A/N: Yeah, I was lying when I said it would be a while until the next update. Whoops! Sorry, I hope you don't mind!
Chapter Twenty-Two: Life Sucked
Erik wouldn't look at me after I told him that, it took him another ten minutes to get him to face me again, and when he did, I again had to focus all my self-control on what beauty lay beneath his surface.
His face would take plenty of getting used to, but I was determined. As much as I knew that I loved his inner-beauty, I still had yet to learn just how to accept his outer beauty, but I was trying, and that thought gave me enough comfort to persevere.
"You willingly give up your freedom?" He asked me in a shaky voice and I nodded, swallowing thickly.
"I do. You don't scare me, Erik, and you need a...friend." The last word was torture, as being his friend was not what I wanted, and I'm quite sure he knew that, but he said nothing.
"Why?" He questioned suspiciously, which caught me off-guard a little bit.
"Because, I-I lo-care about you. I care about you a lot, Erik." I felt sick with myself. I had just promised to be his friend and in the same breath, I had lied to him, he wasn't the monster, I was.
"You mean this?" Again, I nodded and told him yes. This seemed like a very difficult thing to cope with for him, and I could understand.
"I'm not a liar, Erik. And I'm done with being afraid of you, I'm done with wanting to escape, I accept you, and I care about you so much." The first bit was, in fact, a huge fib, the rest, quite true.
It was then I noticed just how shaken Erik looked, almost like a scared little boy who didn't quite know what the Hell was going on, and suddenly it dawned on me, I still hadn't given Erik his mask back.
His mask was the source of his power, without it, he saw himself as just some ugly freak on display, his mask was his control, it was his security blanket, he couldn't cope without it.
I was determined to change that.
I didn't want to, as I was trying so hard to get over it, but I gently picked up his mask from beside me and handed it back to him. He took it from me just as carefully and turned away from me. He placed it back on his face and covered his twisted deformity from my view, both pleasing me and disappointing me at the same time.
Erik's deformity was a bit of a mixed bag with me. A part of me instantly loved it as much as I loved him, and wanted him to throw the mask in the fire down in the lair, while another part of me wished that I never had to look at such ugliness again. Deep down, what really scared me is the fact that I didn't know which part was more dominant.
Still, I tried to ignore such fear, and as soon as Erik's mask was back in place, I again put a hand on his cheek, trying to purge the memory of the cold, dead Erik bot. The real Phantom of the Opera in front of me was still cold, with his eyes like long tunnels with a distant speck of light at the end and his pale skin, but he wasn't dead, not remotely.
He was a mad genius, and I was mad about him.
He covered my freezing hand with his black-gloved one and removed it, setting it back in my lap. It was a slap in the face, but I'd expected it.
"I will be back in a little bit, Erik. But I need to think, it is why I came up here." I told him and the Opera Ghost nodded in understanding. He stood up and made to leave, but in a flourish, he roved his thick, dark cloak and tied it around my shoulders, protecting me from the chill of the late winter night. For the briefest of moments, his arms were around me, and I prayed that he would never let me go, but less than three seconds later, Erik had vanished through the trap door, leaving me alone on the roof of the Opera Populaire.
I tugged the cloak tighter around me and pulled some of the fabric closer to me. It was warm, comforting and smelled just like him, which was like expensive French cologne and a small trace of dirt from living in the lair for so long. It was such a nice smell, and it was as beautiful as him.
It fogged my brain a little bit, but did not dull my senses in the least when Sixty emerged out from behind the door on the opposite end of the roof. I smiled lightly at her as she sprinted over and almost knocked me over in one of her bone-crushing, signature hugs. I hugged her back as she turned towards the door and glared at Goblin as he came flying through it.
"See Goblin! I told you she wouldn't do it, our little girl is way smarter than you give her credit for!" Goblin scowled and I just giggled as he came and perched in my shoulder, giving my cheek an affectionate peck.
"I never doubted her!" He defended and Sixty's eyes widened in sheer surprise.
"You bloody liar! You so did!" She exclaimed as Goblin shook his head.
"No, no, I am not a liar, that is your department my dear." I could sense that one of their fights -which could last forever, I might add- was about to begin and so I took it upon myself to break it up before anything got terribly out of hand.
"You guys!" I exclaimed and they both looked to me. "Stop it!" I finished and Sixty sighed.
"We're just worried about you, girl." She said with her violet eyes filled with a completely hopeless expression. I sent a wave of pain through my chest to see and I put an arm around her thin shoulders, pulling her into another tight hug.
"I'm fine, seriously guys, I will be just fine." Sixty seemed to believe me, but Goblin looked uncertain.
"I don't doubt that you have been able to heal yourself in the past, my dear little Annie, but sometimes, you will need some help, this may be one of those times." He said and I had to admit that he had a really good point.
"For some reason, I agree with you, Goblin. Annie, baby, you need someone to talk to, and we're here right now. Why don't you tell us what's wrong?" I sighed and shook my head, it was way to embarrassing to talk about with my two best friends.
"Perhaps it would be best if I were to leave." Goblin suggested and I shook my head. I had made my choice, and Goblin was my friend, I would talk to both of them, one would never be left in the dark.
"No, stay, I'll tell you, but please don't judge me, okay?" I asked and they both nodded immediately.
"You got it, honey." Sixty promised. I sighed again and I sat down on one of the backs of the Pegasus statues, the one that wasn't covered in snow.
I took a deep breath to calm my raging emotions and finally started to speak.
"I'm sick, really, really sick." Was the very first thing I told them on the subject and their eyes widened.
"Oh my God! Where does it hurt, is it pneumonia?! Christ, it is pneumonia isn't it?! Oh my God!" Sixty was freaking out and I ended up having to slap her like they do in the movies to calm her down.
"Thank you, my dear." Goblin said when Sixty's mad, spontaneous loss of sanity had dulled. I nodded and told him your welcome and then continued.
"I'm not sick like that Sixty, so please cool it." I explained calmly. "I'm sick in the brain, I'm really twisted up here" I paused, pointing to my temple, meaning my brain, "More so than I thought." I finished and Goblin decided to speak up.
"What ever do you mean?" He questioned and Sixty asked the same thing with her eyes. I shrugged casually.
"I'm in love." It was the first time I had ever said it out loud, and the first time I had really allowed myself to believe it totally. Deep down, I had really hoped I was lying to myself, but now I knew I wasn't.
"You're in love?" My two friends asked in unison. Goblin seemed to have a slight scoff in his voice, while Sixty seemed to be gushing pure joy from her ears. She squealed like a fan-girling banshee and rushed forward, sitting beside me and grabbing my wrists in a hand-cuff-like grip before yanking me up off of my seat and spinning me around in some strange kind of dance while she giggled.
Goblin, who seemed a tad bit flustered, nervously flew from the wing of the Pegasus to its back where I had been sitting with sixty just seconds ago. He seemed a bit unsure, I could see it in his eyes, and when Sixty finally let me go, he asked his question.
"I don't know, who is this person?" He asked and I couldn't believe he didn't know.
"It's Erik, of course." As soon as I said this, Sixty stopped dead and turned to look at me like I had grown two heads in the span of mere seconds.
"Are you nuts?" She asked me seriously and I nodded.
"Yes, now don't you see?" I asked and she shook her head in disbelief.
"I think that this is a serious mental disorder in some countries, Annika, perhaps you've heard of it? It goes by the name of, I don't know, Stockholm syndrome!" Goblin exclaimed sarcastically and I glared at him.
"God dammit, Goblin!" I exclaimed, walking towards the edge of the roof to get a better view of the lamp-lit horizon of Paris. "I know that I'm seriously fucked up! Please don't remind me." Sixty looked shocked at my language but I didn't care. I focused on how beautiful Paris looked from this distance. I could see the Eiffel Tower glowing like a candle-lit beacon of beauty, shining out to the world, it really was quite lovely.
"Girl, what's gotten in to you?" She asked and I shook my head.
"I-I just don't know, Sixty." I told her honestly. "And I know that it's beyond wrong, but I can't help it, I love him more than anything." I said with a sad shrug, my voice cracking and Sixty made a small noise of sympathy before tugging me into yet another hug.
"It's okay girl, I understand." She pulled away and looked me in the eye. "And you are so not messed up, this is normal, it's fine." She assured me, but Goblin was having absolutely none of it.
"Have you both gone mad?" He asked rhetorically and I gave him a pointed look, silently reminding him that he was not actually real. "Well, I won't stand for this, perhaps I should have left!" He exclaimed and I glared at him.
"Fine" I said. "Then just go if you can't take the truth!" I cried and he ruffled his feathers. He made a clucking sound from his beak and took off into the air.
"I will return, when you both come to your senses!" He shouted on the wind as he flew away out of sight.
The second he was gone, everything went to Hell.
"Oh my God, what have I done?" I shouted at Sixty, who was trying to calm me down.
"Annika, just relax, calm down!" She yelled at me but I ignored her.
"I lost him, oh my God, I lost him!" I shrieked, shaking like crazy. I felt dirty, I felt horrible that I made him leave, it was all my fault. "LET GO OF ME!" I finally snapped at Sixty who was clutching onto my wrists very tightly so that I didn't pitch myself off of the roof in an attempt to fly after him.
"I'll find him, Annika, you're going to be okay, just go back to the lair, I'll make him come back, just chill out, okay?" She asked me and I nodded, my insides feeling like they were being crushed by a car compactor.
She vanished through the door and I made myself walk back towards the trap door and lower myself down to the secret passageway. My body felt heavy as i dragged myself along the dingy hall back to Erik. It felt so strange to know that Goblin wasn't there, and that I couldn't rely on him anymore. It felt odd to know that Sycamore had a plan that would probably kill me, and it felt especially tragic to know that I was pouring all my energy into something any sane person would deem pointless.
Excuse me for dragging my vocabulary down to that of a spoiled child, but my next thought was, in fact quite true;
Life sucked.