Ok, so I don't own The Phantom of The Opera. In fact, I don't really own much, struggling undergrad, you know. I'm not even entirely sure where this story is going, but it is a nice distraction from homework, and I'm not an English major, so please forgive my poor grammar. And in case anyoen is wondering, Acheron is the river of woe.
His eyes twitched uncomfortably, as the dark gray orbs valiantly fought to adjust to the bright, fluorescent lights. White walls surrounded him, and he couldn't move his arms or legs.
He was in a hospital. Erik felt panic consume him. How could he have messed that up?
It was all so simple. He'd jump from the branch, and the rope would break his neck. Not exactly rocket science.
But something had gone wrong. The half-memories came back to him; he'd miscalculated, or perhaps fate simply didn't see it fit for him to get out so easily.
Erik had dangled from that tree calmly, hoping to any deity that his prayers for death would be answered. And just before he blacked out, he saw her.
"How could you be so damn incompetent?" His head whipped around toward the voice. A familiar form stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, her upper lip curled up into a smirk of disgust.
His mask. His hands raged against his restraints, needing to feel the cool porcelain of his mask. He fought off the panic and found that he could feel its comfortable form, still perched haphazardly on his face.
He glared at the girl, cursing her with his eyes. How dare she defy him so blatantly? He spat out the only words that came to mind. "La petite chienne. Pourquoi vous ne me permets pas de mourez?"
Her face converted into consideration, as she went over his quick rant. "Why couldn't you get it right to begin with? The rope is supposed to break your neck; that way it's quick, and easy, and no one walking by with their dog, who happens to have a hero complex, has to save your sorry ass. I mean, seriously, you can't possibly comprehend what an awkward situation this has made for me. Now I feel responsible for you. I can barely take care of myself, much less another person." She sighed and threw herself into a chair.
Erik didn't really know what to say. He wanted her to leave, but something told him that she wouldn't acquiesce to his request so easily. He remembered the feeling of her lips pressed against his, forcing life back into him, her hands pressed against his bare chest…Why couldn't he just die?
"I hate hospitals. All this damn white, it's depressing. Oh, and what the hell kind of man buys a 2006 Chevy Corvette Z06 with an automatic transmission? You get so much more torque with a standard. I think it should be illegal for sports cars to be made with automatic transmissions; it just takes away all the fun. I mean, if you're going to lay down a good eighty grand for a car, get the real thing."
He groaned inwardly. Erik was most likely the only man in Europe who didn't know how to drive a stick. It had been hell to find the BMW he wanted.
Americans had seemed to have different moors concerning their transmissions. Obviously not this one. And why the hell was she still there?
A tingling sensation crept up his right leg, starting in his foot. He tried to shake it and groaned. "My foot is asleep." The words were out of his mouth and dissipated his resolve not to speak to her.
"How about, I'm so and so, thanks for saving my pathetic excuse of a life. Sorry to jeopardize your career and make you spend two hours in the police station, signing statements and avoiding accusing glances from your colleagues."
"You're a police officer?" He jerked his foot again; it was really getting to him. And he certainly didn't need her to remind him of how pathetic his life was. He'd never met such an audacious woman.
"Worse. Lawyer." She stood up slowly, favoring her left leg slightly. She was short, much shorter than Christine, and young. Her skin was a dark, but natural, tan; her eyes and hair black as death. Tight, dark curls bounced from the confines of a simple pony tail.
They weren't the milk chocolate spirals of perfection his angel had. They were wild; a tangled jungle of intertwining vines, sporadically moving of their own accord.
She wore a loose fitting, red t-shirt, proudly displaying The College of Charleston, and black shorts. A black brace hid part of her thigh and continued down to her calf.
A small hand, adorned simply with a bulky, silver ring, loosened the restraint holding down his ankle. "Mum's the word." The slight drawl on the end of her words gave her speech a sweet, intoxicating quality.
She sauntered back to the chair. "Why are you still here?"
"I told you; I feel responsible for you now. I can't let you off yourself after all the trouble I've been through. And besides, for whatever reason, General Beauregard seems to like you." She pointed to the floor and Erik lowered his gaze, seeing for the first time, the massive dog staring up at him.
"Merde." The thing looked positively menacing. Erik appreciated that. "What if I promise that I won't kill myself?"
"I may be paranoid, but typically I don't trust strange men wearing masks. That does kinda resemble half of William Shatner's face; you're not a French Michael Myers want-to-be, are you?"
"I'm going to kill you when I get out of here." His voice was as intimidating as he could make it. He did not appreciate her insults.
She was completely unimpressed. "Oh good, not only did I save your life, but now I've given you something to live for as well. If I keep this up I'll have to start going by my first name." She glanced at the man's watch which swallowed her petite wrist. "Shit. Quick, pretend that you're asleep."
He watched her sprawl out on the chair, and closed his eyes just before hearing footsteps, a soft swishing accompanied them. "Stop pretending to be asleep Lee." The woman's voice was high and a bit whiny.
"Go to hell, Melanie."
"Why are you here? You saved his life, good job; you're done; go home, take a shower, and for Christ sake, get some sleep."
"Eh, I'll sleep when I'm dead. So, what's going on with my mystery man?"
"Apparently he's some kind of composer or something. As soon as he regains consciousness we're moving him up to the psyche ward."
He opened his eyes enough to watch the scene through his lashes. The woman with the whiny voice was obviously a doctor. The girl, who'd, unfortunately, saved his life, had gotten up from the chair.
"You can't do that, Mel. The guy's been through enough already. No one should have to stay in a hospital any longer than necessary."
"You're kidding, right? No, you're not. Lee, the man tried to kill himself, and there's no one for us to call, not here, and not in France."
"So release him to my care."
"You are just as suicidal as he is! For Christ sake, Lee, you don't even know his name. And he wears a white porcelain mask. Only homicidal maniacs wear masks like that."
"And homicidal maniacs who wear masks only kill couples who are having sex, about to have sex, or just finishing up. As long as I don't fuck anyone, I'll be fine."
"James would kill me, Lee. He's already so pissed. You could be disbarred."
"For what? Saving a man's life? I have a permit to carry concealed; the only law I broke was shooting off a gun in the city limits, and under the circumstances, there isn't anyone in the DA's office who'd pursue that, even if the guilty party wasn't one of their own."
"I can't do this."
"Come on, Mel. This is exactly how your parents reacted when I let Chrissy move in, and that turned out fine."
"FINE!" The yell startled him, until then they had kept their voices at a relatively low, if not strained, level. "He's all yours. Good job, Lee. You can't even take care of yourself; how are you going to watch over this guy?"
"He can hear us, you know."
"You little bitch. Just wait, at your funeral I'm going to tell everyone about how goddamn stupid you were, and get that fucking dog out of my hospital!" She stormed out of the room.
"You can stop peaking through your eye lashes now; she won't be back any time soon."
He opened his eyes and studied her carefully. None of it made sense; why would she want to help him?
Easy. She felt sorry for him, pitied him. It was the only emotion he could evoke from a woman. "I don't want your pity."
She laughed, almost sadistically. "Pity? You don't want pity? That's just about the funniest thing I've heard all week." Her voice suddenly turned dark, laced with an icy edge that even he could admire. "Pity is all you want. You pity yourself more than I ever could." She turned and walked out of the room.
In retrospect, maybe it hadn't been such a great idea. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. It was Lee's foresight that needed improvement.
Aside from cheaply made horror movies, she had enough sense to know that true homicidal maniacs rarely wore masks.
Granted, he was screwed up. Lee was tempted to take a sharpie and write "DAMAGED GOODS" across that smooth, shiny face of his, the smug bastard, threatening her life like that...
In all honesty she'd saved him out of selfishness. Her moral integrity simply couldn't suffer the tragedy of letting him die, though she could plainly see how much he wanted to.
But, that was a selfish thing to do. Surely, life couldn't be that bad? No, his life was definitely not that bad. Melanie was wrong; Lee did know his name. And any man who drove a car like that, and stayed in the Carriage House Inn for three weeks had some serious money.
Therefore, he was not a starving Ethiopian and at least had something to be thankful for, if nothing else, then all that horsepower. Maybe he'd let her drive it.
She sat outside of his room, on the floor, sick from the sterile hospital smell. As a girl she had spent way too much time there. It made her leg hurt in a way she knew was purely psychological, but couldn't quite get past anyway.
Erik Destler, alias Philippe Gerard, composer of everything utterly depressing. He was good. She couldn't understand why he'd up and move to Charleston. It didn't make any sense; none of it made any sense.
A shiver went down her spine as she laid her hands on the cold, linoleum floor. Rising slowly, she took a deep breath and calmly walked back into his room.
"I checked you out of your hotel room. You can check back in, of course, I just assumed you wouldn't want to pay for a room you weren't staying in." She avoided looking at him; Lee had never been one for eye contact, and something about him threw her off. "Your suitcase is over there." She pointed to a corner.
"How long have I been out?" His speech was embellished by a lingering accent, though his English was very polished. Beneath the raspy, exhausted voice hid a soothing, musical quality.
She looked up at him; his black hair a complete mess, fiddling with his hospital gown were long fingers connected to slender hands. The left side of his face was chiseled, and handsome, but worn down by grief and agony...self-pity.
"Not long." Lee looked down at her grandfather's watch. "It's going on five now…Thirteen hours or so."
"Will they deport me?"
This was something she'd already been over. Being an ADA had its advantages; useful information was one of them. "No, I took care of it, but they did impound your car."
An awkward silence besieged them. She'd been in that room for eleven of those thirteen hours; not knowing why, she'd waited patiently for him to wake up. "I'm sorry; I didn't introduce myself. Lee Jones."
He nodded in an unbelievably smug manner. She'd never met a man with such low self-esteem and concurrent arrogance. "Erik." He stated simply, letting the last syllable fall flat.
Her phone went off, vibrating from the confines of her pocket. Chrissy had brought it to her earlier, full of unspoken concern at her absence.
She pulled it out quickly, letting out an irritated sigh when she saw the number. "Jimmy."
James' voice came through, full of authority and bull shit. "Don't call me that. You owe me big time, and still you find it necessary to harass my wife, who only operates in your best interest. I think you owe her an apology, Kyrie."
He spat out her first name like it was something vile. "Tell your wife not to get her panties in a bunch." A revelation came to her. "I'm taking the masked man home with me. Y'all can join in if you're feeling kinky."
She clicked it shut and scowled, her attention caught by a gruff clearing of the throat. "What?" She was suddenly not in the mood to banter with a suicidal son of a bitch.
"I'd appreciate it if you left me out of…"
She cut him off. "I don't care. You are on my shit list right now. Get dressed, you're checking yourself out."
For the second time that day she'd allowed her emotions to get the best of her. Cursing silently, she dug her fingernails into her palms and left the room. She'd needed a distraction, and now she had one.