Disclaimer: I don't POTO, etc, etc, etc… (a la The King and I!)
A/N: OMG! I am having a phantom-licious week! Last night my friend and I purchased tickets for the POTO show in Arizona this June. (Yeah!) Today we visited the Fashion Institute in L.A. where they have their annual display of movie costumes. SQUEEEEE! They had RED DEATH! I was standing there just soaking in its wonderful red presence with only one thing on my mind: IT MADE CONTACT WITH HIS SKIN! With his arms and his chest and much, much more (assuming that the manikin was wearing Gerry's undergarments too). It was tall, it was thick, it was broad chested. If it's possible to be jealous of clothes then I was green with envy. If those security folks hadn't been strolling thru every five seconds I think I might have glomped the statue and they would have been minus one costume. (melts into a little phantom-happy puddle). BTW Emmy's 'aria' costume is gorgeous!
Anywho. Well, I am very pleased to see all of the sign ups for the chat room. I'll try to fit you all in there, shouldn't be a problem. Most likely I'll be giving some you of singular traits (i.g. hyper, lewd, random, etc…) just so that each person stands out from the others. It'll take a while to get that chapter up simply because I want it to be as phantastic as possible.
Maska: Oh you are sooooo getting a cameo. I was hoping a Raoul fan would show up. But no need to worry for your safety or dignity because Brooke's on your side…she needed a teammate.
But on to the phic! Oh, wait: To any of you who happen to be fans of Lindsey Lohan and/or Hilary Duff I apologize ahead of time. (Christine needed some worthy cronies).
Phantress: This opening scene is for you!
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SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
If a Christine falls out of a carriage and face plants in horse dung but nobody sees it did it happen?
Yes, it did because you all just witnessed it in your mind's-eye, so now you may all laugh and point at Christine.
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The girls made for Erik's bed like lightning, hoping to repeat yesterday morning's successful surprise attack. But it is very hard to surprise the Phantom once, much less a second time. Thus, they were in mid-leap when two well-aimed pillows shot them down; they hit the wood floor with loud CLUNKS! A dark shadow passed over the whimpering brown and red heap.
"I win," purred the shadow's voice as it swished out of the room to order breakfast.
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"Why don't we take a carriage into town today?" Erik suggested as they stepped out into the courtyard of the Seaside Inn.
"It isn't that far of a walk," Brooke replied.
"It is when you are toting several million boxes of lady's articles. We're going by carriage." Erik stomped back into the front parlor to have a word with Madam de Pouf about procuring said transportation. The girls shrugged and went back to admiring their new skirts. Annette, who was waiting for her beau to appear, soon joined them.
"Some new visitors arrived late last evening," Annette said.
"Oh? Have you seen them?" The Mlles. Leroux exchanged knowing glances.
"No. Madam de Pouf said the lady came in simply caked in mud and manure. Nobody's had a good look at her."
The girls hid their indelicate sniggers.
"But the gentleman who arrived shortly after was said to been in a dreadful state. Very pale and his eyes looked very…oh, what was the word that Madam used?"
"Harassed?" Anna offered.
Annette brightened and snapped her gloved fingers, "That was it! The exact word: 'harassed.' I wonder if they're connected. I say, what is the matter with Mlle. Brooke?"
Anna gasped for her cousin was looking very pale herself, though her eyes were more dreamy than harassed.
She opened her mouth, "Oh, Rao—MMMF!"
'No time for dramatics!" Anna hissed in her ear, a hand clamped tight over her cousin's mouth. She glanced over her shoulder and called, "Hello, dear brother. Have you ordered the carriage?"
"Yes. Good-day Mlle. Annette." He bowed elegantly. "Hasn't the carriage come yet?"
"No."
"Hmm, best see what's keeping them." Erik excused himself and sauntered off to have a chat with the stable master. He rounded a corner just in time to see the very man towering over a pair of cowering grooms.
"What is in those dim brains of yours?" the red-faced stable master bellowed. "Do you think the patrons have all day to wait while you take naps?" He raised a riding crop over the shaking heads, but a thin, elegant hand restrained him from using it. The huffing, puffing man whirled around then started back when he saw the faceless mask.
"No need to beat these young rascals for holding us up, Monsieur," Erik said gently, his lovely voice dispensing the man's initial fear. The stable master back away and smoothed his rumpled clothes.
"Begging your pardon, sir, but they must be taught to work properly. Else no one will have carriages!"
"Quite right, but I have a more suitable punishment in mind."
"Eh? What's that?"
Erik leaned in close to whisper it into the man's ear. The two little grooms strained to hear. After a moment, their master reeled back with a boisterous laugh.
"Oh, that'll do nicely! Oh, ho! That's a good one! Well, get along with you. You're working for Monsieur Leroux today," He shoved the boys forward and went on to his business, still laughing and shaking his head. The boys were, to say the least, petrified.
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Anna and Brooke finished waving good-bye to Annette and Max as Erik approached them from behind.
"Shall we be on our way?" he said, making them give little screams of surprise.
"But what about the carriage?"
"No need. I've found someone else to do the dirty work." He reached behind him and pulled out—like a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat—the two stable hands, both looking like the aforementioned rabbit staring down a pair of headlights. The girls blinked at them. The boys stood at their height, both clothed in patchy, Oliver Twist-ish garments with jaunty newsy caps perched on their heads. They could have been twins but one had brown hair and a sort of perpetual sleepy look on his face, and the other was blond with alert eyes and an impish mouth.
"I thought you might like them," Erik said as though he had just given his sisters some new pets. "I fancied they looked rather like those hobbits that you are so fond of."
'HOBBITSES!" the girls squealed as they practically glomped the poor boys, whose eyes bulged and lips turned purple until Erik came to their rescue. Once he had Anna and Brooke settled about his arms and they were walking on their way, Erik made to get the hobbits to talk.
"What are your names, young monsieurs?"
"Me name's Fortesque and this here is Pip," said the brown-haired boy, in a slow Scottish drawl. The girls went mad with giggles as Erik held them under control. Fortesque and his friend darted to the side before they became the victims of a second glomping.
"Might we just call you Que?" Anna asked.
"If it suits ye, Miss," he said warily. (A/N: Please excuse my deplorable interpretation of Scottish accents…I love them—coughGerrycough—but can't write them to save my life). Anna and Brooke were so thrilled with their new friends that they nearly made the mistake of revealing that they themselves were of Scottish descent, not French.
Erik intervened, "Where shall we begin spending my money?" He immediately sorry he asked.
"At the gentlemen's store!" came the enthusiastic reply.
Once upon a time, long before the Opera House, Erik had worn a great variety of clothes: wild gypsy garb, ornate Persian robes, even simple European suits of colors other than black. Anna and Brooke were secretly sorry to have to force their friend out of his appealing black attire, but there was nothing else to be done. If Erik were to enjoy, much less survive, their time in Perros he would have to expand a little. Besides, it never hurt to be well rounded.
A portly gentleman with a thick grey moustache greeted the Leroux party as they came through the door, "Good day to you! How may I help you?" He came forward eagerly, having heard about many favorable rumors about the wealthy masked gentleman who seemed to have an unlimited supply of money about his mysterious person.
Erik bowed gracefully as he introduced himself then his sisters, each of whom made the shop keeper dainty curtsies. Que and Pip bowed sloppily when their turns came, but no one had expected much better (the girls found it charming).
"Delighted to make your acquaintance, M. Leroux and Mlles. I am Monsieur Valjean. What may I interest you in today?"
To M. Valjean's surprise Anna and Brooke did the talking.
"Our brother is looking to update his wardrobe today, monsieur. We are here to see that he adds a little color to his clothes," Brooke explained.
"I see," said M. Valjean. He adopted a scrutinizing look and studied Erik's person with a professional manner. "Too much black I assume…and monsieur is wearing evening clothes on a fine morning such as this!"
"Precisely! You see our predicament, M. Valjean?" Anna said as though they were refugees on the Underground Railroad.
"Yes, and I have just the thing to fix it. If you will follow me, M. Leroux. The Mlles. and your valets may wait here." He motioned to some chairs, which faced a fitting room at the back of the store. Anna and Brooke sat with prim, satisfied airs that Erik tried to ignore as he begrudgingly followed the tailor into the fitting room.
Erik was grateful that the mask hid whatever embarrassment he felt as he tried on an endless line of morning coats, frock coats, dress coats, waistcoats, and trousers. The girls demanded to see every outfit. Anna and Brooke felt all the weight of this enormous task: they were divesting the Phantom of the Opera of his signature apparel. This was not something to be taken lightly. They thought of all their phan phriends who had joined them in swooning over Erik's cloaks and dress shirts. At all costs they must keep Erik sexy. They knew they would be committing a hideous crime in the eyes of all phangirls if they allowed Erik to leave that store looking like…well…a fop.
Que and Pip had warmed up to the curious Mlles. Leroux and stood behind them making occasional comments that had girls in stitches and Erik glaring daggers. In the end Anna and Brooke decided that grey, deeper blues and greens and chocolate browns suited Erik very well. They made an enormous purchase, much to the delight of M. Valjean, the interest of the other patrons who had wandered in, and the horror of Que and Pip.
"No one can carry this!" Pip squealed angrily, wishing he hadn't let Que talk him into napping their chores away.
"Don't be ridiculous. It's all a matter of balance," said Erik, now dressed in a navy blue morning coat and trousers with a smoke blue waistcoat. "Put out your arms." He proceeded to pile the parcels into the grooms' skinny grasps with great precision, ignoring the gleams of mounting desperation in their eyes. The girls and the other patrons laughed quietly.
"This is why men never go shopping," Que said to Pip in a nearly confidential snarl. Everyone laughed harder. The Leroux phamily left the tailor's in a much more cheerful mood than when they had entered it, with their grumbling servants staggering along behind.
Glancing at his pocket watch Erik noted that it was nearing lunchtime, but as the group made their way to a pleasant outdoor café Anna became distracted by a cart full of flowers for sale. Her face lit up with wonder and excitement as she bent to bury her nose into a bunch of white and pink peonies. Erik paused letting Brooke lead the boys on to the café.
"I take it that you like flowers," he murmured softly as her gazed down at her. Anna nodded, not taking her eyes from the beautiful bouquets.
"I love them. Every time I went out with my friends back home, they would be scanning the crowds for a cute boy or two…but I always looked for flowers. In pots, in hedges…anywhere. Used to make them all laugh at how many types I knew. They'd gasp in disappointment if I didn't know. I didn't realize how much I've missed until now," she replied absentmindedly. Blushing, she reprimanded herself for rambling on about something so distant from where she now stood. She wasn't a person who opened up easily to people; only Brooke had her full confidence.
Anna's sudden revelation stirred something in Erik's heart. He frowned at the strange urge he now felt to know more about Anna. She and her cousin had been his constant companions for…how many months was it?...and yet he didn't really know much about them personally (they seemed to know a good deal about him). Erik shook his head in an effort to clear his thoughts as Anna began to wander away from the cart, reluctantly leaving the peonies behind.
"A moment, Anna!" Erik cried. In one fluid motion he swooped up the cart's entire stock of peonies and piled them into Anna's arms (a la Bert in Mary Poppins). He grinned happily as he paid the shocked florist then turned to enjoy the effects of his generosity. The smile on Anna's face would stay with him forever, locked away in that vault where he kept the secret glances he had stolen at his beautiful mother, where he cherished those moments of camaraderie shared with Nadir, where he worshipped Christine as she gazed with bliss at her Angel's mirror.
What a wonderful thing it was to please a woman, he thought to himself as he and Anna walked toward the café…especially one who TRULY deserves to be pleased, added a tiny voice in the back of his mind.
Anna wasn't one to be demure about things like this. She blushed and giggled and wriggled with pleasure as her heart skipped beats. Glancing up she saw Brooke smiling rakishly, but the happy moment was suddenly murdered by an unexpected appearance.
"It's Christine!" Erik hissed.
"Where?" Anna and Brooke yelped, eyes darting here and there.
"Oy! Where did M. Leroux get to?" Pip asked.
"Back here," came a ghostly whisper. The little group turned to see Erik scuttling between the café and another building like a spider hiding from the sun.
"Don't look at me!" the whisper hissed in the girls' bonnets. They whirled around and this time they had no trouble spotting Christine because she was standing directly in front of them, arms crossed over her invisible chest and flanked by two simpering, insipid girls.
"Well, well, what are you two doing here?" she snapped glaring at Anna and Brooke as though she intended to vaporize them.
"Having lunch," Brooke quipped waving a sandwich in the singer's face. A little blob of tomato pulp leapt from its mother ship and found a new home on Christine's pretty lace bodice. Que and Pip sniggered in the background. Christine flushed for a moment but let it slide.
Leaning forward she whispered, "Don't be stupid. Is…He with you?"
"Um…the cheeky stable hands?" Anna offered as she and Brooke leaned back. Christine seemed to have forgotten to brush her teeth that morning. The singer stomped her feet in impatience.
"Erik! Is Erik with you?"
"What? Erik? Erik who?" Brooke stammered with false confusion. She turned to her cousin. "Do you know an Erik?"
"No, I don't know an Erik? Not even sure what an Erik is," Anna replied. Suddenly she fixed a glare on the boys from behind her mound of peonies. "Do you know an Erik?"
The boys babbled incoherently for a moment before answering in the negative. They, in turn, glared at Christine and her companions, whom they had decided not to like. The singer stared at the girls in disbelief. Her eyes darted past them as she tried to spy the Phantom's terrifying figure in the throngs of tourists, yet she couldn't quite believe that he'd be in public, particularly in broad daylight.
During the brief lull in conversation (in you call that a conversation) Anna and Brooke really noticed Christine's 'wingmen' so to speak. They did a very surprised double take. Both young women were eerily familiar to the girls. The one on Christine's left was a blonde with an obnoxious bubbly smile on her face, while the one on the right—into whose red hair Pip was calmly flicking slimy boogers—appeared as though she were perpetually attempting to seduce every man in sight. Her mouth hung open and her ridiculous cleavage heaved up and down like ocean waves.
"Who are you?" Brooke asked after a moment of stunned surveillance. The blonde smiled cheerfully as she titled her head to one side to regard the Mlles. Leroux.
"I am Mademoiselle Hilaire Duff. My papa is a count. What is your papa?" she said in a fast, prattling voice, her bright eyes eager for gossip fuel.
"An engineer," Brooke answered sharply before turning to the redhead, who stared back with cat-like eyes. "And you?"
"I am Mademoiselle Lizette Lohan, daughter of a count as well," she replied breathily, her bountiful chest rising and falling dramatically. Que found this intriguing but Pip continued with his booger flicking.
Anna and Brooke blinked. This was, like, way weird in their opinions.
Christine huffed angrily, "What has this to do with anything? If he is not with you then who is paying your bills?"
"Who is paying yours?" Anna challenged. Christine flushed as her friends began to giggle uncontrollably. It was a very unpleasant noise.
"Her beau, the Vicomte de Changy," Mlle. Duff managed to communicate in between giggle fits. A vicious hiss buzzed in the bonnets of Anna and Brooke.
"Oh really? Couldn't have guessed that," Brooke muttered.
"Yes, we are meeting Raoul and his friends for a stroll along the beach this afternoon," Christine said importantly, taking in Brooke's jealous glare. Her companions tittered with eager anticipation.
"I thought you were here to mourn over your father's grave," Anna put in. The giggling trio became somber and Christine—being the actress that she was—managed to pull off a suitably serious expression.
"Naturally that is what I am here for. Raoul has been most kind in funding this sojourn of mine," she paused to sniffle for effect, "And I don't appreciate your forwardness on such a delicate subject." Her enormous eyes welled with tears. No doubt Erik was fighting the urge to kiss them away.
Anna regarded Christine with disgust then said dryly, "You, my bug-eyed friend, are a moron."
Christine gaped and blubbered and smoldered for a moment before storming on her way—in a very moronic fashion, followed by her very moronic company.
You see, my dear readers, Christine was indeed a moron, for not only did she reject the love of the sexiest man known to fiction, but she also had a very dangerous habit of provoking people who held low opinions of her into acts of violent, chaotic revenge. She was about to discover that toilet paper and sparkly pink lip stick were by no means the only weapons in the cousins' arsenal.
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Anna and Brooke listened to Erik tuning up his violin, playing a few melancholy chords. Anna sighed heavily as she cradled her peonies, her heart aching terribly.
"Well, shall I trouble the Bag for toilet paper?" Brooke asked lazily. Anna sat in thoughtful contemplation for a moment. Her brown eyes narrowed into angry slits. Toilet paper was too good for Christine Daaé.
"No…it's gotta be better than that," she said as she rose to put the wilting flowers in a tall, curvy vase.
"What do you suggest?"
"Tarantulas."
"WHAT? Are you insane?...Never mind…I already know the answer to that. Alright, just be sure that they're properly caged."
Anna let out a sinister chuckle that would have made the Opera Ghost proud had he been listening.
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The moon shone like a brand new pearl against the black velvet of the night sky. She must have just come from bathing in the rivers of the Milky Way, her glittering attendants twinkling about her like a queen's gossiping court. She was more ethereal and regal than any man or woman had ever seen her as she cast her cold, pearly glow down upon the graveyard at the edge of Perros.
It looked the way all Gothic graveyards ought to look. Crooked, crumbling headstones jutting sinisterly from their beds of thick, sweet sea grass, a small stone church gazing mournfully out over the eerie yard to the sea that wailed in the distance. A faint mist crawled over the earth, raising goose bumps from her moist flesh. It was the sort of warm summer night where happier, wiser mortals danced with the wood sprites and drank the richest of wines, but those whose souls held a wintry chill stood peering out into the darkness of the sea, where ghost ships rose from the frigid, black depths to sail once again.
The little scene unfolding in the darkest corner of the Perros graveyard was not really surprising considering the setting, yet it would have broken many a heart.
Raoul de Chagny crouched behind one of the larger granite tombstones watching his beloved Christine as she lay trembling on her father's grave, the huge pillar of stone looming over her, casting its shadow over her prone form and seeping into her soul. The night had transformed her. She was not the chattering, heartless socialite that had skipped through the streets of Perros only that morning. She was once again the helpless heroine of some great tragedy, her white gown glowing in the silvery moonlight, her dark hair flying wildly about her tear-stained face.
He longed to run to her and hold her and protect her, but his strange companions warned him to stay put. The two stable boys admonished his impatience, telling him to wait, that the moment to be a hero would come.
The air was still, but for the roar of the ocean, not even a cricket dared to chirp. Then all at once Raoul became aware of the sad, mournful sound of a violin coming from the direction of the church. His instinct was to run towards the source of the mysterious music but the stable boys said to listen.
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It was truly the most haunting, most beautiful sound that ever reached a human ear. Each note carried an unspoken burden of grief. Anna really hated to waste such a lovely moment with such a revolting task but she did not deviate from her course. Fighting between revulsion for the horrid hairy spiders she held in her gloved grasp and the urge to run and throw herself at Erik's feet, the redhead concentrated on gently arranging all thirty male tarantulas around Christine's head and shoulders.
One would think that one would notice if one were suddenly covered in very nappy bugs, but the moment the violin struck its first agonizing note Christine had thought of nothing else but to listen to The Resurrection of Lazarus. Thus, Anna and Brooke worked under the cover of Erik's music, though the violinist had no idea of what mischief was stirring behind Gustave Daaé's tombstone.
"I hope the boys took care of Raoul," Anna whispered to Brooke as she handed her another spider from the Bag.
"What exactly gave you this crazy idea?" Brooke asked.
"The DVD special features from Indiana Jones."
"You are scary. Brilliant, but scary."
The thirty spiders did not argue with their handlers. They sat complacently in their trembling hands and sat complacently on Christine's body. Being all male and of limited brainpower there was not much to amuse them.
The termination of the music's spell and the beginning of a tarantula rampage was nearly simultaneous. Anna waited long enough to hear Raoul hit the church's front steps in a dead faint and for Erik to steal away from his overly-curious rival's body before giving thirty male spiders something get excited about: one lone female tarantula. Her popularity amongst her peers was instant, so was Mlle. Daaé's reaction.
Christine would have shrieked loud enough for her dead father to hear, but the horror of the moment had stolen all of her vocal power. In a matter of terrifying seconds she was shaken out of her blissful trance to find her body covered with huge, hairy arachnids. Batting at her head and shoulders, she attempted to leap to her feet, but found that the spiders that were rapidly crawling down her dress were not her only concern.
Oh, no, it didn't stop at thirty-one tarantulas. She turned to find the train of her gown nail into the ground…and set on fire.
It didn't stop there either…although this had nothing to do with Anna and Brooke…simply a bad reaction between the tarantulas' body chemicals and the heat of the fire. Before Christine knew what was happening hairy tarantula bodies were exploding all over her.
Needless to say, Christine was going berserk: ripping her dress apart, running circles around her father's grave, and finally tearing down to the seashore to throw her frantic body into the water.
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"Brooke, what are you stopping for?" Anna hissed. She ran back to where her cousin had paused at the church steps to gaze at the limp form of the Vicomte. Her mouth was twisted in a wolfish grin.
"We can't just leave him here," she said. Anna could practically see the things going through Brooke's mind; it was more than a little disturbing. The redhead tugged at her best friend's sleeve.
"C'mon, we have to get back to the inn before Erik does. Raoul'll live. LET'S GO!"
They ran all the way back, completely heedless of any prying eyes that happened to look out of the darkened windows. With all the efficiency that comes with being apprenticed to a ghost the girls scaled a well-placed oak tree and crawled back through their bedroom window. They ripped off their clothes, stuffing the warm, sweaty garments into the closet and pulling on clean, cool nightshifts. They jumped into bed, snuggling beneath the comforter, and silently praying that Erik wouldn't notice anything suspicious.
Brooke sniggered quietly, "I wish we had that on tape."
"I know. I think I almost wet myself from laughing. Wait…there he is!" Two pairs of eyes snapped shut just as Erik peeked through the door. He crept to the bedside to be sure that his little friends were properly tucked in. Bending to kiss their cheeks, as was his nightly habit, he noted that they were breathing hard and their cheeks were hot to the touch…as though they had just run a considerable distance at a dead sprint. He shrugged the thought away and retired to his own room.
Brooke broke the silence, "Did the Phantom of the Opera just kiss us?...Anna? Anna?"
She rolled over and shook her cousin but Anna had fainted away with a contented smile on her lips.