The plates were stacked neatly on one end of the table, crumbs swept up and napkin folded. She'd taken care of cleaning up after herself, a gesture she'd likely done without a second thought and again his heart reached out to the girl. She'd likely had no one to take care of her since she'd lost her father, no one looking after her basic needs, let alone her whims. Through his mind passed the years he could count back to the date of her birth. Back when he'd been just a child himself, a child who quickly learned to strike out on his own. All the money he'd earned and spent frivolously all that time. Just a bit of that money could have elevated her to a better life. He knew she'd been raised an orphan, had garnered that much in his endless following of her, of the things she prayed for when she thought she was quite alone, and the giggles of those obnoxious chorus girls who so loved gossip. When he thought of her, lonely and sequestered away like a forgotten doll, it filled him with overwhelming sadness.
In all his long years he'd never felt the particular pull of one place over another, one person over another. Not like his compatriots - enemy and wary friend alike. They'd all settled in to their very settled ways, took a wife they found pleasing enough and lived out their days with complacency if not happiness. Raised children, shuttled items from one home to the next, laid down the roots and watched them grow without ever wondering again where their wanderings might lead. Through these photographic lives he'd slipped like a ghost, never tarrying long enough to leave his vulgar stain on the film. Even now, in what he had longed considered his last dwelling, he'd not given himself the trappings of comfort so much as the means with which to survive with as little contact with the outside world as humanly possible. Home and family were words that held such little meaning, fleeting tricks of the tongue to prescribe importance to otherwise meaningless places, connections. Why now did he feel most keenly a need to comfort her with the familiar? A desire to keep her from emotional shock or turmoil?
Returning to the parlor, Erik placed a cup on the table before her before crossing to remove a piece of crystal from the cabinet. Into that he poured a small amount of cognac, warming and soothing. He assumed she would need help sleeping, after all.
"I… rather enjoy stories, tales of old. My father… used to tell me stories when I was a young girl, before he… died from consumption." Christine's voice was barely a whisper behind him. So that was what had taken her father. Although she often whispered prayers to the fallen man, he'd never gleaned what particular malady had finally ferried him away. Such an awful disease for a child to experience, seeing a loved one wracked with the coughing, the spots of blood from the lungs on white pillowcases. If that was what provided her with comfort, he was more than capable. A sense of relief overtook him. Tales of old were a particular specialty, and he knew more than just those enclosed in the leather-bound books that lined these walls. He knew stories far older, and less widely known.
"This is why when I first heard your voice, I thought you were an angel. He always spoke of the angel of music…" Just as quickly as her request had soothed him, these words tore him to the quick. Yes, he knew what she had believed him to be. Yes, he knew why she prayed so desperately for such a divine creature to enter her life. And yes, he was the charlatan who had shoved his way in instead, manipulating and goading her into believing he was sent from the very heavens above, all while his thoughts and intentions alone were enough to condemn him to hell for all eternity. She was such an innocent creature, he could see that now as he stared through her thick lashes to the wide shining pools that lay behind. She would never understand the whys and wherefores of what he had done, could never truly grasp the depth of what he would stoop to in order to satisfy that lurking tumor of desire he felt since first hearing her voice.
No, Christine Daae, pry as she might, would never know the extent of why he brought her here. She would never learn of the hours he spent watching her before making her aware of his presence. She would never know the corruptions he dreamed, spurred by a smile, the flash of bare arm in the dark, her perfume, her breath.
Oh, Christine. How perfect and simple our love could have been, were I but any other man. If I had simply been a plain-faced composer, average in talent but even in feature, now you could rest your head upon my shoulder and tell me your fears in the dark. I could have offered you a simple house and the boundless limits of my love, you could have acquiesced shyly and filled the empty rooms of my humble abode with the freshly-scrubbed faces of children, perfect and smooth-skinned and living testaments to the raptures we'd known together.
He loved her so horribly, which was such an imperfect, inappropriate word. For the love itself wasn't horrible, he was the true horror and the only horror in it. Even when the years had removed her from his presence, she would still hover in soft-focus memory, golden and lovely in her gilded frame. From the first moment he'd spent with her, he'd felt as if the fortress that his heart had become now nothing more than snow existing under a thin membrane. She drew ever closer to him, through time and patience, and her crimson heat now threatened to melt it completely. No, this love he had for her was not horrible, but it most certainly was pathetic. He knew that even now. That these shivering dreams and fantasies he held - childish lust and wanton yearning - would never pass muster in the cold and surgical light of time immemorial, once it had been splayed out, wriggling and pinned for critical observation. Pathetic because it was futile, because it was truly hopeless, and because he knew that the insatiable fire that demanded he possess her completely would sooner engulf him than cause him to act. For no matter how much he insistently desired her, he would instead, with the most fervent of force and foresight, prevent himself from robbing her of her purity. The man who had once stopped at nothing to conquer and lay claim to anything within the focus of his desire instead would shut himself away night after night while she demurely shivered in the room adjacent. Never giving in to any of his baser desires. He would live like a chaste monk, distant and cold to keep her intact.
Pathetic because, although his very being clamored for him to end this burning torment, he could never put his own needs above her innocence.
She looked at him now, tinge of Boticellian pink, raw rose lips and muted blush, the memory of her father turning her into this blurred inflamation of tender features and blinked back tears.
"Since you are not an angel, who are you?"
He was unable to keep from laughing softly. Yes, it was a question. A single question, and by all definitions a simple question. She had no reason to know how very complicated a response it would require.
The log on top of the fire broke in two, sending up a shower of sparks that momentarily caught his attention. He resumed his lazy tracing of the rim of his glass before speaking.
"I'm... I'm no one of particular consequence, really," he said distantly, as if recalling from memory the correct means of defining who he was. "I'm a Frenchman, I was born not far from where we now sit. Boscherville, a pleasant and well-cared for community, if not exactly the most worldly of villages. When I was young, much younger than you are now, I began... traveling... around. I was an apprentice, of sorts. My father," the phrase came out strangely choked, "was a mason. Which is how I ended up here now. I helped in the construction of this building, you know."
He sensed her waiting, expectant and impatient, and sighed before continuing, "There is, of course, much more to it than that." His voice dropped to a whisper, "Much, much more. I suppose you already assumed. But that is a complicated and sad story, and will be better suited for another time. A pretty head such as yours shouldn't be filled with such melancholy remembrances."
Christine nodded slightly, her mouth set in a firm line. "I... is it... does that have something to do with," her fingers fluttered in his direction, "with the mask?"
Erik didn't answer. He swirled the dark fluid in his glass and looked back at her. "May I ask something of you?"
"You may ask anything of me, and I will gladly oblige." Christine sat up straighter, obedient to a fault, even after the illusion of his heavenly aura had been disturbed.
Another log split apart, sending a crimson shower of sparks and smoke that he found mesmerizing. His fingers continued their languid exploration of the glass as he carefully considered her words, finding once again that the intoned meaning behind them raised gooseflesh on his forearms, try as he might to not let them affect him so profoundly.
He didn't want to ask, not now, not ever. It was a question he'd quite frankly much rather avoid, something he thought he was likely better off never knowing the answer to. As if giving the question form would somehow make the fear more true, more real in the private quiet of his living room. Even uttering the name aloud seemed a sacrilege, allowing him to interfere, now that she was safely ensconced within these walls.
He didn't belong here. He could remain in the floors above, grow old in the light, traipse about in the world outside and rot there, for all Erik cared.
However, be that as it may, the question still gnawed within. Some dark and terrible evil, eating away at him. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment before speaking.
"When I was young, still green and innocent in that delightful way most adolescents are," Erik said slowly, never taking his eyes off the fire, "I was apprenticed to a master mason. An Italian, a man who loved the stone as if it were his own body and soul and could therefore create from it. Beautiful forms and sweeping architectures that stirred the soul in a way only true art can. I was proud to be taken into his home, into his tutelage. It was undoubtedly the best year of my life."
Erik stopped, wincing slightly. The memory hurt, still caused pain even after all of these years. The rooftop garden, Giovanni's arthritic hand on his shoulder as they walked. It was the closest he'd ever come to having a father. All ripped away, all stolen.
"He had a daughter," the words were quiet. "She came back into his home while I was still a guest there. She was very young, and although we shared the same number of years, she seemed infinitely younger than I. And she was..." he sighed again, "she was a silly thing. All frilled dresses and fanciful thoughts. Rudely and impudently pushing herself where she didn't belong." Although the words themselves were harsh, his tone remained one of sad longing, as if he somehow missed that rude impudence.
"She was very lovely. I, in my own inept and bumbling way, grew fond of her, although I would never dare to speak it aloud, and she was simply too immature to comprehend. But I assume that is part of the process, is it not? That first, fleeting young love. Better it exists and is dismissed, even if tragically, than to linger and haunt a person. Better to be snuffed out than to light anew and disastrously destroy a future."
Erik finished the amber colored fluid in his glass, returning it to the table beside him in one movement.
"Do you love him, Christine?" His eyes met hers as he fought to mask the rising fear and desperation from betraying him in either voice or gesture. She looked startled, confused, and he loathed himself for having to speak the betrayer's name aloud here in the quiet reverie of their evening.
"The Vicomte. I believe you call him Raoul. Oh, do not look so afraid, there is very little that goes on within this building without my notice," he leaned back into his seat, trying to quell the thunder of his heart.
Her chin quivered and she looked away. Erik's heart sank. That moment of hesitation told him everything he needed to know, his worst fears confirmed. "I believe," he said stiffly, rising to his feet, "that is enough for tonight. I'll have to bid you good evening and hope your rest is... restful."
Upon reaching the doorway, he heard her speak at last, her voice wavering, but still defiant.
"You have your secrets, Monsieur. I have mine."
He felt it then, the subtle shift in the power balance. The dynamic of this twisted affair was changing, and he didn't know if he was quite prepared.
"Get some rest," he said quietly, leaving her alone in the flickering firelight.
Sleep came fitfully that night, finally delivering its blissful darkness in an armchair where Erik had sat awake and replayed their conversation twice over. Thoughts of responses he should have made, cleverer responses, responses that didn't betray so nakedly his insecurities gave way to greyscale dreams of oceanscapes beneath stone white cliffs. Abstract thoughts without any clear deeper meaning. Erik turned slightly away from the table lamp in his sleep, the emotional exhaustion of what had transpired dampening his senses, allowing some measure of vulnerability. He slept through the quiet click of the bedroom door. He dreamed through Sasha's hasty leap from the chair adjacent. He remained blissfully unaware of the lurking presence of Christine Daae until she had drawn too close for comfort. Hazily he came to his sense a moment too late, as the cool pressure of her fingertips pried the lower edge of his mask from where it rested on his cheek.
Then there was no sensation beyond blinding white-hot rage and the sounds of her sobbing screams before the world went blank.