From My Solitude
Christine broke the surface into consciousness to the sound of birdsong and the steady thump of Erik's heartbeat under her ear. One eye cracked open to take in the sky through their skylight, muddled pink streaked with rust as daybreak approached. At the Opera House, she was used to the soft sounds of communal sleep in the dormitories, or the still, dripping silence of Erik's home. Here, nature reached out and enfolded them. Birdsong, the faint rattle of a tree branch scratching a window, the soft creak and sigh of the house settling onto its foundation, rooted in the bones of the earth.
Home.
Home was in this house, with this man. This man who had lived a dark, lonely life filled with strife and horror. This man who still found the generosity of heart to offer her the world as his solemn promise. After his revelation last night, he had watched her with a sort of restrained desperation, as if waiting for her to suddenly decide she didn't want him.
"Idiot," she murmured affectionately, snuggling closer to him under the coverlet.
She found it telling that Erik did not even stir at her utterance, but snored on in blissful repose, his naked face a microcosm of the life he had led—beauty melded with repugnance, peace married to discord.
In the night he had turned to her and made love to her with something akin to worship, seeking her pleasure with the single-minded focus he usually only reserved for his music. He wove promises of love and devotion together in every language he knew, sealing them with the hot brand of his kiss and the spilling of his semen.
Christine was uncomfortably aware that sometime in the last twenty-four hours Erik had raised her to level of deity, and lowered himself to humble acolyte. Simple acceptance was tantamount to salvation, empathy taken for absolution. It struck a painful chord in her heart to see a man as great and proud as her husband so utterly destroyed by unconditional love. Her thoughts began to soften and fray, Erik's warmth coaxing her back down into sleep. Christine vowed that she would spend every day of their life together ensuring that he knew he deserved it.
XXX
Changes within a heart come slow, like the quickening of sap within the heart of a slumbering tree at the first lengthening days of spring.
Christine. His wife, his goddess, his savior, she was determined to save him with her unique mixture of love, exasperation and sheer stubbornness.
The Rousseau Manor did not stay quiet for long; soon the rooms were filled with the laughter and conversation engendered by sporadic visits from the ladies Giry and the Daroga, not to mention the unobtrusive labors of the assorted staff Erik hired. A sheepish Jacques Durand returned to his position, in awe of the woman who had single-handedly turned the formerly beastly employer into a gentleman.
Erik floated through time and space, feeling like a younger, less jaded man. More than one morning, he woke his wife with kisses and together they shared a decadent breakfast ensconced in their bed. Their days were spent restoring the manor. Oh, that impossible dream he treasured through long years of isolation had come true! She was here! Not only here, but working alongside him. Though the work would have been completed faster with hired men, Erik scorned them. He wouldn't trade the firm, quiet pleasure he felt in seeing her with her hair bound up and an adorable smear of paint on her nose, or how she bit her lower lip when she concentrated for anything.
Evenings held a quiet meal, bathed in candlelight and the glow of fine wine and conversation. Sometimes they would indulge the deepest craving of their souls and twine their voices into a single entity of living beauty. Sometimes, they would curl up on the couch before a roaring fire and Erik would read aloud to her. Erik loved those moments. He loved the weight of her head against his arm as he toyed with her hair, the soft caress of her breathing against his throat, the press of her knee against his thigh. Years ago, Erik thought the simple satisfaction of his work would be the highest pinnacle of emotion he would ever attain after the twisted spiral of darkness Persia had wrought. Now, he was happy, ebullient even.
Erik marked the page in Hugo's aptly titled The Wretched, and dropped a kiss on Christine's forehead.
"To bed, love," he whispered.
Sleepy brown eyes opened, a soft smile touching her lips. Her arms reached for him like a child and Erik scooped her up, the sheer inertia of his love longing to pull her into him where she would be cherished and protected. The fire had crumbled into a heap of glowing coals that radiated heat against his back. Christine hummed softly, nuzzling his chest. His wife reminded him of a cat when she was tired, limp-limbed and purring, twining around him in sleepy affection.
"Dance with me," Christine's sweet voice was deliciously husky with sleep, her beauty made all the more beguiling as shadow and light fought for purchase on her features.
Erik chuckled, obligingly sliding his hand down her arm to drape around her waist, her body warm and firm and slender underneath her flannel dressing gown. Her other hand twined with his, coming to rest under his chin.
They swayed in honeyed silence, washed in the heat of the fire and the solace found in each other's embrace. Erik pressed his cheek against the crown of her head and breathed in the scent of her hair. Violets, linen and a faint tang of clean sweat. A sweet thrill ran through him when her hand wormed into the warm space between his shirt and his back. Long, soothing strokes along his back that sent a fission of pleasure up his spine.
"I'm not perfect, you know," she murmured, after a while.
Lulled into a state of almost somnolent bliss, it took a moment for Erik to formulate a response. He smiled into her hair.
"I would contest that, darling." The intent was to flatter and please, but Christine rested her chin on his chest, looking up at him with liquid dark eyes that seemed to swallow him whole.
"I'm not," she said more firmly.
Erik sobered, drawing her out into an effortless twirl before drawing her back into his embrace.
"What brought this about, love? Was it that maid's blather? That is just petty gossip. They've heard stories of the masked man who owns the manor, and naturally are a bit curious about the lady he brings home. Especially such a beautiful lady who, by all notable accounts, has utterly changed the demeanor of said masked employer." Christine's smile was nothing more than a token curving of lip and Erik knew he was off the mark. What else could be bothering her?
All trace of sleep left her features and she watched his face with hawk-like intensity.
"It's you, Erik. You think I'm perfect, that I'm some goddess and it's not true. I'll fail you and I'm terrified I'll break your heart when I do!" Erik stopped dancing, gripping her upper arms gently.
"I can't help but worship you, Christine. You, who have accepted all of the atrocities I've committed in my life and still . . ." his voice broke, still shaken and disbelieving that such a thing would be possible for him.
"And still look at me as someone worthy of your love," he whispered, cradling her face between his hands.
"I am not under the delusion that you are indeed a celestial being, but I find your love miraculous, your kisses divine ecstasy and your simple existence a credit to whether or not there is a God." Erik kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids.
"I know you're not perfect, Christine. You are human, and by definition, fallible. But I worship you nonetheless." Christine twined her arms around his neck, still frowning. Suddenly, her expression cleared into one of beatific radiance.
"Very well then. If you're determined to worship me, I'll just have to worship you back." Erik opened his mouth to protest his own unworthiness when Christine stopped him with the simple expedient of kissing him.
"Turnabout is fair play, hmm?" Erik drawled when they pulled away flushed and breathless. Christine laughed, a husky sound that promised a world of decadence.
"To bed, love," she said, taking his hand.
XXX
The queue outside the Populaire was shaping up to be a fine matinee showing of the evening's performance of Robert le Diable, Firmin thought. His mood, which of late had been shifting between a state of ulcer-aggravating stress and equally disruptive drunken revelry, swooped up into something almost cheerful. Since the Don Juan disaster where he and André had to refund a full house when they found their only lead tenor locked in a closet and their leading soprano refused to go on unprepared, Firmin saw the debts mount and wondered if André's desire to foray into the sophisticated would be the ruin of both of them. But now that both that madman Rousseau and the troublesome Miss Daae had disappeared, things were starting to look up.
Firmin accepted the morning's post from the steward inside the Populaire's door, flipping through the financial notices, newsletters and André's subscription to a wine periodical. He stopped his progress up the main stair at the sight of the hated, all-too-familiar envelope bearing the red wax seal in the shape of a skull. Firmin would have been tempted to rip it into shreds if his hands weren't shaking so badly.
Stuffing the envelope in his vest pocket, he scaled the remaining stairs two at a time, drawing a couple curious glances from the cleaning staff. His breath came in hard pants as he ducked into one of the alcoves and revived the smothered lamp. His heart was thundering and a warning gurgle in his belly told him his bowels weren't willing to cooperate with this nonsense again either.
"What does the bastard have to say now?" Firmin muttered.
As far as Firmin knew, the thrice damned O.G. was a free man. The Vicomte de Chagny had abruptly withdrawn all charges—along with his patronage to the Opera. Heart in his throat, he tore open the silky paper and shuddered a little at the sight of that familiar slanting script. He read the note once in disbelief, then again as disbelief sharpened into suspicion. By the third read, Firmin was tilting the vellum toward the light to search for some hidden caveat, some snarky postscript negating the previous statement.
The black ink remained resolute:
Gentlemen,
I offer my fondest regards and dearest hopes for your continued health. My wife, Christine Rousseau nee Daae, has discovered a change in heart. She does not wish to return to the Opera Populaire for the spring season as lead soprano, or in any other capacity. Therefore, my capacity as composer is also rendered null. Utilize the francs designated for my salary for another equally important task, such as your outstanding debts, Richard. The last tally was forty-thousand three hundred and twenty, was it not?
I remain, gentlemen, your most obedient servant,
Erik Rousseau, O.G.
"I'll be damned," he murmured. The manager carefully tucked the note back into its envelope and grinned. As he left the alcove and made his way to his office, the grin turned into a smile, and then a hoarse, cawing laugh.
"I'll be damned!" he wheezed.
XXX
Winter's grip had begun to loosen when Erik mustered the courage to throw off the last shackle encumbering him. Evening saw them in their bedroom, preparing for bed.
"Throw them in the fire," he commanded, offering Christine a small leather case. Christine unbuckled the case and a small flinch of loathing raced through her at the sight of his morphine, needles and tourniquet.
"I haven't used in thirteen hours," Erik said, offering a trembling hand for her perusal. Her eyes widened in understanding. The reason for his surliness, his agitation and anxiety was suddenly clear. Setting the loathed case aside, Christine stood and took his unsteady hand, kissing the palm. She frowned, that endearing little line creasing between her brows.
"Are you sure you're ready? Should we write to Madame? Or . . . fetch a doctor, perhaps?" Erik smile was more a grimace. His nose had been running like a faucet for said thirteen hours and he paused to sniffle into his damp handkerchief.
"Minette doesn't know. I'm certain she has her suspicions, but I would rather not expose her to this. Modern medicine as yet is woefully unprepared to assist me. If it would ease your mind, we should write to the Daroga. He has . . . experience with such matters." Erik skittered vaguely around the memory of Persia and the khanum's drugs. Christine nodded.
"I would like someone else here. In case . . . in case something goes wrong," she said, a wealth of dread underlining the word 'wrong'.
Erik forced a reassuring smile, all the while howling at the thought of waiting the two days necessary for the Daroga to arrive. Morphine had created a demon inside him and even now it wished to tear the case from Christine's hands and plunge that sweet, sweet relief into his veins. Relief, numbness, peace . . . that was what the white demonness promised, opening her silken arms to embrace him.
"I am sure it's not as bad as all that, love. Chances are you and the Daroga will have time to catch up on your gossip and needlepoint watching me sleep."
Erik knew that was a lie. The few times his supply had been interrupted or he had tried to wean himself off completely, all of his viscous, ugly impulses seemed entirely reasonable in pursuit of his fix. He was torn between the desire to send Christine away to hide this unpleasantness from her and the desire—no, need—to have her near. He needed her to sew the tattered pieces of his sanity, to hold the shards of his heart, to continue existing in any useful fashion.
Beneath the doubt and questioning was the unshakable need to stop. The morphine would kill him. It was poison with an insidious potential to hurt what he loved most. Unacceptable. Erik heaved a sigh and swayed. Christine grasped handfuls of his shirt and together they sat heavily on the couch. Christine's small hands gently pressed at his shoulders and he obediently slid sideways until his head was pillowed on her lap. The headache that rasped against the inside of his skull like waves pounding against cliffs and the ache the pervaded his every muscle eased the slightest bit as Christine gently stroked his hair.
"We will wait for Nadir," Erik murmured, nuzzling her thigh. Christine kissed his temple.
"Thank you," she breathed in his ear, and he knew it just wasn't for waiting.
To the ease of them both, Nadir was all business when he arrived, as somber and competent as a soldier in his black garb and traditional sash. He helped Erik move a pallet into his and Christine's bedroom and spread it before the fire. A puzzled Monsieur Durand had skillfully sequestered the staff at the other end of the manor, at Christine's rather vague request.
"There were many opium dens in Persia," Nadir explained to Christine in his dry, matter-of-fact tone, "as chief of police, I often imprisoned addicts and thus, am very familiar with the effects and treatment of withdrawal." He grinned.
"I must admit I am impressed. I have been badgering Erik for over twenty years to quit that foul stuff, and here you are making it seem easy."
"It was Erik's decision, Monsieur. I had no part in it," Christine said frostily.
Erik arched a brow. He knew Christine held Erik's Persian friend in a strange sort of polite animosity. To what end and for what reason, neither Erik nor Nadir could fathom. For all Erik knew, their interactions had been limited to their wedding, and perhaps a half dozen exchanges since. Nadir had been the soul of kind verisimilitude.
"Of course, Madame Rousseau, and I commend him for finding the courage," Nadir replied, without mockery.
"Enough!" Erik snapped, all but falling onto the pallet. A dreadful weakness filled him, his body rebelling against him. Unified in their concern for him, his wife and friend flanked either side.
"Love, are you all right?" Erik hated the frightened edge to Christine's voice. Erik tried to smile, reaching out to cup her cheek.
"Fine, my love. Just weak. I'll be all right." He slanted a narrow glare at Nadir, whose swarthy face was composed and calm. This relaxed some hidden knot in Erik's belly.
"Make yourself useful, Daroga, and brew some tea. Eastern hospitality and all that, hmm?"
XXX
The hours ticked by at a pace that seemed both agonizingly slow and blindingly swift to Christine. Erik grew progressively weaker and less coherent as the hours wore on, and even as the fire dewed his skin with a film of perspiration, she could see his pallor and the effort he put into maintaining the disguise of his usual urbane, charming self. This was for her sake. Christine threw a hot glance at the Persian—no, he was Erik's closest friend, she should call him Nadir, or Monsieur Kahn, at the very least. Her husband, she knew, trusted this man completely, even more than Madame Giry whose love he cherished with a careful, almost fragile regard.
At long last, after the clock struck one in the morning, Erik slipped into an uneasy sleep. Christine knelt beside him and dropped a kiss on his fever-hot forehead. The unbearably vulnerable skin of his eyelids twitched and rolled in the throes of a dream. His shivering unnerved her and she wrapped the flannel blanket more securely around him. She returned to her chair and her tea, finding the Persian's dark eyes resting on her. She saw empathy, respect and a glimmer of hurt swim there. For all his guarded, taciturn nature, Monsieur Khan had not mastered the full battery of Erik's impenetrable poise. Christine bit her lip.
"I'm horribly jealous of you, you know," she murmured, tilting her teacup to admire the perfect disc of a lemon slice floating like a barge in the center.
"Oh? Why is that?" his tone was even as he too inspected his tea as if it held all the answers of the universe.
"You were there for him in the darkest point of his life when I wasn't. You know him in a way I cannot because he won't tell me. And I hate it," she addressed her lemon wedge. A smothered chuckle roused her attention and Christine looked up to find his amusement disarmingly genuine.
"You mustn't fear for your hold on Erik's heart. I am simply the friend he tolerates, and you . . . you are the wife he adores. Your shared history is no little thing. He was your tutor for what, eight years?"
"Ten," she corrected. Monsieur Kahn forged on.
"Erik spent seven in Persia. You have me beat."
"It's not that," Christine said sharply, "and you're more than tolerated, Monsieur. Erik trusts you more than anyone, even me." Erik trusted the Persian with the truth of his darkness, his face and his past. Monsieur Kahn sobered, setting his teacup on the side table.
"Forgive me for making light of your concerns, Madame Rousseau, however ridiculous they may seem to me. I am aware, and treasure Erik's continued friendship, it was nearly all I had left when we chose to leave Mazanderan. But you must believe me, Christine, when I say that Erik had little choice in trusting me with his secrets. As the shah's chief of police, I was assigned as his guardian and guide during his time in the palace. The morphine, the truth of his deformity, and the nature of his employment to the shah's mother the khanum were all byproducts of a rather dangerous political climate of which we were both pawns."
Christine digested his words, studying her husband's strong profile tenderly. The stone of jealousy that rested hard and hot in her stomach dissolved.
"I see. Well, I suppose I'll have to learn to like you."
The silence that descended between them softened and stretched into warm camaraderie, but any vestige of good feeling vanished into jagged terror as Erik descended into thrashing, muttering delirium.
XXX
Erik wandered through dungeons of black despair, a prison of his own making, down, down down that path into darkness . . . All his demons rose at once to torment him.
Sir, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do it! I didn't! Christine! Christine, don't leave!
Pain, loneliness, lust, murder, jealousy . . . sin coated him, a curse from the day he was born. Conceived in sin, raised in hate, baptized in blood. That was what he was! Wasn't it? Once, his Master was Death. Killing was like riding a bicycle, one never really lost the knack . . . A voice called his name through the darkness.
Christine? He was hers. All hers. The good, pure pieces of his bruised, tattered soul, as well as the diseased, lustful carcass. The hand that cupped his head was callused and hard, the taste that seared his tongue was laudanum. No! No more! No more would he be imprisoned by the sweet shackles of oblivion. Morpheus would find another slave!
He screamed until he had no voice, wracked with fiery agony. As he lay there, Erik recognized Prometheus as a kindred spirit. It was not his liver that was eaten, but his heart. Ever broken, ever healing. Ever hungry, ever hopeful. Once the darkness had been kind, hiding his ugliness. Now, it tortured him with the shades of what was, and what could have been.
At times, his heart thundered, seeming fit to burst from his chest. Eager to seek its mistress. Not here, in this darkness, but above in the light . . . Hope seared his heart with its unbearable promise.
The pain ravaged through him like a marauding ghost, muscles cramped, his bowels turned to water, his bones felt split open, hot salty marrow seeping into his tissues. Cold washed over him. The lake! He'd fallen into the lake, sinking down into the icy abyss where the demons waited. Try to kill me, will You? I'll not make it easy! He shouted at the God Christine loved. Erik fought, but only mired himself deeper.
Fear sank deep into him.
Such terrible fear!
Erik opened his eyes, and breathed his first breath of freedom.
A/N: Erik's morphine addiction had to be dealt with sooner or later. What do you think? Like it? Hate it?
The end is in sight, my dear readers! Thank you so so much for your diligent reading and feedback!