I'm sure you all know the spiel by now, I don't own Phantom, fic takes place in present day, blah blah blah, REVIEW…
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Victoire Vasser slowly found herself coming out of her stupor. Her leg hurt like hell, but they had trained her to ignore pain at the academy. She was sprawled out on the sofa in the drawing room of the enemy. A good cop would have decided against his help and yelled at the top of his or her lungs in case any other officers were close by and might be able to catch the man.
But Victoire couldn't let herself die like that, in some dark hole suffering pain and agony, dying from dehydration or starvation. She was about two months pregnant, and this was to have been her last assignment before taking maternity leave.
Pulling herself together, Victoire slowly got to her feet and dragged herself over to the front door. She wasn't surprised to find it locked; he wouldn't want the other officers waltzing in. Intense scrutiny of the door revealed no visible lock, so Victoire set about running her fingers over and around the door, trying to locate the hidden mechanism.
God knew what the man was doing to that poor girl in the other room, but Victoire had analyzed the situation and knew that it was most important to get herself out and bring officers back rather than to try to take the victim out right now. Each passing minute that failed to provide results was a minute lost, a minute that the monster could come back into the room and restrain her.
"Mademoiselle, you really shouldn't be up," the monster's voice sounded behind her. Victoire spun around to face him. Not that it would make any difference. He'd taken her gun and with her broken leg, self-defense was pretty limited. She gave him a stern glare, hoping that might intimidate him enough to leave her alone. "Now is that any way to treat someone who's rescued you, seen to your wounds, and graciously allows you into his home?"
"You've murdered a man and abducted a woman, Monsieur. I'm afraid that far outweighs any kindness you've shown me," Victoire informed him.
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Erik examined her, his mind probing hers for every scrap of information he required. "I'll let you leave, now if you wish, but there are a few conditions," he said casually.
"I don't negotiate with criminals," Officer Vasser stated.
"I'm not asking you to negotiate, I'm telling you the rules," Erik replied. "And there's really only one that I'm most concerned with. Promise me your unborn child, and you may go."
"Never," she gasped, indignant at the very suggestion.
You'll promise me that child before the day is out. Erik needed that infant; immortality made you infertile, and even if Lenore did not agree to becoming immortal, they would never be able to create a child together. Though he could have arranged things in the officer's mind so that she would return with the child after it was born, Erik preferred to have her agree to giving the baby to him. It was so perfect, it seemed as though it had been arranged by Fate. He desired a child to raise with Lenore, and he stumbled upon and saved a pregnant woman.
"Not to be rude, but you are in debt to me," Erik pointed out. "If I hadn't helped you, you and your child would be dead."
"Even if I agreed, my husband wouldn't," Madam Vasser said.
"Your husband…he was an officer such as yourself, was he not?" Erik inquired. That's why her name sounded so familiar…
"He is," Madam Vasser replied.
"Oh no, was, Madam. I'm afraid he's dead; he fell into my torture chamber, you see. I was actually returning from burying him when I found you," Erik told her. He knew it wasn't exactly the best way to break the news, but there was no point in beating around the bush.
"You lie," the woman snarled.
"I assure you it's the honest truth. But if you don't believe me, perhaps this will help." Erik tossed her the pocket watch he'd taken off the body; he always took his victims valuables, since there was no sense in leaving precious trinkets in graves.
"My Auguste," she said softly, tenderly fingering the watch as tears made paths down her cheeks. "No, it can't be true. It can't."
Erik gave her a few minutes to let reality sink in. He had no place comforting her; even if he had known the man was going to be a father, he still would have killed him. When it seemed she acknowledged the truth, he spoke. "The child will only be a painful reminder," he informed her softly. "You cannot support and raise this child on your own, Madam. So give it to me; I'm quite wealthy and could give it whatever it needs."
"No, my baby is all I have left of Auguste," Madam Vasser declared.
"Would Auguste have wanted you to raise the child in poverty? You must consider what is best for the child, Madam."
Erik decided the woman needed time to think, because he couldn't expect her to make such a monumental decision in the blink of an eye. She moved back over to the sofa, sinking down upon it in her grief and clutching the watch as if it could somehow bring her husband back to her. He sat in his chair, staring into the flames and contemplating names for the child, imagining raising it with Lenore.
Hours flew by as Erik fantasized about living a normal life. Well, as close to normal as he would ever come. A shrill scream from the bedroom quickly roused him from those wonderful daydreams. He rushed to the door and flung it open in a panic; what could possibly have happened to Lenore in his room?
She was kneeling on the bed and, in the pool of light created by the few candles Lenore had lit, an ugly, large spider sat on the floor by her side of the bed.
"Don't worry, I'll put him out," Erik hastened to assure her, coming forward to snatch up the poor thing. He was rather fond of spiders and made it a point not to kill them.
"You're not going to catch it in your hands, are you?" Lenore squeaked fearfully.
"How else do you expect me to catch it?" Erik replied, scooping the insect up in his hand.
"EEEEEEEEE," Lenore squealed. "You're touching it!"
"Hm, so I am," Erik remarked uninterestedly. "Don't tell me you're afraid of this harmless thing." He moved the hand with the spider a bit closer to her.
"AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!" she yelled, practically throwing herself to the other side of the bed. "Don't bring it any closer, you idiot!"
"I expect you want me to kill it then?" he inquired sadly.
"No, I want you to dress it up and take it out for the evening," Lenore answered sarcastically.
Erik's temper flared. He had associated himself with spiders in his thoughts before, and felt they had the right to live peacefully like any other creature. Christine had once asked him to kill two spiders for her, and eventually, he had done so. But he would not kill these poor creatures for another girl, not again. "What do you have against it?" he snarled. "What has it done to you?"
"Just look at it! It's as creepy as hell! It's got those eight legs, and the way it moves…if it crawled over me…" she shuddered.
"Several thousand have crawled on me in my time, it's not as awful as you seem to think," Erik snapped.
"It is as awful as I think! You can't possibly tell me otherwise; a woman's skin is twice as sensitive to touch as a man's!"
"Don't be ridiculous; it can't be that extreme."
"A woman's skin is about twenty five percent thinner than a man's!" Lenore argued.
"Then you must only be a fourth more sensitive to touch then, beca"-
"Don't tell me how sensitive I am or am not, you bloody arrogant man! You're not a woman, you don't know how it feels!"
Erik knew he wasn't going to win this one, so he decided to change topic. "Regardless, I'll not kill spiders merely because you don't like them," he informed her.
"Oh really? I see how it is. You'll kill humans because you don't like them, but you won't kill a simple insect for me! Fine! Put the damn thing down and I'll kill it myself!"
Erik turned on his heel and hurried from the room, anxious to get the pitiable little thing away from Lenore before she could harm it. She tried to follow, but she was much slower than he was and he managed to set it down outside the front door and slip back inside before she caught up.
"Let me out! I have to kill it! If I don't, it'll just come back, I know it!"
"You don't have to kill it, mademoiselle, you just want to," he hissed.
"Yeah, maybe I just want to. Like you wanted to kill Felix," Lenore snapped back. "You got to have your satisfaction in that matter, but you won't let me have mine."
"The situations are very different," Erik argued. "I killed that ignorant boy because he tried to take what is mine. I seriously doubt the spider tried to take anything from you!"
"I am not your possession!" Lenore yelled. "Damn you for being a man!" She turned on her heel and stormed over to the sofa, plopping down angrily beside Madam Vasser.
Erik sighed and sat in his armchair by the fire. Any minute now…
"Oh, what the hell did you do to her?" Lenore demanded, putting an arm around the woman's shoulders for comfort.
"Nothing that need concern you," Erik replied.
"Well let's decide it does concern me," she commanded. "What did you do?"
"My Auguste. 'e killed my Auguste," Madam Vasser sniffled.
"You heartless bastard," Lenore hissed. "How could you do that?"
"I didn't kill him; he fell into the torture chamber. I can't control that sort of thing, and if he hadn't been poking around in my domain, it wouldn't have happened," Erik snarled back. "I cannot be held accountable for that man's actions. Perhaps he should have chosen a career with less occupational hazards when he found out his wife was pregnant!"
"You can't have my baby," Madam Vasser wailed, grabbing Lenore tightly for protection.
Lenore looked at him with outraged eyes. "You want her unborn child? Who the hell do you think you are, Rumpelstiltskin? That's sick and cruel. You kill her husband and then try to take her child as well. What right do you have to rob people of their loved ones?"
"Madam Vasser, you have been nothing but a thorn in my side," Erik said softly. "You are no longer welcome in my home. I'll see you out." He stood and ripped the woman from Lenore's grasp. Lenore leapt up and grabbed his arm, trying to stop him. Without a second thought, he backhanded her.
Lenore let go, and Erik hurriedly left with the policewoman. When he had taken her to a place he was sure she would be found, he reached into her mind and erased all memory after she fell into the crevice, then slipped her into unconsciousness. Returning home, he found Lenore had retreated to the bedroom.
Why did you hit her, Erik? You should have handled this whole thing rationally, not lost your temper. But there's so much she doesn't understand. She doesn't know we could never have our own children, that I only wanted the child so that we could have a family. You're such a fool! She tells you she loves you and you slap her hours later. Why, why, why did I do that? She can never love me; I'm a monster, a terrible, awful monster.
Erik went over to the cabinet where he kept his herbs for remedies and dug around until he found what he was looking for. The almost-forgotten prick of the needle was pure bliss. The morphine that flowed into his veins relaxed him, made everything melt away. It had been a very long time since he had last used this drug for recreational purposes, but it was as wonderful as he remembered. The morphine let him forget that he had ruined everything with Lenore, and that was welcomed with enthusiasm.
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After a few hours, Lenore decided she might as well go back out into the living room. Maybe Erik was feeling somewhat calmer now. I should change out of this dress first… She knew she was just delaying going out there, but it couldn't hurt to change clothes. The crimson dress was discarded on the floor, and Lenore began pawing through the chest containing her dresses and Erik's clothes. No, not the blue dress…don't want to wear emerald green either…or the purple…blech! I don't want to wear any of these dresses.
A few minutes later, she opened the door a crack, peering out into the living room to see where Erik was before creeping out in one of his shirts. It fell to mid-thigh, and Lenore was happy she didn't have to worry about concealing her legs or else she would have had to figure out how to keep a pair of his pants up. It feels so good to be back in a big baggy shirt.
It appeared that Erik was in his chair, and she tiptoed out. Now, I'll just patiently wait for him to apologize…After all, he started the whole thing, I'm not at fault for anything. She was about to sit down on the sofa when she noticed something on the floor by his chair. She picked it up, and saw it was a syringe. Erik was out like a light in the chair before her.
Her fist began to tighten on the needle, anger filling her. So you think shooting yourself full of drugs makes it all better? It doesn't solve the problem, it only makes it go away for a short time. I don't understand you. How can you do it, with me in your house? You know some jackass shot himself full of meth, got in a car, and fucked me up for life, and you have the audacity to sit there and inject drugs to make yourself feel better about hitting me? Lenore threw the needle into the fireplace, the glass shattering on impact.
As she looked at him, though, Lenore found it harder and harder to be angry. She knew how nice it was to be on the drugs. She'd had a good deal of morphine in the hospital, and it was always blissful to be able to make the pain go away with a simple push of a button. And as the pain disappeared, you slipped into a dreamless slumber. It was so wonderful, and that's how you became addicted. It felt so damn good…She had been addicted herself. Then the hospital had taken it away because she couldn't stay on it much longer without risking her health.
There had been nights when she couldn't sleep, nights when she wished she had just a bit of morphine to help with the insomnia. There had been days when she wanted to forget everything. Times when she just wanted a drug to miraculously make everything better. How could she condemn him for feeling that way sometimes himself, for giving in to it? If she'd had access to morphine, she would've given in to temptation. Why should she expect more from him than she did from herself?
"What a pair we make, Erik," she whispered as she settled herself in his lap. "We're either arguing or drowning in passion, switching between those two as though we were bipolar. We're just too similar, I think. Both full of pride, with quick and very fierce tempers. And neither of us knows how to trust, can't believe that we could be loved for who we are."
Lenore looked up at his face, and that porcelain mask seemed to laugh at her. "You don't know him at all," it seemed to chuckle at her. "You've bared everything before him, there's nothing he doesn't know about you. But he hasn't given anything back to you. You know nothing, nothing at all. Not what he hides behind the mask, not what he hides in his heart. You're an ignorant little girl."
I could take it off, right now…he'd never know. Her hand reached up, and her fingers trembled as she touched them to the white porcelain. Her hand slowly cupped the mask. Why don't I have any courage? I could get away with it right now, he's in a drugged stupor. But I can't seem to bring myself to do it.
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Erik didn't bother to open his eyes when he came to himself after four hours of blissfully drugged, dreamless sleep. Four hours of eternity squandered away…not that it mattered; when you had forever to live, you could afford to waste a few hours on the most pointless things.
Of course, he knew Lenore was in his lap, her small, fragile, warm body snugged up against him. And he also knew that her left hand was on the mask. Her thumb gently traced the edge of the white porcelain down his nose and along his mouth to his jawbone.
Erik couldn't move. If she realized he was awake, her instinct would be to pull away, and she might inadvertently snatch the mask off in the process (or even knock it off). She's going to take it off any minute now, despite whether or not you're awake. What does it matter if you move?
Fine, I'll move. With his inhuman speed, he snatched her hand away from his face. "If your intention was to take it off, you waited a minute too long," Erik informed her as he opened his eyes.
"I've had my hand on it for an hour," Lenore replied. "So maybe I waited fifty nine minutes too long."
A whole hour? She'd been sitting on his lap with a hand on the mask for a full sixty minutes and she hadn't removed it? He'd been so out of it, he never would have known. "Why didn't you?" was all he could get out.
Lenore shrugged. "Dunno. Didn't feel right."
"Perhaps you could try to express the same thoughts in proper sentences?" Erik suggested, annoyed by her poor grammar.
She shrugged again, ignoring his suggestion. "Anyway…no more drugs," she said after a moment.
"With all due respect, it is not your concern," he told her. It was his body (not that he was doing it any real harm, one of the few perks of being immortal), and it was his choice if he wanted to get high every now and then.
"It's bad for you. Don't you know what you do to your body with drugs?"
"Being immortal changes a few things; I assure you I'm not causing myself any harm."
"Fine and well. But…you're hurting me," Lenore said, getting up and walking a few steps away. Only now did he realize she was wearing one of his shirts. It was far too large, and she swam in the white silk that fell to mid-thigh on her. The image reminded Erik of the first time he'd seen her, in that baggy white dress shirt and ankle-length black skirt, preparing to step down into the cellar. Although he had to admit, he much preferred her without the skirt on.
"However can I be hurting you?" Erik said, starting to feel somewhat upset. His addiction should not cause her any pain, and he worried that if she could prove his love for morphine hurt her, he would have to give it up. "You should adore it, when I'm comatose from the drugs. It gives you unlimited freedom in my house, makes sure you have nothing to fear for a few hours. Christine was perfectly pleased when I was so ill I couldn't even get up off the couch."
"You're hurting me by not thinking of me. You weren't thinking about me when you shot yourself full of whatever it was, no matter what you say. You were thinking about you, about your pain. What would if happen if the police came while you were under, hm? They would have arrested you and 'rescued' me. Do you think I want to see you put on trial, see you through glass in the prison because they consider you too dangerous to even let me in the same room with you? And just because Christine was too afraid of you to want you healthy doesn't mean I am. Do I look like some stupid, simpering little chorus girl who's absurdly afraid of someone who loves her?"
"The police would never find their way into Erik's house, unless it was through his torture chamber," Erik said softly. It was the only thing he could respond to easily. He wanted to defend Christine from Lenore's horrible words, but Christine was long dead, and his love for her should be as well. Though it was said you never get over your first love. He knew if he defended Christine, Lenore would be wounded. She would think he wanted a frightened little girl who was totally dependent upon him, and she knew all too well that's not the type of person she was. So Lenore would put on that mask, would play at being what she thought he wanted, and Erik could never bear to do that, to make her pretend to be someone else just to gain his love.
"Okay, so maybe that was a bad example," Lenore admitted. "What if I tried to cook something and lit the house on fire? I would have burned to death, because you would be unable to wake up and get me out safely. Not to mention how badly burned you'd end up, unless being immortal has somehow made you flame retardant."
Erik managed to suppress a chuckle at her last comment; this was far too serious a topic to be laughing. "I trust you have enough skill to make yourself a meal without catching things on fire," he said.
"You really don't know anything. I lack culinary skills entirely. I was making tea one time, and I lit the tea bag on fire. How many people are that inept at handling a stove?" Lenore argued.
"In the event that you might manage to light anything on fire, I would assume you'd be intelligent enough to put it out before it became a serious threat to the house," Erik replied, an amused smile on his face. However does someone manage to light a tea bag on fire?
"Well, if I light something on fire, I might not think of that because I'll be panicking," Lenore defended herself, crossing her arms and looking rather sullen; he was winning her little argument.
"I'll make certain that you aren't even remotely hungry before I inject the morphine next time," he promised.
"Morphine? It's morphine you use?" In those few little words, he heard the desperate desire of an addict who had been ripped off of the drug and wanted it back more than anything else in the world. "…Maybe…if you don't mind…I could have some too next time…you know, just to make sure I don't do something stupid and cause a huge catastrophe…"
"Perhaps it would be best if I listened to your original advice and stop using it," Erik decided. He knew all too well what it would do to her, a mortal. He wouldn't have her die prematurely on him. Of course, if he had his way, she'd accept immortality and therefore never leave him. If she agreed to spending the rest of time with him, she could have all the morphine she wanted.
"Good idea," he heard her say with false cheer. "Best if you just throw it all out in the lake."
"And let the siren have it for free? I think not," Erik replied.
"Oh, yeah. We wouldn't want her getting high, we need her to gobble up any cops that get too close to the lake," Lenore muttered.
Erik stood, a thought occurring to him. He walked past her to the mantelpiece and deftly opened the casket on the left.
"How did you open it without a key?" Lenore inquired.
So you tried to open the caskets at one point; somehow that doesn't surprise me. "I open and shut whatever I please with ease. I was once known in Persia as the trap-door lover," Erik informed her. "Every lock finds itself powerless in my hands; many locks in this place will open only for myself." Leaving the little bronze scorpion in the casket, he retrieved the valuable he had left under the scorpion's guard. "I believe you dropped this, mademoiselle."
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She stared at the heart charm with the chipped black pearl, dangling from his fingertips and catching flickers of firelight. The chain had broken when she was running away from him more than a month ago. Lenore hadn't bothered to waste time trying to find it in the dark; she'd been far too busy escaping and too afraid of Erik's possession of her to care if she lost it.
"Yes, I did," she finally said. They stood there, Erik apparently waiting for her to take the necklace back. How can I take it back now? I broke it…badly…and I didn't even care. I don't deserve to have it back, Erik.
"I know it's badly damaged. I'll get you a new one, if you like," Erik offered, obviously thinking that she wasn't taking it back because of the state it was in. "Or you could come along and pick out a replacement yourself."
"No," Lenore replied. She didn't want a new one, and she didn't want to pick out a different necklace either. Don't you understand? If I accept expensive jewelry from you, you're going to think this is getting really serious. You'll bring up marriage again, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. There are so many things about you that I don't know, Erik. And I can't promise to be your wife until I know everything.
Minutes stretched out between them, until Erik finally placed the necklace on the mantel. "I will leave it here for you," he said softly.
I'm sorry to hurt you Erik, but you have to understand I just can't…It's not that I don't love you. I need to know where you stand, how you feel about me. And I need to know you before I can make a decision.
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"Hey all. Just reminding you to review again…it seems to help a bit…not much though," the authoress said, managing to sound a good bit depressed. "And, not that any of you really care, but that whole tea bag fire incident…that's real, I actually did that myself."
"That's quite pathetic," Erik remarked.
"Oh shut up, we can't all be as perfect as you," the authoress grumbled.