Disclaimer: I don't own any the POTO characters but Anna and Brooke are mine.
Sarita: Yes…I wasn't sure about Christine-bashing but I'm feeling snarky so what the heck. But hey, if you have any suggestions for scenarios you'd like to see please tell me!
Vlad's Gal: Tacos was totally random…but I think Erik probably knows about cows.
Phantress: WooHoo! Reviewer #30! I'm so glad this Phic makes you so happy.
A/N: To all of my reviewers, sorry if I don't thank you personally. Please know that I love making you laugh and I really appreciate your support. Christine is gonna be a little OOC. I have to make her unlikable otherwise I just don't feel justified in letting the girls have at her, but I'm having some trouble with her. I figure she's the whiny, clinging type. All constructive suggestions welcome.
GIRL TALK
In Which Christine Does Something Very Stupid and the Phantom Discusses Life, the Universe and Everything with the Girls
Erik shook Brooke and Anna out of their dreams the next morning.
"Brooke, Anna, I've remember some lady's articles that I forgot to have Jules purchase for Mademoiselle Daaé. I'm going up to buy them myself. Please have breakfast ready for her when she wakes," he said. The girls tumbled out of bed, moaning groggily.
"Do you know what she likes to eat?" Anna asked as she pulled on her red robe.
"I believe she likes scrambled eggs, slightly runny and French toast with warm maple syrup and coffee, two lumps of sugar and one spoonful of cream."
"Okay, then," Anna laughed. "Shall we wake her?"
"No, no let her sleep. She's had quiet a bit of excitement," Erik said pulling on a pair of black leather gloves. Anna came over to adjust his collar and tugged the wide brim of his felt hat down lower over the mask. Erik scanned the girls briefly, taking in the frumpy robes, untidy hair, and droopy eyes. He thought they looked cute like that but he was desperate to make a good impression on Christine. "Um, you two had best look presentable when you meet Mademoiselle Daaé." He swept out the back door. Brooke snatched up the Bag.
"May we have some arsenic?"
Nope.
"Why not?"
Because if you bump Christine off now the story's gonna get boring.
"Lot of help you are," she snapped, tossing the Bag aside.
Christine didn't emerge from the Louis-Phillipe room until two o'clock. She wore nothing but a skimpy white dressing gown and her eyes were attractively raccoonish. In her hands she clutched a note on which Erik's messy left-handed scrawl was written in red ink. The rustle of taffeta skirts startled her. She whirled around to see two young women walking towards her from what seemed to be a kitchen. Oh, good, she thought, At least Erik has servants.
"Good morning, Mademoiselle Daaé!" the brunette quipped with horribly false cheerfulness. "Or good afternoon really. How about some breakfast?" She set a silver tray loaded with plates of food down on the table. Christine gasped when the girl shoved her chair back a little too hard.
"These eggs are cold," Christine said, pushing the plate away as she wrinkled her nose.
"Early bird gets a warm breakfast," said the redhead.
As the redhead marched past her Christine caught snippets of a song:
Angel of Music,
You denied him,
Turning from true beauty…
She had no idea what that meant but she made a mental note to speak to Erik about the etiquette of his maids when he came home.
The girls had retreated to their fluffy, purple cave upon Erik's return. They waited tensely for the ax to fall.
Eventually they heard the door from the sitting room creak open. Erik was saying something to Christine about the décor of his unusual bedroom. He showed her Don Juan Triumphant. She responded unenthusiastically. He suggested singing a duet from Otello. The music started and Anna peered out from behind the curtains. Brooke sat back in the shadows, staring hard at the wall with grim anticipation.
"It's happening isn't it?" she whispered hoarsely.
"Yes…damn it, there she goes." The next moment the air exploded with a spectacular amount of screaming and yelling. Brooke yanked her other half away from the curtains.
"Don't watch, Anna!"
"Oh, I don't know why that was ever my favorite part in the book." The girls buried their heads in the pillows, bustles in the air so that they looked like colorful ostriches. All at once they realized that Erik was calling their names.
Christine Daaé was huddled on the floor near the door, the black mask held fast by a white-knuckled grip. The wretched monster, who had posed as her angel, lay crying by the huge pipe organ.
"Anna! Brooke!" he sobbed. The young women emerged from the ring of purple curtains in the far corner. The redhead ran to Erik, putting her arms around his shaking shoulders, but the brunette was storming straight for Christine herself.
The girl leveled an accusing finger at the singer. "Ayesha, attack!" she cried. Christine saw a cream-colored blur streaking out from behind the organ, speeding towards her. Christine scrambled back out into the sitting room, but not before the cat managed to draw blood from her arm. The brunette slammed the door in her face.
"Why did she do that? Why do women always have to know?" Erik demanded. Anna and Brooke sat on either side of him, patting his arms in an effort to comfort their wounded friend.
"Seriously," he continued, "Why would she do something like that? When you get right down to it, it was extraordinarily rude!"
"Well, you did kidnap her," Anna said softly. Erik glared at her.
"She does have major issues, you know," Brooke commented. "The whole clinging-to-dead-father's-memory thing and actually believing that you were the Angel of Music?" The girls arched their eyebrows knowingly.
Erik nodded, "Yes, she is pathetically gullible."
"Her picture's probably next to the word in the dictionary," Anna said.
"Do they even have photography yet?"
"Yes, but I don't know if they've started using film instead of glass plates."
"I feel so horribly depressed," Erik said matter-of-factly. "I am accomplished at every task known to man except handling women."
"No man is accomplished at that task," Brooke crowed triumphantly.
"Besides, you're not accomplished at everything, Erik," said the other cousin.
"Oh, really? Name one thing that I can't do."
"Can you hand-fart 'Stars and Stripes Forever'?"
"What?"
"Can you burp the ABC's?"
"Well…" Erik blushed and rubbed at his neck self-consciously. "I can do that." If the girls had been dogs their ears would have pricked up. Instead their eyes lit up and they leaned forward eagerly.
"Can you really?"
"Let's hear it."
"No."
"PLEASE!" They looked up at him with big, puppy-dog eyes and pouted prettily. Erik flushed redder than a tomato.
"All right." He took a great gulp of air and proceeded to belch out the French alphabet, rather musically. The girls were in hysterics, literally rolling on floor and holding their aching sides. The Phantom himself began to chuckle.
"But truly, girls," he said, sobering. "What would you do if you were in my place?"
"Cut her throat," Brooke mumbled.
"If we were back in 2005," Anna said as she elbowed her cousin, "We'd eat ice cream!"
"And drink tall decaf mochas!"
"And sit in Barnes and Noble, reading random books!"
"That sounds pleasant, even though I have know idea what that all meant," Erik said.
Anna added, "But it would have to be raining outside. It's really annoying when I feel like crap but the rest of the world seems to take no notice."
"I understand that," said Erik. The three of them (four if you count the cat) sat pondering their options for a minute or two.
Ahem. Anything I can do?
"Anna! The BAG!" Brooke cried. She leapt to her feet and stood over the supposedly inanimate object. "Can you?"
What's your favorite flavor?
Two hours had ticked by when Christine cracked open the door. Apparently, no one had heard so she sat peeking in at the strangest of sights. Several empty ice cream cartons lay strewn around the pipe organ. Erik, Anna, and Brooke were all buried in voluminous cushions, slurping up mochas held in one hand with their noses stuck in books held up by the other hand.
Erik turned the last page of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "I still don't understand what the sperm whale had do to with anything."
"That's kind of the point, Erik," Brooke said absently from behind Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
"Hee, hee. I always loved that part. 'I wonder if it will be friends with me.' SPLAT!" Anna giggled manically as she set aside Pride and Prejudice.
"Only you would appreciate something like that," Erik muttered.
Brooke glanced up at her cousin. "How's Mr. Darcy?"
"Still sexy. And Snuffles?"
"He's not dead!" Brooke snarled at no one in particular. Erik didn't pay attention. Following Ayesha's example, Anna stretched her limbs and yawned in lazy contentment.
"Hey, why don't we take some of those online quizzes?" she suggested brightly.
"No Internet," Brooke reminded her.
"Oh. Right…Bag?"
You can't put an Internet connection in a bag.
"Oh, come on!"
Fine.
They discovered that Erik's celebrity match was Orlando Bloom. Anna and Brooke found it amusing, the Phantom looked like he wanted to kill something.
"We can find out what kind of dogs we'd be," Brooke said. She turned out to be Doberman pincher while Anna was a Rottweiler.
"I wonder what type of dog Christine would be," Brooke mused as Erik took his turn.
"Probably be a Chihuahua. You know, bug-eyed and wimpy…No chest," Anna replied, her tongue stuck out in concentration. She was aiming a rubber band at the prying eyes peering though the crack in the door. ZING! Christine gave a little yelp and ran away again. Anna rolled over to stare at the computer screen, her chin digging into Erik's knee.
"So, what'd ya get, Erik?"
"A Bassett hound."
"How the heck does that make sense?"
A/N: So, phellow phans, what type of dog do you think our beloved Erik would be? P.S. Updates are gonna be fewer and shorter. Life, you know. Also, my brain is running dry. Any suggestions for new, fun scenarios? P.P.S. Shout out to Hitchhiker's Guide! Alan Rickman is gonna be Marvin's voice! YEAH! "Turn to page three hundred and ninety-four." Three cheers for Professor Snape. (sorry…please, pay no attention to my random outbursts).