A/N: Two chapters in two days?! Amazing! I get to develop a little bit on Roxanne's slightly more street-wise and cold/calculating nature in this chapter. Woot!
XXX
Erik stared in open-mouthed horror at his bedroom/office. What had she done in here?
"De Winter!" He thundered, using his best Phantom-voice.
Roxanne hurried into the room, her face the picture of innocence, "Yes, Monsieur le Fantôme?"
"I did not tell you to do this," Erik snarled, gesturing wildly to the rest of the room.
"Yes, you did. You told me to clean," Roxanne said artlessly, "And so I did."
"Well, yes, but I did not tell you to clean in here!" Erik was growing more and more irritated. He absolutely knew that Mademoiselle de Winter had done this intentionally to annoy him.
"And you haven't specifically told me to clean any particular room," Roxanne crossed her arms over her chest, "Besides, now that it's clean I imagine you can finally get some work done doing…whatever the hell it is you do."
"Ugh!" Erik growled, "Pray you did not throw any of my sheet music away…"
"Only the scribbled-out, crumpled up ones, and the ones that had stains on them," Roxanne said nonchalantly.
Erik turned a shade lighter—an impressive feat, given his coloring—he stared at her a moment, as if he did not have the capacity to comprehend her words. "Just because they were that way does not mean they were trash!" He shouted, his voice echoed off the walls, so loud that Roxanne stepped backwards unsurely. "Where. Are. They," He ground out, wringing the piece of paper in his hands so hard that he tore it in two.
Roxanne stared at the two pieces of parchment and gulped, "I, uh, burned them."
"You did what?!" Erik screeched.
"Well, monsieur, what else was I supposed to do with the trash?" She looked at him through lidded-green eyes that seemed to sparkle with sadistic amusement.
"Oh, you wretch!" Erik felt as if he were about to be ill, his music! That little viper had destroyed his music!
"I suggest that next time you give me orders you be a little more specific about it, Monsieur le Fantôme."
Before Erik could find his lasso Roxanne had disappeared from the room.
XXX
Roxanne sat in the window seat of the study with the curtains drawn about her, she giggled madly, her hand clapped over her mouth to muffle the sound.
Oh, Christ! The look on his face was almost too good to bear! It seemed as if very few people had really taken the time to irritate 'Monsieur le Fantôme,' which made her terrorizing all the more pleasurable.
Though she did not fool herself into thinking she was stronger or more intelligent than the Phantom, she certainly played on a much different level than he.
"Where did you put the Luna de Aria?" Erik yelled from the other room.
"Pardon, Monsieur?" Roxanne called back with false confusion.
"Luna de Aria!"
"Loony's Area?"
She heard him say something in a foreign language that probably was not a praise of her beauty or intelligence. Oh, god, she loved this man.
Taking in a deep breath, she composed herself, she had only taken a small break to catch her breath. With a small, supercilious smile playing across her lips, she rose and went to the kitchen to make dinner.
She opened up the cupboards and stared with her hands on her hips. What the hell did the man eat?
One cupboard was filled entirely with various expensive liquors in foreign names she did not recognize. The other was filled with various chemicals that looked more like they belonged in a laboratory, rather than a home.
Stalking down the hallway to the bedroom, she threw the door open, hands on her hips, she demanded, "Monsieur, are you breathing at the moment?"
Erik looked up from his organ and stared at her as if she had grown another head, "Why, yes, Mademoiselle, I do. Does this displease you?"
"Your heart is currently beating, yes?"
"Last I checked."
"You have a pulse?"
"Get to the point."
"Then you must eat dust or ink because there is absolutely nothing in that kitchen fit for a good meal," Roxanne scowled at him, "When was the last time you ate?"
"What is the point of this? I cannot remember," Erik said impatiently turning back to his music.
"Although I'd be very happy to watch you die a slow death, I have absolutely no idea where I am, so, if you died, I'd be all alone in the middle of nowhere. You need to eat," she commanded with the authoritative manner of a stern mother hen.
Erik rolled his eyes impatiently, "After living under the opera house for so long, my eating habits are slightly different than the average non-subterranean human. It is of no consequence to you how I nourish myself."
"Like hell it is; by your own words, I'm your housekeeper. That gives me a certain degree of authority on how the house is run. Therefore, I need supplies. If you don't want to go into town, give me a few baskets and let me go into the forest and find something."
"That's out of the question."
"Then let me give you a list and you go into the local village to buy some canned goods and meat," Roxanne countered.
"I'm too busy for such things," Erik waved a hand dismissively.
Roxanne rolled her eyes heavenwards, pleading the saints for an additional measure of patience. Sighing, Roxanne lifted her leg over the bench and seated herself sideways, facing Erik, her legs spread with a casual, but practiced, disregard. "Monsieur, though you may not need normal nutrition, I do. I have not eaten anything worth mentioning in three days. If I die because of malnutrition, I will most certainly come back to haunt you and will make sure that you never write another note again."
Erik looked over at her, confusion written across the half of his face that she could see. Sighing and shaking his head, he acceded, "Very well, if it means you will leave me alone to my music. There is probably something pickled in the cupboards below the sink, tomorrow morning I will go into the village and buy a few things. You will stay here, however."
Roxanne smiled, "And you will eat with me."
Erik snorted, a little bark of a laugh, "Go away."
Temporarily appeased, she went off to her room with a few pieces of parchment she had managed to snatch from his study. She spent the remainder of her evening in her room making flowers out of paper and disinterestedly playing with her hair. Finally, boredom overtook her and she fell asleep.
Much to her delight, Erik had returned with the list of food she had written last night, before she had even woken up.
He had come into her room at about seven o'clock and nudged her awake, "Lazy girl. Wake up!"
"Bastard. Leave me alone," She rolled over an covered her head with her pillow.
"Very well, then," Running his icy-cold hands through her hair, he grabbed a handful at the crown of her head and pulled her up by it.
She shrieked, clawing at his arm, "All right, all right! I'm awake, you son of a bitch!"
"Such language!" Erik purred, "Very unladylike." He smirked and released her, she plopped back down on the bed. "Particularly directed at your elder, who left the sanctity of his quiet abode just to feed you."
Roxanne grinned widely, "Food! Thank you!" She threw her arms around him and blithely kissed him on his bared cheek; with that she hopped up, disregarding her lack of proper clothing and darted out of the room to the kitchen.
XXX
He stared after her, completely dumbfounded, with his hand pressed to his cheek, where her lips had been just a few moments before.
He had…never been kissed before—and how casually she had done so! As if she thought nothing of kissing such a hideous creature!
Still shell-shocked, he slowly walked out of the room to the kitchen, curiously watching her as she scurried about, anxiously looking at all of the food he had brought.
Going into the village had scarcely been a hard task, the villagers were all terrified of him and allowed him to come and go as he pleased. He did, however, pay them for the food.
The foods she had asked for had been basic and easy enough to procure—dried meats, eggs, bread, a few pickled vegetables, a boatload of canned foods, and so fourth.
He leaned against the doorframe as Roxanne scurried about the kitchen, organizing various foods in the cupboards.
"You want breakfast?" She demanded gruffly, looking up and pushing a lock of hair out of her face.
Erik paused. Breakfast? He was a little hungry. Actually, the more he thought about it, he was starving; God knows when the last time he had eaten was. "Yes," He said simply.
"Good, 'cause I was going to force it down your skinny throat if you said otherwise," Roxanne grinned wickedly and went to work making up fried eggs, bacon, and buttered toast.
Erik watched in fascination as she bustled and limped on her bad foot around the kitchen with a strange sort of purpose. Her delight at performing such a menial task was very strange to him—so easily entertained, like a child.
"Oi, breakfast's ready," She prodded him as she set down a plate and a glass of milk.
Unsurely, he bit into the eggs; he had to concede they were very good. His hunger got the better of him; he quickly polished off the plate even faster than Roxanne, who had an appetite that would rival most men.
"You want some more?" Roxanne asked casually, "I'm still hungry."
Erik nodded slowly, "Please."
"Brilliant!" Roxanne grinned and quickly cracked two eggs onto the skillet, she looked over her shoulder at him, "What exactly are you doing, always locked away in your bedroom?"
Erik stared at the glass she had set before him earlier, "I'm a composer."
Roxanne laughed, "I gathered that. What are you composing?"
"Why do you want to know?" Erik asked guardedly.
"Because I want to steal all of your scores, publish them under the name of my dead husband and make a fortune living as a reclusive transvestite," Roxanne said with a solemn nod.
"Then why should I tell you?" He asked confusedly.
"Because I'm joking," Roxanne laughed.
Erik did not quite comprehend the joke, but he explained, anyway, "I have not composed anything worth the effort for more than six months. So, I suppose you could say I am not composing at all."
"So, that's why you're so mean all the time," Roxanne commented.
Erik laughed, "No, Erik is 'mean' because Erik is not human."
"Erik is as human as I am," Roxanne said with a scornful laugh.
"I see you have already forgotten that night at the Opera-house," He said with a slightly menacing smile.
"I haven't," She said, annoyance tingeing her voice, "You're not a good man, but just because you're indecent doesn't mean you're not a man."
Erik stared at her curiously, he was unsure as to how to respond to that. Normally, he was very in control of the situation, but this mere girl's bluntness and lack of fear was something he had not encountered before.
"Are you not afraid of Erik?" He enquired curiously.
She took the eggs off the fire and stared at him, probably wondering if it was a trick question.
"I am wary of Erik, yes, I think you're dangerous. But, eh, there's a fine line between dangerous and amoral," She said, handing him a plate.
"Can one be amoral without being dangerous?" He said with a sneer.
Roxanne paused, she sat down, folding her hands under her chin, pondering. "Danger is a question of power. Amorality is a question of what you do with that power. A spoiled little boy can be amoral. A priest can be dangerous…" she trailed off, lost in thought; she looked up, laughing lightly, "…That was stupid of me. I'm sorry."
"I thought it was quite intelligent," Erik replied with his ghastly smile.
"Oh…" she bit her lip, embarrassed.
Erik cleared his throat nervously, "How many days have we been here?"
"Almost a week…I think."
"Today, I will let you go outside," he said decisively.
"Eh?" She looked up in surprise.
"Not out of benevolence, I assure you," he said with a chuckle, "I have a job for you."
Her expression darkened, she leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, "What kind of job?"
XXX
"Narcissistic prick," Roxanne snarled, shoveling yet another lump of horse manure into the wheelbarrow.
He had set her to clearing out Cesar's stall, which was essentially a converted shack behind the house that was in desperate need of a good mucking out.
Cesar was tied up to a post beside the shack, he whickered to her curiously, as if wishing to ask her what she was doing in his home and why he was required to wait out in the wind as she did it.
"Bastard. Bastard. Bastard."
She liked to consider herself smarter than to consider running away, despite the notion's allure. Besides, a thought had come to her as she was falling asleep: perhaps…being kidnapped was in her best interests.
In being a prostitute…particularly an observant one…she had come to acquire a small but nicely sum of people who would much prefer her to be dead than alive. A few of them knew that she had escaped the dungeons by going to work for the gendarmerie. So, the past year she had been working with them had been very uncomfortable. If she were to be believed to be dead, then most of her problems would go away, that, and here—despite the fact she was living with a tyrannical bastard—she was safe, warm, and fed.
The Phantom's words came to her from the first night that he had brought her here. He had accurately guessed her reasons for being with the gendarmerie, saying that there would be little difference now from when she was working with them. She had to grudgingly concede that he had been correct.
The freezing weather made the manure hard to get up, so she had twice as much effort in trying to get the floor clean, the straw had molded from all the moisture and the fact that it had not been clean in ages.
However, the physical exertion kept her reasonably warm, and the occasionally chilling wind that whipped through kept her awake and coherent.
She was starting to feel a little crabby from not having laudanum in two days. She shouldn't have drained the entire bottle. Damned glutton that she was, she knew that she was going to suffer for it, later on.
The longest she had gone in three years without opium was two weeks. She had had to hide while one of her former 'clients' was looking for her. Of course she presumed that all of his reasons for trying to find the woman he was cheating on his lovely-and-much-wealthier-than-he wife were entirely friendly, but she just was not one who was much for reunions. Particularly with an arms dealer to the underground.
That had been hell. She had never felt worse in her life and she had experience more discomfort than she cared to admit in her short years. Thankfully, there had been no one at the abandoned mill that she had been squatting in to witness her pain. Now she had the Opera Ghost. God knows what he would do to her if he found out she was addicted.
Her thoughts dwelled on the Opera Ghost. He had been almost…tolerable, this morning. Yes, tolerable, he had been cordial, with the exception of his rude wake-up call, he had been cordial and decent to her. His conversation was interesting, if a bit eccentric.
She wondered if, in the period of time that she stayed with him that they might strike up a friendship.
The thought made her pause, friendship? With…that monster? Roxanne, you little fool! Despite the fact that his kidnapping her was ultimately to her benefit, he was a cold, insufferable man. Even if she did want his friendship, he was far too haughty to give it to her.
But how were such men broken? She thought on this for several minutes. A slow smile graced her lips.
You threaten such men's masculinity and all of their bravado disappears. Behind his arrogant, cocky manner, was a very inexperienced man; she was absolutely certain of it. To control the situation, she would need to remember her lessons.
One thing she would have to remember was to not let him intimidate her. She would give him one thing: he was excellent at theatrics. She could do to learn a lesson from him, all of his power was in his ability to manipulate people's perceptions. By removing him from his beloved Opera Garnier and his ange de musique he was now out of his comfort zone. He was vulnerable.
Yes, Roxanne thought, perhaps this situation very truly could work to her advantage. Though he may be impotent without his opera house, he was certainly very wealthy, and she was the spitting image of his angel.
Thusly, she spent her afternoon shoveling and plotting.