anticipation. It simply slumped like an old, tortured animal, prepared to take the final blow that would end its suffering at last.
This is what middle age had done to him. No longer was he the young man he had been in Persia, fighting against them, challenging the hand he'd been dealt. He thought he had found a solution to the the source of all of his pain in his years of solitude beneath the Garnier, but truly it had been a move of defeat. An acceptance of it.
Mankind didn't want him, and so he had thrown in his cards and surrendered, never desiring to be known as a man again.
Until this very moment. Until just now.