Ufufu~ seems that I cannot resist to upload ANOTHER chapter. OTL Such a review whore. Hmm hmm hmm~ As of now its all the fluff and fluff but eh, I'll be nice for now lol.
The reason why I can update so fast is cuz I have this written out ages ago. xD Have fun with this! Chapter threeeee~
Chapter Three
"Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down on the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there."
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby
Dawn had not even arrived, and yet Erik was stirring, having gotten used to taking power naps only once in a while and functioning wholly as a being in a sense. Gently settling the young girl onto the heap of blankets, he made his way out of the door and down the to the nearby brook. With a towel in hand and a cake of soap, he relieved himself of his clothes, slipping into the icy cold darkened waters. This varied much from the heated waters he used to pipe from the lake into a tub located behind a curtain in the Louis-Philippe room, but it awoke him and his clouded senses to the reality of the world. Soon, very soon, dawn would arrive, and he was considering if it would be for the best to leave Christine once more, before she would leave him. He sighed to himself, humming the tunes from his opera, sinking under the cool waters again.
Christine stirred slightly, wanting to find warmth. The night had been cruel to her when Erik left, and she sneezed, awaking. Looking around the room, it was empty as the night before when they had found it, and Erik's bed linen were still slightly warm. But where was that man, that Phantom, her angel? Their horses were still saddled and tied to the tree outside, so she concluded that he could not have saddled up and left her to her own devices. Gingerly, she got up and took a step towards the door, intending to bathe in the brook. Taking a soap cake, towel and change of underwear from the bag of supplies, she headed out.
The morning air was cool and crisp, with a gentle twittering of birds in the foliage. Pine trees surrounded them like a crowd, their tall branches towards the sky. Sweden, she realized, she was back home. In the land of Papa Daae and his stories, playing the violin in the attic…her mind flashed back to another time where Raoul had sat beside her, and they had held hands and sung along to the strings of the violin. It was his most prized possession, a Stradivarius that. Bowing the strings, he produced the most beautiful tones, and she could remember climbing onto his lap and begging her father for song after song, gypsy tunes they had heard from their years of travelling. She remembered when Raoul was nine and she was six, and he had rescued her scarf from the sea, when they had gone to Perros-Guirrec for a travelling concert. They had stayed for half a year, and Daddy Daae's health was already fast declining then. They had not even began to make preparations for their return journey home, and he had been lying in his coffin, dead. Madame Giry had taken her then, and she had caught a glimpse of a teenaged boy that followed her, with his haunted eyes. Their eyes had met for the fraction of a second, and he was gone.
She now knew the teenaged boy, who he was. His lean, gangly, awkward form had not been a foretelling of what he was now. Rounding the corner, she caught a sight of the exact person she remembered. Once her angel, once a sighted acquaintance, and now…Her breath caught as she realized that he was as naked as the day he was born, swimming through the river with powerful strokes. Heat singed her cheeks as she realized that he was now staring back at her, with a unmistakable gleam to his eyes.
"Come, mademoiselle, what have you need to fear?"
He gave a playful grin, the night spent with Christine seeming to bode well for his emotions that morning. Reaching out to her, he gathered an astonished Christine into his arms, the water soaking through her clothes.
"E-Erik!" she cried, her blush deepening.
She looked into his eyes, the endless depths of emotion. He murmured something unintelligible, pulling her closer to his body, relishing in the way that her skin felt against him, slowly disrobing her. His dark eyes met hers, smoldering with emotion,
"Beg me to release you. Hate me for what I am. Do you see how much I want you? Do you? And yet…last night…" Letting out a choked sob, he buried his face into Christine's bosom, nuzzling her, before looking up at her with a withering smile, almost reminiscent of a dying rose.
"Christine. I love…you."
Having said his piece, he waded out of the water, his body dripping. He wrapped a towel around himself, not even sparing Christine the tiniest glance. Left alone, she only wept.
The young Vicomte struggled against his bonds that his captor had tied him up in.
"Simple? What simplicity is this?"
His captor did not reply, save for throwing a knife at his head, smartly taking off a few of his locks.
"It is nothing. I am just but a man in need of fortunes and revenge, Vicomte. And I hear we have the common goal of taking down a certain man."
Raoul blinked.
"You mean the Phantom?"
The man nodded.
"Phantom no, Erik, yes. But what do you know of this Erik? A Phantom. A monster. A man, who stole your betrothed. But ah, Vicomte, did you know of his birth? How he murdered my mother, his caregiver, for merely pretending to be his mother as a child? What do you know of his lineage, Vicomte? What do you know? For all you know, that insufferable, detestable man…" Here, he paused to give a laugh, a mocking one that cut the Vicomte through his soul.
"How would you like to kill your own half brother?"
Erik sat in the caravan, wondering if he had chased Christine away. He blinked, remembering his hasty departure. He stared into the dim blackness of the caravan, barely lit by the slivers of light shining through the cracks of the window slats. He fingered the ring in his pocket nervously, the ring that he had snatched from her, and given back, and yet she had pressed it back into his palm…
He groaned, placing his hands in between his palms. Never would he understand his love for such a woman, nor her love? Was it even love? For him? A sheaf of papers was amongst his travelling items, hidden in a secret pocket under the saddle of his horse. Before retiring last night, he had slipped the papers into his coat, now bringing it out to read. Before he had left Paris, he had employed the use of a top end private detective, whom he paid a handsome sum to for utmost secrecy. It was details regarding his birth.
He scanned the page quickly, taking in the useless information like the deformity of his face, and the person whom he had called Mother and attempted to love… A curious thought however struck him when the name did not bear the word Mother beside it; instead it bore the words Nurse. A nurse? That woman was but his nurse? He looked further down the page for enlightenment as to his mysterious birth. And then the words that would scar him worse than the deformity, leaving him with the endless guilt and burden of his own cross and sin to bear hit him like a bolt out of the blue.
Father: Comte Louis-Giovanni Philippian de Changy
Mother: Eloise de Changy nee von Heloise
Brother: Philippe de Changy, Raoul de Changy
Hearing the door open, his eyes flew wide open as he shoved the papers hastily into the saddle, finding that it was the wrong one, and instead, this was Christine's saddle. Opting for sleight of hand instead, he thankfully got rid of the papers out of the curious, inquisitive eyes of Christine, hopefully before she could see anything.
When Christine got back to the caravan, the slats were still closed and bolted as they had been as she left. She peered inside one of the tiny cracks, hoping to see something more of the man she loved since her childhood, her Angel that fascinated her and thrilled her. Instead, she saw him poring over a sheaf of papers that reminded her of birth certificates.
She barely caught sight of it before he flipped the page.
Father: Comte Louis-Giovanni Philippian de Changy
Mother: Eloise de Changy nee von Heloise
Brother: Philippe de Changy, Raoul de Changy
Those words caught her eyes, standing out contrasting from the white paper it was printed on.
He was the Comte, he was the Comte, and the Comte sat inside!
Mon dieu.
Erik…
She opened the door hesitantly, watching as Erik scrambled to hide the papers.
"Erik, what are those?"
Damn her and her quick eyes!
"It's a map, Christine. We are on a journey after all." He got up from his seat slowly, wondering if she had seen anything at all. Straightening his cravat and clothes, he donned his cowl and stepped out of the caravan, the papers rustling in his sleeve.
Hoping that she would never realize the weight of his birth.
How was he to wed her? Perhaps he would adopt a false surname then.
Raoul was stunned beyond belief. He had a brother other than the deceased Comte? No wonder the lawyer had never conferred him the title of Comte, instead he had remained but a Vicomte. Assuming it to be a form of formality as per requested in some will, he had not made a fuss out of it, choosing to play the good child that he was, was he not?
The man continued.
"It is said that one should never cross this older de Changy child, but I was unfortunate enough to be one of those employed by my deceased Master to research into the history of one certain Erik. I found out then, that you were his brother. And it is to our benefit if he is dead and gone, no? But I was a fool to take him on alone then, Vicomte. Look what he did to me."
It was then that Raoul finally saw the man he was talking to, as a proper dark adversary of himself and yet a potential accomplice, acquaintance. But Christine, dear Christine…she would never forgive him if she knew he had killed Erik. And yet he knew the monster lived, from his own side research.
"If she never finds that he lives, you can have her back, and it would be a happy ending, monsieur. I only demand his death and three thousand francs. Farewell for now."
With that, he pressed a cold hand to Raoul's neck and Raoul whited out, thankfully.
Christine rode on in silence beside Erik. How was she to cope with the fact that she was riding with the Comte of the same family as her childhood friend and former crush? She wanted to ask him something, but remembered the words of Mamma Valerius.
All in good time, my child, the Lord maketh things good in due time…
Mamma Valerius. Her rock, her strength, and now gone. As Raoul was, as her father was, as Madame Giry was now, as she ran away from Paris with Erik. But she had the Comte now! Her lover. She remembered last night, the peaceful sleep she had drifted off into with Erik close to her. Stifling a childish giggle, she turned to him.
"Sing with me, mon ange. Keep me company as we ride with your voice!"
"It is a long and arduous journey, Christine. It is therefore in our best interests if we keep the silence, lest you ruin that angel's voice of yours."
She gave a little sigh. "Please, mon ange? The road is long, and I would dearly love to hear your voice in song, just once."
"Very well, but just this once."
She almost let go of the reins to clap her hands in delightful glee.
"Thank you mon ange, mon amour…"
Les oiseaux qu'on met en cage,
Peuvent-ils encore voler?
Les enfants que l'on outrage,
Peuvent-ils encore aimer?
Mon amour,
La rosa bel ange Christine,
J'etais comme une hirondelle,
J'arrivais avec le printemps,
Je courrais par les ruelles,
En chantant des chans gitans,
Ou es-tu ma bel ange Christine?
She blushed slightly, realizing that like Don Juan Triumphant, this little song was dedicated to her. With the memory of the other aria fresh in her mind, she began to sing in kind.
Ou es-tu mon ange Erik?
Mon amour,
Je t'aime.
A gypsy lullaby, one that her father often played in his travels. How had Erik known? Then she remembered, a little shadowy figure she often saw when her father played and she danced. A little boy, who shunned the light? Every time she had reached out, he had shrunken back and she could never find him, not in the throng of people that flocked to hear her father's music.
"Erik, that song was my father's song on his violin. Could you perhaps be the boy I reached out to all this while?"
He curtly nodded to her.
"I have met your father before. He was a superb musician and a very good man, cherie."
He refused to ever tell her the last thing he had heard from him, from the dying man himself, at his last performance. As of now, Christine surely must assume that their meeting was purely by chance, since Madame Giry had only spotted her dancing and had never known her father. But Erik knew, to a certain extent that the Girys were a close friend of Daddy Daae, not to mention that this was a prearranged meeting to bring Christine in as part of the corps de ballet. Surely, the occurrences where he had chosen her to be his singer was more of a doing on his part, but yet…to a certain extent, this carefree child had been subject to the whim of everyone who was her guardian. The list of which now included him too, he noted with a twinge of regret. He wanted to love her freely, and let her live. Perhaps, the caged birds he sang about were not so much he as her, he mused. As if to hammer in the final nail in finality, he remembered the dying man's last words.
"My boy, even with your distorted outside, I can see your heart of gold inside. Monster you will never be, especially to my younger one I hope. I should think she already has a special attachment to you." He smiled, pausing for breath. "As such, as young as she is, I hope you will care for her. I betroth her to you, my boy, and nobody else shall have my blessing save for you."
The dying man gave Erik a pat on the head, as the young teenaged boy howled.
"Never, do you hear me? I am a MONSTER, not deserving of such, please monsieur."
Tears streamed down the younger Erik's cheeks as he ran out of the room, almost crashing into the younger Daae, now his fiancé, as she entered. He could see the shock in her face, almost having crashed into him, but for that moment, he could not discern any disgust, none, not at all.
"Erik? How did you meet my father?"
"It was by chance, he noticed me looking at his violin with longing. It was then, the first time I ever touched an instrument properly." He gave a sound pat to the violin case on the horse's flank. "This is actually yours, I believe, if you ever learnt to play." He smiled at the younger Daae. For now he would withhold her status from her.
Yes. I shall just say. Until now, I never put up a disclaimer, but in light of the stupid SOPA which I see popping up again, I don't own this. Nope, not at all. But this is a fanfic. I own the story. I don't own the characters. Or else the movie would have been longer. Erik would have more scenes. I'd probably make him strip for you phangirls out there xD
Please review! It makes me happy! /hands out black ribboned roses to you all/