Author's Note: There is a lot of Fluff between Christine and Erik that had me giggling madly. There is also of Sensual Suggestions if you catch my meaning. However, there is absolutely nothing Graphic.

February 21st, 1897

Every hour I spend with him, the more sure of my heart I become. Whether I spent it in music, talks, or his arms, it did not matter. We still did not speak of love as if we feared ruining this perfectly wonderful dream. Yet his demeanor spoke volumes when his every step since we first made love had a small bounce in it, a wisp of a smile peered out from the shadow of his masks ~ all of which he now wore had an open jaw instead of the ones that only revealed his peculiar eyes.

I do not recall ever seeing him so happy.

I have even noticed his change of humor, at least in regards to me. Childish, yet charming all at once as if he were a much younger man than his… What is his age? Come to think of it, I do not think he has ever enlightened me to it! Another question to ask come our next discussion.

Christine let out a startled shriek when her journal vanished before he very eyes. In the mists of her writing, she had not noticed Erik was no longer tinkering away at the piano with a cheery tune. Nor did she notice him come up her to peer over her shoulder a second before he snatched it.

He dashed across the room in three strides book in hand, before she managed turn around.

"Erik! Give it back," she demanded as she came to her feet.

He looked to her with smirk on his twisted lips.

Christine could not help but admire the ornate silk of his deep blue and black Persian robes draped over his shoulders. It was what he wore in place of a jacket and waistcoat when he wanted to be more comfortable.

She had to shake her head to before a lustful fog claimed her presence of mind. "Now Erik."

He tilted his head to the side, much as like a curious dog. "Hmm…no. You see my dear," he began as he slowly walked around the divan as she came near, "I fear I have read every book in my library. Being that I now see you writing in all your spare moments, I should like read all that you eloquently pen."

When he raised the journal and began opening to some random page, Christine dashed towards him. He moved in his own hasty step and kept the furniture between them. "'Dear diary… today I went to market and brought myself a new frock…'" he read in a feminine voice. "Really Christine? That's rather mundane, and when did you begin logging your daily life?"

"It's none of your business, Monsieur le Fantȏme! And–and I never wrote something so trivial in there!" she lunged over the divan to have him dance away to now have a chair between them.

"Oh, very well," he flipped another page. "February Twelfth, Eighteen-Ninety-Seven, 'To spite my efforts to the contrary, I cannot seem to keep that night from my mind. He made me burn with such passion–'" he cut himself off as Christine returned to her feet and he bolted towards freedom by planting a foot on the seat of a chair, and his other foot on the back rest and let it tip backward. It fell to the floor and launched him to the little stairwell, befitting of one for spiraling up a castle tower, which led to the second floor of his little house where the bedrooms were. He paused on the stairs while she wove through his furniture, "'–that I long for next time.' Oh Christine, you dirty girl!"

The moment she ascended the first step, he flew up the rest of the stairs. From there, the chase was on. He slammed all three doors on the second floor to their rooms and the master bathroom by the time she reached the landing. He touted off random entries from the past several weeks as she chased him throughout the rooms.

It was to her great fortune that he primarily only discovered only her more mundane entries.

However, her fortune only went so far, as she pursued him between three rooms for three minutes. Every door she saw close, she opened to only have him come out of a different door! He had to have secret doors between the rooms themselves! Just as she thought she had him cornered to a closest, following his merry voice divulging her writings, she opened the door to his voice, but not him.

The flash of his shadow her behind made her growl as she spun around to see him run down the hall towards the stairs. "Erik!" she tried to sound infuriated, but she could not help but giggle at her plight now.

"Can't catch a Phantom!" he teased.

"You insufferable masked…fiend!" she shouted as she marched to the top of the stairwell and began her descent. She found him leaning against the back of the sofa, the book still within his grasp.

When he looked up at her, he issued the most curious of glances before he flipped the book for her to see her own work, a certain sketch.

A fresh shade of red flushed her cheeks. He found one of the entries he was not supposed to see. One where he was without garments…

"Naughty, naughty girl." He turned the entry back to him. "I must say though, you are most generous—"

She ran at him…

…To have him fall back onto the couch.

It was not really a fall. It was a clever flip to his feet that would have an acrobat envious, while putting yet another obstacle between them. "—though I really can't say for sure. I cannot stand mirrors you know!"

Christine slammed her hands into the sofa's backrest at missed opportunity. "You were not supposed to see that! Give it back."

"I'm not supposed to see many things, and yet I do!" he waltzed to unseen music around the sofa as she began circling it.

"Give it back."

"I have already told you know I cannot my dear. I am enjoying our gallivanting far too much!"

"Give it back," Christine said, stopping her tour around the sofa, which resulted in Erik's halt as well.

"No."

"Suit yourself." She glanced at the couch, and Erik mimicked her. His eyes grew wider a split second later, but by then, it was already too late. The sofa became her stepping stool as she launched herself over it much like Erik had with the chair, only instead it did not fall as she leapt at him.

He barely managed to catch her, and the momentum resulted in their fall to the floor.

Christine gave a smug smirk at her triumph. Her pounce resulted in their crumpled heap on the maroon Persian carpet with Erik pinned at the waist beneath her. She leaned forward, pressing her hands against his chest. "I caught a Phantom."

"Have you?"

"Mhmm," she caught his lips in a passionate kiss. In during so, she let her hands slip down his arms, feeling every curve of his muscle and bone until she reached his hands. A frustrated cry escaped her as she broke the kiss pinned his hands above his head without resistance. "Where is it?"

"Where's what?" he sighed in nonchalance.

"My journal."

Erik shifted his hips beneath her. "Hmm…I rather like this position, don't you?"

She smirked at his implication, and felt just how excited he was to spite he relaxed state.

"Your confidence, the aggression– I am not used to this from you my dear Christine. How is that so?"

"I had a great teacher. After the last few months, he made me stronger, confident. He taught me how to carry my head high. He helped me realize I am no longer a child," she plucked the buttons of his robe to reveal his shirt beneath it.

All she told him was true. He guided her into rediscovering herself, and the strength she was capable of having, be it by design or circumstance. The last month and a half alone was a testament to the changes in her growth. Activities with Erik within the last fortnight embolden her enough to take such a dominating position over him and enjoy it.

It made her feel empowered, even in a moment as fleeting and permitted as this. Erik could turn the tables at his whim, and she would be powerless to stop him. One thing she had to wonder was why he found this situation so stimulating.

As her fingers traced down the buttons of his shirt in feathering touches, Christine turned her sapphire eyes up to his masked face. She brought her hands to his neck in a gentle caress, his eyes fluttered close behind the black leather and he tilted his head back to grant her more access. When she pressed two fingers to his lips, he kissed them.

A smile spread to her lips as she trailed those fingers down over his chin and throat, where she felt the vibration of his ensuring groan. Upon reaching his shirt again, she starting punching buttons through their holes. Erik arched his back enough to press his chest into her hands as she worked the buttons. He shivered when she pushed the fabric apart to reveal the twisted flesh beneath, and breath flew into him in a gasp as she pressed her lips to his lumpy sternum.

She spread herself over him as she made her way to his mouth and caressed his lips with her own before she parted. "Erik…?"

"Mmm?" his eyes opened, blinking away the haze of lust in a few bats of his lashes prior to turning his gaze upon her. "Yes Christine?"

"Why do you like this position? It's not one I imagined you liking."

"Merely because one is a puppet master does not mean he is not in favor being the occasional puppet."

"Please do not skirt the answer with your sense of humor."

His hands encircled her waist. "Very well… I enjoy this for many reasons. One is because I do not have to worry about crushing you beneath me. Another is that I am your mercy and very much enjoy the feel of you saddling me for reasons I cannot yet describe. But the first, and foremost reason Christine, is that you are here, on me to do as you wish without my coercion."

"But you have not compelled me to do anything that is not what I wish."

He pressed a bony finger to her lips to silence further words.

"Let me have it Christine." He pushed a golden tendril of her hair out of her face. "If you live a life such as mine, and you finally feel such a kind and tender touch anywhere, it brings a sense of euphoria when all you've known is violence. Such bliss falls upon you Christine that you begin to wonder if it is all a dream— if the reason you feel such things is because you made someone feel obligated to do so. That is why I love this position."

"You are making sure I feel no revulsion in our…passion play."

He gave a nod.

Christine traced the outline of his mask before slowly pealing it away to reveal his poor twisted face. Although he hand prominent bone structure, it was not what ruined his face; it was his skin. It rose around the sharper features of his bone structure, protruding around his eyes and cheekbones, casting them in deep shadow. In other places, it stretched out into gaunt skin over his forehead and jaw, while his temples and cheeks hollowed out into semi-translucent flesh.

The raised ridges of his skin tugged and twisted at his upper lip, making it swollen and out of shape. While his nose on the other hand, was so small and thin, at certain angles, it looked like he didn't have one at all.

As a whole, he did have a face reminiscent of a skull as his skin betrayed a man who might have otherwise been handsome, to deformity.

She could only muster a small smile as hand a finger over the ridge above his right eye, and he shivered. Her smile grew as she leaned up and kissed his forehead.

"This isn't a dream…is it?" he sighed when she rested her head on his shoulder.

Christine shook her head against him. "No. Because if it is, I never wish to wake."

His hand stilled from caressing her back through the thin wool of her nightgown. "Do you mean that?"

Silence hung between them for a brief moment before she said, "Yes…I do."

He sat to look at her more clearly, while her hands rested on his shoulders. "Erik, I lo–"

His left hand flew up to press his cold fingers against her lips. "No… do not say things you are not yet certain of."

"I am certain," she stated when he lifted his hand from her lips to cradle her cheek.

"No, you're not. Not yet, Christine, you must understand that in saying such things, I will never be able to let you go. Not back to him, not to anyone else. I know I promised that I would try to remain in your life if you do not choose me, but Christine, I cannot. To see you in another man's arms after all we have shared, would be unbearable."

Tears spilled forth from her expressive eyes, her cheek heavy in his hand. Her hands now grasped the collars of his shirt and robe in alternating grips in her struggle to find words to reply. What upset her so much in his words she could not determine, the prospect of him not being in her life? His devotion? She should not have said anything, "I ruined the dream…" Christine choked out, her hands clenched tight in his clothes.

Erik shook his head. "No, never," his voice was weak in his own turmoil of emotion.

Christine leaned into him, burying her face into his neck with her arms around him. In turn, he held her rubbing her back to calm her while he kissed the hair on the back of her head.

"The dream only ends when you want it to."

"I don't want it too." She drew away from him to capture his lips once more. The depths of their kiss went beyond those that preceded it in that night, loving and soulful with need and desire. Her hands slipped under his garments, wanting the texture of his skin beneath her palms as she pushed his shirt and robe off his shoulders and down his slender arms. Once free, she pushed him back down to the floor with a mischievous smirk.

Erik gave her a smirk of his own, equally mischievous. Shifting a bit, he reached behind his back and drew out of her diary, and waved it teasingly.

Sparing the diary no more than a glance, Christine knocked it out of his hand.

The sharp ridges of his brows rose playfully at her action before his hands slipped up her nightgown, and slowly climbed them upward in the curvature of her body, pushing the gown up with it to reveal her to him.