A Monkey Full of Morphine
Disclaimer – I don't own anything to do with Phantom and this story is purely for some nerdy escapist entertainment and not for profit.
A/N – Eep, its been a while since I last updated. I'm so sorry. Anyway this chapter contains some drug references. Again there's nothing too graphic but if you're easily wigged out then you have been warned.
News had already spread amongst the residents of Regneville-sur-Mer that the Destler house had been sold. But that Sunday morning as they left the little windswept church by the castle ruins, they heard the faintest echo of music, the likes of which they hadn't heard in over thirty years.
The house had always been one of the town's mysteries. The building itself was fairly new but there were stories the original was once a monastery and that the present house was built from its ruins. The man who built it, a young architect by the name of Vincent Guillaume Destler, had intended it to be a summer home for his family. They had spent many summers there, but after his wife died during one of their sojourns he could no longer face visiting their little town and the house soon became abandoned. It wasn't until fifteen years later that the walls grew up around the forsaken place, seemingly overnight. And yet there were signs of someone living behind them for every day the most beautiful music could be heard from within. It drifted faintly down the hillside and echoed through the fields and to passersby it felt as though the music pierced their very souls. There were rumours that Destler had a grandson, who was an invalid of some sort but also a most promising child prodigy. Sometimes he could be seen out just before dawn, although his head was always completely covered, on the beach with young man who could have been his servant or a doctor of some sort and they would just watch the tide draw in.
But the summers rolled on and the little invalid boy stopped visiting Regneville, and those who cared to speculate assumed he was no longer of this world. But with the music in the air again, perhaps they had been wrong.
After their conversation the previous night Erik had rifled for the sheet music he had promised and skipped his usual dosage. The last time he had stopped his excursions into the realm of artificial pleasures the shock had been so terrible that he had blacked out for what seemed like several days. And while this latest habit had only lasted a few months while before he had been thoroughly addicted for the better part of a decade, he was becoming worried at how rapidly he had become dependent on it. He no longer wished to let the medicine govern his life, he hated how his mood changed if he was even an hour late with his next dose and in spite of his compulsions, he had long become aware that the solution no longer brought him joy. It was as though the past five years hadn't existed at all and he was a fugitive once more with a monkey full of morphia.
They had talked about music long into the night and about what she wished to learn. They had slipped back into their old roles so easily it was almost frightening. He knew it was probably the safest way to act around, keeping their relationship to something she felt comfortable with lest he frightened her away again. It was not enough, it would probably never be enough, but if it meant that she would sit by him and smile and laugh as she had done last night he would happily teach her everything he knew. He would scour the world's libraries for new things to teach her if he could catch another glimpse of her in her nightgown. While the infernal garment had revealed nothing but her feet it was what lay beneath it that set his imagination racing. On those fleeting occasions when he had held her she had been encased in coutil cotton and steel, but surely women did not wear such things to bed. And perhaps all the other baffling undergarments society compelled them to wear were absent as well. Perhaps it was only the linen against her skin and nothing else.
He hadn't thought about a woman so intensely since he was a youth. But before Christine there had never been any one individual who had occupied his dreams, they had mostly been imaginary, fleeting and ephemeral beings. It was that feeling of closeness that he dreamed about more than anything else, that acceptance that meant so much more than physical gratification. He had long since abandoned such hopes and soon the dreams had departed from his mind replaced with the familiar preoccupation with his struggle for survival. Before Christine, life had been one horrific event after another and it would probably continue in that fashion regardless but her presence alone seemed to make it bearable. Such things could no longer break him because for the first time in his life he felt as though he had something to live for. When she was near she made him want to be a better person, not the feral, lawless thing he had once been.
That had all been fine when she had been an awkward child with a beautiful voice but it was quite a different thing when she had grown into the goddess that currently slept in the room next to his. But having her here with him more than made up for any frustration he had been feeling. The house had been a monumental rush to prepare for her and was still unfinished in places. He had not been able to begin work on a study for himself and most of his portfolios and notebooks lay piled haphazardly in the corner of his room. He had spent so much time installing the back boiler on the old range that he hadn't been able to figure out a reliable way of lighting the house and they would have to make do with paraffin lamps and candles for now. He preferred it that way if he was completely honest with himself, for even before he had taken up residence in the opera house he had been a largely nocturnal creature. But all in all he had gone out of his way to ensure that she would be comfortable, that she would have warmth and space and hot water, all the things his previous home didn't have. The building had been in excellent condition with many features that were ahead of their time for somewhere so rural and perhaps and with the benefit of hindsight it really wasn't much of a surprise that his grandfather had built it. While he could not remember the man without a certain degree of contempt, he also couldn't deny the genius and innovation of the late Vincent Destler.
He had always thought that the man had intended to throw him out into the street after the final horror of his mother's death, but as memories slowly returned though the fog of his addled mind he began to doubt his childish assumption. Perhaps the walls had been added to the house with him in mind, to shut out the judging eyes of the outside world. Could his grandfather have acted with his best interests in mind? Or was he merely intending to shut him away after he had caused so much tragedy? His life had been a terrible one, filled with isolation, injury and murder. It had left him more disfigured than ever, both outside and in. But if he had not lived that life he would never have met Christine, so while he didn't exactly feel grateful for it, he didn't regret it either. He thought for a moment about what his life would have been like if he had not run away all those years ago. He might have been sent here, with Father Bernard or perhaps a nurse of some sort, quietly working on his music and drawings and knowing nothing about the outside world. He would never have known the stench of Venice or the desert wind. No, he would not have liked it. Even if the gypsy's cage or the Shah's torture chamber hadn't left him hateful of confinement, he would not have liked being stuck in this house. Even when he had deliberately shunned mankind and locked himself away below the opera house a part of him had always longed to feel the sun.
He lay awake for hours, unable to sleep because his body was screaming at him. Go to the monkey again. Go to the music room. Go to her! He chose music. So he sat at the cluttered desk in the corner, so that he wouldn't have to look at the dreaded music box and he tried to write down the piece from earlier before it faded like everything else. But his hands were already shaking and the notes soon deteriorated into an illegible mess. And it didn't help that the cymbals on that damnable thing had a habit of starting on their own accord, or perhaps he was just imagining it. He wouldn't yield, he had not come this far to be enslaved again by the God of dreams. But just the memory of withdrawal terrified him, and knowing what was about to come did nothing to ease the stress. It was truly the worst pain he had ever felt, in a physical sense at least, and this was coming from a man who'd had his eye ripped out and had lost a toe to frostbite, a man who had probably had more brushes with death than all the cats in Paris combined. But there had always been opium to relieve the pain, and once the relief was gone then it seemed as though a whole lifetime of pain would descend upon him. Eventually he gave up trying to write and sat on his hands stubbornly, praying for sleep but knowing it wouldn't come.
The night had been dreadful although not quite as bad as the last time he had been in this state. But once again it seemed as though his mind craved the thing that would eventually kill him if he carried on while his body tried desperately to flush out the poison. And now it felt like every drop of liquid had made a rush to evacuate, through his skin, nose and eyes, while the fever began take hold of him giving way to bizarre dreams in his trance-like state. He had been dreaming of her when Christine came knocking on his door that morning, she had been dancing in a sea of poppies like the fields of Afghanistan and the petals has risen up into a purple cloud and buried her as they fell. Was it normal to dream so much about what he craved? He awoke feeling disorientated at having passed out across the bed and seeing only the geometric flowers of the Persian carpet below him. He felt as though his head contained a swarm of bees, stinging him from the inside out, he felt as though he was on fire. As the second knock roused him further he felt a wave of nausea hit him as he began to ease himself out of bed only to fall into a miserable heap on the rug. Then in one horrible moment he realised that he had forgotten to lock his bedroom door and one glance across the room confirmed that his mask and wig still lay on his desk where he had discarded them the night before when the sweating became too much. Dear god, he couldn't let her come in and see him like this. It was bad enough that she had already seen the horror that was his face, but see him in such a pathetic state was beyond mortifying. He made a move to stand up but the pain was too great and that sick feeling resurfaced along with another wave of panic as the door opened.
It's time Christine. Can't you hear the death knell?
Christine awoke to the sound of bells whose echo reached the length and breadth of the village and the dry harbour beyond. He pillow was damp with tears which continued to fall. Her dream had been very similar to the last one, on the train. But this one had not been interrupted and as she had pulled the sheet away from the dying figure on the bed it had been Erik's face staring back at her, unmasked and scarred beyond belief instead of her father's sad smile and pale drawn skin. She had not been to a real church in many years, the disused chapel below the academy dormitories hardly counted as a place of worship anymore, and while she wasn't Catholic like the other girls in the ballet it was still no excuse. The truth was that as a child attending her father's funeral it had felt as though God might strike her down at any moment for defiling His house. That fear had stayed with her until the angel had come to her, but now there was no angel and she was as guilty as ever.
It was almost seven, and the Sunday Mass was just beginning, which meant that the priest who had visited the day before would be returning soon. She quickly washed and dressed before heading downstairs for breakfast, trying to put the dream from her thoughts. But such thoughts would not leave her when Erik was nowhere to be found. After checking the house and garden, she only had one room left, a room that frightened beyond all sense of rationality. She desperately hoped that he had simply gone out for a while, perhaps to buy more bread, but he had looked so ill yesterday and behaved so strangely that she felt compelled to check his room. The image from her nightmare was still fresh in her mind and she trembled a little at the thought of finding him in such a deteriorated state. She took a deep breath before knocking on his door. After a few moments without a reply she knocked again hearing a slight movement within this time. There was a muffled groan followed by a dull thud as though something heavy had dropped to the floor.
"Erik? Erik!" she called out her heart beating wildly with a sudden panic. She ignored any sense of propriety and opened the door, which thankfully hadn't been locked.
She had almost expected Erik's bedroom to be a replica of the one she had slept in that night below the opera house, with its dark velvet hangings and its large and heavily ornate bed, but instead she was faced with a room like any other. There were a few items that had been brought there from the catacombs, the music box with the monkey on it rested on a shelf at the far end of the room and there were a few statues and figurines on the desk and shelves that looked familiar, seemingly gathered from some distant part of the orient. But the walls were a plain white and the furniture was simple and made of dark wood, including a sleigh bed that lay unmade and empty against the wall to her right.
Suddenly a terrible retching noise came from the other side of the bed, bringing her back into the present. She dashed across the room to where Erik lay curled up on the floor shivering and clutching at the empty chamber pot as though it were a lifeboat on a stormy sea. She reached him just as he vomited into the while enamelled bowl, still shivering like he was out in the frost while his shirt was drenched with sweat. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn yesterday, she noticed, and they were so dishevelled it looked like he had slept in them it he had slept at all.
"Erik? Erik, what's wrong?"
"Don't look at me, Christine." He managed to gasp out. Even though the deformed side of his face was facing away from her, his hand instinctively reached up to hide it. She had been so anxious about the kind of state he was in she hadn't even noticed that he wasn't wearing his mask. Of course he wouldn't wear it while he was sleeping, or perhaps he didn't wear it at all in private and the mask was only for her benefit. The thought made her incredibly guilty. "Go back to your room! You shouldn't have to see this."
"But you're ill." She said crouching down and reaching out to touch his shoulder but he flinched away from her until his back hit the wall behind him.
"I said, get out!" he shouted, or at least attempted to shout but his voice was very weak. "Now if you'll just give me a moment to get cleaned up I'll be down shortly."
"Like hell you will! You need rest, and a doctor by the look of things." she cried angrily, the dream was too vivid and still lay fresh in her mind along with too many unpleasant memories and she was in no mood for his ghastly temper. She picked up the white mask from where it lay on the mahogany desk and threw it at him, missing his head by a few inches to her disappointment. "Take it; if that's what you're so worried about, not that it makes any difference." He looked back at her in a stunned silence, and it he hadn't looked so miserably unwell she might have laughed at the reaction. She also noticed for the first time that he wasn't wearing a wig and that his hair was not the deep black she had grown used to but brown like her own, but perhaps a little fairer and thinning around the place where his hairline met his deformity.
"As much as I appreciate your concern, Christine, I assure you I'm absolutely fine. I don't need a doctor." Erik replied, after turning away briefly to fix the mask in place. The change was instant, as though the mask could hide his outburst as well as his face. Unconvinced, Christine knelt beside him, raising a hand to his forehead.
Erik flinched at her touch, remembering what had happened the last time she had touched his face. But her fingers felt wonderfully cool against his skin and he couldn't help but lean in to her touch as though he were some sort of pathetic dog begging for her attention. She had said the mask didn't make any difference. Well what the hell did that mean? Was his face so hideous that it couldn't be unseen? Did the rest of him look so terrible in his current state that the mask was rendered practically useless? Or did he dare to imagine that his face held no fear for her. He certainly wasn't used to her arguing with him, let alone using curse words. But she had always thought he was an angel before, so she had been a lot more respectful. Now she was seeing him as a man, perhaps even as an equal, which more than he could ever have hoped for.
"Erik, you're burning up. I think you might have a fever." She said, taking her hand away much to his dismay.
"I told you, there's nothing wrong." He said weakly, cursing that moment of weakness all those months ago that had put him in this situation. If he had only been stronger he might not have killed again. But instead he was crouched on his bedroom floor feeling like death and vomiting in front the woman he loved. If she hadn't been utterly repulsed by him before, she definitely would be now.
"If you won't see a doctor then at least let me take care of you." She pressed, "Why don't I draw you a bath? You'll feel so much better."
Take care of him? Now that was an offer he couldn't refuse. No one had ever voluntarily cared for him before, not that he hadn't fantasised about some caring soul nursing him back to health the numerous times he had found himself injured and that one time he caught malaria in Siam, now that was something he didn't wish remember. Needless to say the thought of Christine fussing over him all day was incredibly appealing. He just wished he felt well enough to enjoy it.
The bath did help to ease his aching joints and muscles as well as warm the chill that had been gripping his body. He returned to his room to find the sheets changed and all signs of the previous night had disappeared. It felt incredibly unusual to find that such a personal task had been done by another. While he had often dreamed of someone taking care of him when he was a child, as an adult it felt awkward and a little embarrassing. She certainly couldn't have enjoyed doing such a thing, and what if she'd stumbled upon his glass eye collection when she was looking for the spare bed linens, or his pocket knife, or that sketch he'd made of her in her underclothes. In fact his room contained quite a few things that weren't exactly suitable for young ladies.
He glared at the monkey accusingly but knew he had no one to blame for the humiliation but himself.
After dressing he found her in the kitchen, stirring a saucepan filled with porridge. The house was so cold that the milk had kept for an extra day, but all that would change when summer came around. She seemed to sense his presence before he had even made a sound and wiped her face on the apron she was wearing. When she turned her eyes were red and it was obvious that she'd been crying.
"You should have stayed upstairs, I was going to bring you breakfast." She said, with a smile that seemed as though it was forced.
"Thank you, but I'd rather stay downstairs." He replied sitting down at the kitchen table despite his discomfort at all the heat the range was belching out. For the past few hours his body didn't seem able to settle on what temperature it wanted to be. He hoped to whatever cruel deity was out there that he wasn't sweating again, but his mask was already beginning to feel heavy and unbearably hot. They ate breakfast in silence. Perhaps it was because she had been taught to cook properly, or perhaps it was just because it was her that had prepared it but the food tasted better than anything he had ever made. But his culinary education had been largely trial and error and up until his return to France had largely involved small game and camp fires. He could only manage a few mouthfuls however, but realised he had drunk the whole pot of tea which earned him a concerned look.
"How are you feeling?" she said finally.
"Better thanks to you." He replied, although in reality it felt as though it was about to get much worse. But he felt an odd feeling of relief that he had been able to set things in motion, he might feel terrible now but in a week or two he would be able to start the new life he had planned. A life filled music and Christine's perfection.
"You don't look any better. Are you in pain? Can I get you anything?"
"It's really not as bad as it looks, Christine. I'll be fine in a few days, I promise you." He said, but the fearful look in her eyes broke his heart. He wished he could explain everything to her, but then he would have to tell her the reason why he become this way and terrible things he had done because of it. "But perhaps, if you wouldn't mind...would you sing for me?"
Christine had slipped back into the role of nurse so easily that it was hard to believe that she'd ever stopped. But keeping herself busy seemed to be the only thing that could stave off the rising tide of panic that threatened to envelope her. This situation was too familiar, and had hit a raw nerve that had been left exposed ever since she's discovered that the angel was a lie. She had cleaned the room quickly then taken all the used linens and clothes she could find down to the scullery, planning to soak everything in water and soda crystals that night so that they could be washed properly the next morning. It had been so long since she had done her own laundry, the ballet academy had a small kitchen and cleaning staff but the girls had been responsible for keeping the dormitories clean which was organised by rota. Mopping floors had always been dull and tiring but Meg would always find a way to make it fun.
The opera house felt as though it was a million miles away and she longed to be back there with Meg and her mother with a sudden intensity. They had been the ones, who had truly been there for her when there was no one else, they were the closest thing she had to a family not counting the grandparents she had left behind in Sweden, and she felt wretched for leaving without saying goodbye. What had she been expecting, that she and Erik would simply talk a while by the lake and that everything would be fine? It had been a reckless and foolish decision and she now felt like she was in over her head. Of course there was always a chance that it was only a simple fever and she was worrying over nothing. But that part of her that had grown to know him over the years could tell that there was more to it than that, and the sick feeling of realisation similar to when she had first suspected his true identity. She had remained in denial for a long time, but she couldn't this time, for something seemed very wrong. Something about what he'd said before about making one last attempt at a normal life. When she put it in perspective she didn't like how that sounded at all. That cellar couldn't have been a healthy place to live, with all those rats and sewers. What if the lake had carried some sort of terrible disease? The thought of him living in such awful conditions brought tears to her eyes. It had all seemed so beautiful that night, but the candlelight and roses had hidden a world of complete darkness.
She could live with him quite contentedly she had discovered. As a teacher, he was quite extraordinary and she felt privileged even to scratch the surface of his genius, she could listen to his voice all day long and still hang on his every word. She could even imagine them growing closer given a little time, she couldn't deny the attraction she felt towards him and if they could only learn to trust one another then she could very easily come to care for him as more than a teacher. But this man had deceived her, broken her dreams of salvation and her father's memory, he had abandoned her at the first sign of her defiance and now if she was correct in her suspicion he was going to leave her forever, which was perhaps the cruellest thing of all. She couldn't do this; she couldn't go through this again. She felt cursed, as though everyone she gave her heart to would eventually leave in one way or another. That was why her relationship with Raoul had felt so safe. It wasn't his promises to protect her or his calm demeanour or even the memories they had shared together. It was the fact that her feelings had never extended beyond a gentle fondness. So that when his parent's opposed their engagement, or if his passion for her cooled or his fickle heart moved on to another, her heart would remain intact. She felt terrible for feeling that way. She was such a liar.
For a moment she wanted to leave that house forever, to take the priest up on his offer of help and return to Paris. That would certainly be the sensible thing to do. There would probably be scandals if she returned to work, which probably wouldn't hurt her singing career much but Raoul would probably break off their engagement after he found out she had willingly run away with another man. And she would have to continue to sing minor roles and tolerate La Carlotta's foul attitude and histrionics and live with the overwhelming guilt of once again being responsible for the destruction of another human being. That was something she definitely couldn't do. She couldn't just leave Erik here, to let him lose whatever shred of faith he had in the human race and to possibly to die alone in this empty little town. The only option in her mind was to stick with her choice, and if he truly was dying as she suspected then she would give him that normal life that he so desperately wanted.
The walk up to the top of the hill was harder now and each time Father Bernard made the journey to the Destler house past the end of the Chemin des Monces, he was reminded of how the years had flown by. So many years had been lost, so many failures. Since the downfall of the family he had once been so close to, he had lost his faith in his calling and his fellow man. For many years now, he had been going through the motions of his profession while secretly harbouring a certain degree of resentment.
He had left the church as soon as he could. Normally he would stay and chat with his friends from the village, listening to the news from people's relatives in Montmartin and Hauteville and discussing whatever trivial moral dilemma they had had that week. Today he knew exactly what the gossip would be about and wished to have no part in it. Many of the older residents could remember the time when he and Erik had travelled up from Rouen to spend their summers in the therapeutic sea air, and while they had never seen him in person, they remembered they music. In a way Erik had somehow worked his way into the local folklore, there were traces of him all over the coastline where children would make up stories about the haunted house and the ghost who played the piano.
Stories like that had always upset him in the past, after Erik's trail had run cold in Paris he had been inconsolable and the boys grandfather had never been the same. Perhaps the old man had realised the consequences of his coldness, that after years of blaming the child for his daughters dark fate, Erik had turned out to be his only link to her, and his only legacy. He had died with that guilt upon his shoulders, that much had been clear when he sold the house he was now approaching for a fraction of its worth to the first person who'd take it. He felt glad that they building now belonged to its rightful owner, but there was still so much to put right.
But now that he had met the man that Erik had grown into, he knew things would not be so easy. It was not hard to see that this man had gone through more than he could possibly imagine. And then there was the girl. While he had been convinced that she was not in any kind of danger and a part of him was relieved that his former ward had found someone who seemed to regard him with genuine respect and admiration, he couldn't help but worry about the pair. Something seemed wrong between them, but if Erik's temper was anything like what he had witnessed it was no wonder the relationship seemed strained and he had not even seen the two of them together.
He was greeted by the lilting sound of folk music as he neared the garden gate. After waiting at the door for a long time, he soon found himself being ushered into the music room by a welcoming yet highly strung Christine who left him alone with the masked man after briefly returning with a tray of the fragrant tea she had served him the day before. He couldn't even fathom the change in the man before him. While Erik had not looked particularly well the last time he had visited, he had looked like a pinnacle of athleticism compared to his current state as he lay on the leather sofa. His skin had turned an unhealthy grey, he was shivering and twitching uncontrollably and his eyes and nose were streaming.
"You look shocked, Father." The younger man said seeming slightly amused in spite of his obvious discomfort. "Do I really look that bad?"
"If you're not well, perhaps I should come back another time." He stammered, Christine had warned him that he was ill, but nothing could have prepared him for this.
"There's nothing wrong with my ability to talk; so perhaps we should just get this over with."
"Very well, if you're sure. But I could have a word with the doctor if you'd like."
"I don't need a doctor." Erik snapped. "I'm not ill."
"Well there's a young woman out there who seems to disagree. Don't you think you should put her mind at ease at least?"
Erik sat up and peered out the window where Christine sat dejectedly on the old swing they had made together when he had been a child. It was a wonder that the thing had lasted so long, and the rope seemed to have become consumed with ivy where it had been tied to the branch. She had the look of a Pre-Raphaelite painting with her hair loose and the hem of her pale grey dress touching the snowdrops that had broken free of the frosty ground. It was clear that Erik had also noticed her sadness and he sighed unhappily.
"Fine, do as you must. Now remind me again why you're here."
"You've been missing for so long now; can you blame me for wanting to know how you've been? Whether you came here for a purpose or were merely brought here by fate, your reappearance seems nothing short of a miracle." Bernard replied. "And I also came here to discuss your inheritance..."
TBC
A/N – So Erik is even grumpier than usual and finding it hard to accept any help. And Christine is under the impression that he's about to die a slow and lingering death much like her father, also drawing up some major abandonment issues there, that can't be healthy. Oh the misunderstandings. But then I personally think the chances of Erik and Christine having a smooth relationship is utterly impossible. I tried to get everything as accurate as possible, but having never personally experienced the effects of addiction or detoxing it was pretty damn hard to write. Still I hope it was convincing enough. Things are going to start moving forward quite soon in terms of the plot so watch this space and I'll try and be less horribly slow at writing.
Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed and favourite the story so far, it really means a lot. You guys are awesome, hope you had a wonderful Easter, and as always reviews will earn you much lovings.