A/N: An absolutely fluffy and ridiculous little Phantom story for you all. I hope you enjoy :)
I never knew how unconventional my parents' love story was until I, myself, began to live in the world of love and marriage and parts I never knew were explained to me. The story of their lives where they raised myself and my brother was far past the strangeness. We lived a solitary life before they got into the thick of raising us.
They met in our home country of Persia. My father was not of my mother's faith, and now neither child is of any faith at all. It doesn't bother either Reza or I, but I think sometimes, my father regrets not giving us just a bit more guidance in a spiritual way.
Regardless, my father was a terrible man in Persia. We've come to believe a much different thing ourselves as his children who've only ever seen the best in him, but Papa did terrible things, on that we all agree. However, being a terrible man afforded him many a great thing, one of which was a wife.
Now, for her it was a punishment. Marrying outside of her faith and to her culture's Angel of Death wasn't supposed to be anything but. However, she had always had a strong constitution, and due to her failing to become part of the Shah's harem, she was sent to my father.
The Shah figured if anyone could beat disobedience into her, it was the Angel of Death.
Sadly for him, my father had more of a conscience than he thought.
A detail that was shared with me only when I was to marry my own spouse, enlightened me to the fact that he faked his marriage bed that evening in an effort to comfort my mother. She'd thrown a fit, naturally, as any woman should about marrying a man as punishment, not to mention he was outside of everything she knew and held dear, but having him disappear into the bedroom while she did so and coming back to inform her of his plan… it changed everything for her.
Mother discovered that Father was as much an unwilling participant in his marriage as she was. Usually, things in the Persian court did not go this well, mind you. My father should have killed her for her lack of cooperation, and my mother should have at first light told everyone that the Angel of Death was a coward and could not even claim his right as a husband.
Instead, they and my Uncle Nadir decided they'd had enough and began to plan an escape. It took all of three years for the plan to come to fruition, the only reason I call Persia my home country. My brother was born there days before we left. Reza, a year my junior and named after Nadir's late son, and I hardly recall anything of the tumult.
It was through the dedication of my father's attempts to leave, gather a fortune they could easily live the rest of their lives off, and his consideration for my mother in the meantime, that they fell in love.
My father fell first, as is his way. I never thought he looked odd, he was just Papa to me, but suffering the disfigurement that he does, he never expected Mother to love him back. Her fiery spirit and attitude that had gotten her into the marriage in the first place had snagged my father. He adores banter, still does, and Mother was ready with a quip in those days like no other. Or so he says.
Mother on the other hand, adored my father as one endears themselves to a mangy dog with a bad attitude. There was never a doubt she was beautiful. Mother was supposed to be in the Shah's harem for God's sake, and I imagine before my father that she too craved someone equally beautiful. Papa is beautiful on the inside, much as he denies it. With each metaphorical spot of matted fur she would detangle from him, she would find the shiny coat beneath just ready to be brushed and loved.
I claim that my mother saved my father's life, and neither of them ever corrected me.
After only a year of marriage and a few weeks of loving each other, I was expected. Then came Reza as we know, at an inopportune time (that's the only timing Reza has ever seemed to possess) and since we all made it out alive, I do not begrudge him that once.
Still, we grew up in France from there on in a luxurious villa in the country that my brother now owns. Papa downgraded to a flat in Paris, and I married well and live close to him in my husband's manor.
Regardless, the strangeness of their relationship never clicked even through school.
All the other children had mothers and fathers, or maybe one or the other, and they all either were set up or found each other. It made plenty of sense, all I ever knew was that my parents were an arranged marriage, set up in a country we could no longer stay in. Mother's home.
But we were home, she would say it so often, and we would all say it back to her. Father had apparently started the phrase when in Persia and Mother expressed how it must be miserable to not think of anywhere at all as home. Luckily for him, we all reclaimed France as our own.
I began to think even less of their strange relationship when my mother died.
Papa was not the same after that. In fact, we truly thought we'd lost him, Reza, Uncle Nadir, and I, when he disappeared to Italy for weeks without a word. I was but twelve, Reza not quite yet eleven when he returned, guilty but a bit less grief-ridden, and he helped us to heal from there. Uncle Nadir never seemed to quite fully forgive my father for this stint, as he'd become our primary caregiver during that time, a job which broke his heart as he hadn't seen his own Reza to either of my brother or I's ages.
Not seeing Papa and Mother in love made their story or anything about a marriage completely fade from my mind. Until I was sixteen, he was just Papa, alone and oftentimes sad, and speaking of their love only made him sadder.
To be frank, my father was always obsessed with two things my entire upbringing. His family, and music. I failed to mention it earlier because of how ingrained it is in me, I hardly recognize when there is music, only when there isn't, and after mother died there was not any. Even after his disappearance, Papa came back and didn't even touch his beloved piano for months. Reza had put his hands on it once in that time, desperate to draw out something, and our father merely let him clumsily tap out tunes that would once before drive him to insanity.
I, unlike my brother, played the piano with great skill. My brother was more of a vocalist but never did anything with it, and never even seemed to regret that as he got older either. When the house was silent with music, even I didn't play for simple lack of motivation, and maybe I should've been more understanding of Papa not doing it either. But I was too young, and so therefore did not.
So when he suddenly decided music was once again a great passion in his life, Papa moved us to the flat in Paris that he now resides in. He did not sell the house, it was imbued with my mother and her preferences, and none of us will probably ever part with it.
Paris was gorgeous.
I loved it with a strength that my father hadn't expected, and a frustration my brother and Uncle Nadir reeked of. They were not fond of the city, Nadir of the fast-paced and loose culture, and my brother of Paris in general. Too many people and too many eyes for him, he went to school and behaved well in those years with only complaints of wanting to go back home.
Eventually, he did, but my father only returned for visits, like I.
Instead, Papa took up a much-fought-for position at the nearby opera house. The Palais Garnier was magnificent, and I loved it beyond what a woman should feel for a building, though Papa can say the same. I attended the Conservatoire after my father had trained a great many singer and instrumentalist that walked through those doors, one of which he eventually took as a second and final wife.
When Christine Daaé came into our lives, it was with great caution. Her and I were friendly when I was there for lessons or to play for my father in his stead, but she was a few years my senior, and so we didn't click quite yet.
My father fell in love with her in a much different way than he did my mother. He was significantly older than her to start, nearly twenty years, and she was a grieving catholic girl from Sweden who didn't know the first thing about the world.
I hate to be rude to a woman who I now fondly think of as a second mother, but my first impression of her was never fond, and she knows this.
Christine learned very quickly living in the opera. Father would talk of her constantly, how she was progressing in her lessons, the way the opera was treating her, and Reza and I would merely nod. Papa was always funny about Mama Christine that way.
We siblings joke that he slowly laid down for Mother and fell flat to the floor for Christine. Considering the way she brightened his spirits after Mama, we could never blame him.
Christine though, did not have a strong constitution. She avoided bile and strong smells with a face that made her nearly ugly, and she hated vermin with a passion, so it's a wonder she fell for Papa at all.
What I think made her realize her love, and I will never tell my father this, was us. Christine never made the connection between myself and my father until she ran into me on the roof one morning. Distraught and in tears, I was forced to comfort her in her situation.
Papa only wore a mask for the rest of the world. I knew this, so did Reza and Uncle Nadir, but that meant the rest of the world only knew him with his mask on. Imagine my surprise when Christine explained to me what she discovered when she got too curious of her vocal instructor!
I was merely surprised she escaped alive. A good dressing down from Papa had whipped Reza and I into good behavior many a time, and his students at the opera were not much different than his children.
Children of which Christine did not know he had.
I comforted her that day by telling her of when he dressed me down for pushing Reza just a little too hard while playing and making him fall entirely down a grassy hill. It clicked only half-way through my story that she was talking to her instructor's daughter, and I watched every thought she had about my father change right there.
She explained why she had taken the mask, that she fancied him and wanted to see his face, practically in a trance from his playing.
His temper had gotten the best of him, and while I did not excuse him of it, I think she understood when I told her some of the terrible things he went through because of his face. And back then I only knew the tame details.
That same night, when I had already returned home and Reza was off studying, Papa came home beaming.
I really thought he'd be more upset, but when he peeled off the mask and hung his coat, he did grow more serious. I remember the conversation so clearly for so many reasons, but he crouched down in front of me and took my hands in his.
"Zahra. Christine agreed to let me take her to supper. I mean this with romantic intentions, and she reciprocated these feelings. However, if in anyway you object, I will not pursue her further. Just know, no one will ever replace your mother in my heart. Ever. I vowed to love Nazanin until I die, and I will. But my heart has made room for another, and she makes me very happy, Zahra."
I found out Christine kept to herself that I was the one who convinced her to go back to see my father and apologize. Only years later would she tell him, and despite the fact I still didn't like her at the time, I told my father he could take her to supper.
Seeing him happy was always worth it, and Mama Christine was so good to us ever since.
He only ever found love from there on out, and as their love and father's happiness grew, I began to appreciate Christine more and more. When they married, my brother, Uncle Nadir and I happily stood with them at the altar.
I appreciate the sanctity of a wedding in the church because of that one. Being Catholic, Christine had all but demanded a church wedding, and Reza and I got to discover our father was actually raised Catholic though subscribed to no such thing. I also married in the church, but Reza was lucky enough not to do so because he married a religionless orphan.
All my love to my sister-in-law of course, but I was a bit jealous.
Regardless, Christine was perfect for Papa, and when she finally earned a place on stage as lead soprano, no one was nearly as loud as my father in the crowd.
Nearly.
I met my own husband in the most unconventional way. Or so I thought. My mother and father were an unconventional meeting in the realest of terms, meanwhile, my husband and I were the textbook definition of falling love without force or coercion, even if there was a bit of finagling on my part.
In fact, Mama Christine's debut performance was when Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, made his first appearance in all our lives. Considering she sang under Christine Daaé, and not the family name of Carrierie, I suppose him assuming she was unmarried was not his fault.
However, he is my husband, and I reserve the right to think him a complete imbecile when I see fit.
We did not rush to Mama Christine's dressing room after that first performance due to our own congratulations from nearby admirers who knew of our relation to her, but Raoul did. She had been expecting us, you see, her husband and step-children, so when Raoul knocked, what else was she supposed to do but let him in?
We arrived a handful of minutes after, my father barely having been able to take two steps before someone else expressed what a great triumph his wife had. We found Mama Christine attempting to explain, in very nice terms, why she could not go to supper with Raoul.
Papa was amused and only slightly angry at him, but I? Oh, I was lost at first sight.
I knew little of love besides the child-friendly versions I had gotten from both Mother and Christine, and my father. Therefore what I felt for Raoul at first always felt a bit forbidden. Besides, I was a handful of years younger than him and not yet even eighteen. Which, in my day was not so horrible, though I cannot think of marriage for my own children beyond at least twenty.
It's probably just the mother in me.
Regardless, I was lost in Raoul, and my father seemed to pick up on this plus the affection Raoul had for his wife, and to this day I think… or rather I know that my husband is still afraid of my father.
The confrontation was quite civil, but one knows a murderous glint in the eye when they see it, and Raoul saw it in my father's eyes and promptly left the opera house.
How did I come to marry him then?
It was… manipulative in a way that we all now find endearing.
My father as he got more and more essential to the opera began to sit in on its financial meetings and artistic discussions. My husband was, and still is, a patron of the arts out of pure enjoyment. He can neither hold a tune on instrument nor voice, and I never ask him to unless we're attempting to make the children laugh. He was a patron of the opera newly at the time, and my father was tasked by the managers with asking for a larger contribution from him due to the "relationship" Christine had with the Vicomte. Actually, Mother Christine was technically supposed to go, but she did not want to suggest anything on her part, nor did my father wish for her to do such a thing. And he definitely did not want to interact with Raoul, so having forgotten all about my awe-struck eyes at my handsome future-husband, papa sent me. And Reza, but I bribed him away with my entire allowance for the month, meaning I got to go alone.
Accidentally on papa's part, Raoul and I fell in love, but it was no accident on my own behalf.
To say he was surprised to see me when I showed up at his manor was an understatement. He was entirely worried I brought word from my father, and held me at arms length through all of my pleasantries. Only when I said I was on opera business did he relax, and I broke propriety to say that no harm was done by his propositioning my father's wife.
Raoul even offered me tea after that.
Sitting in his home felt right. To this day I never admit I imagined myself in my exact spot that I'm in now, but one can't say I didn't get anything from my father. We are both delusional when set on something, and will not give it up for less than trying.
I stayed for three hours. It was actually enough that he even offered me supper, but I knew that I could not be vacant from an entire meal at home. Father would have reigned hell upon the de Chagny household if I had.
So I made my excuses, and Raoul kissed my hand in front of one of his butlers before I left.
Papa did not care for my light-hearted attitude when I returned home. Mama Christine on the other hand, began to tell me these stories I have shortened and tell you now. She explained many things to me about love and men, and I learned away the same ignorance she'd had at the opera house that made her ill-equipped to handle my father the year before.
No explicit details were shared, but I learned what was and wasn't given in innuendo and metaphors enough so that I felt brave enough to see Raoul again. It was often at the opera. He agreed to increase his donation, and we ran into one-another with a frequency I cared greatly for.
Of course, when Raoul approached father for permission to court me, it went about as one would expect.
"You ask permission to court my daughter after accosting my wife?"
Poor Raoul, I really couldn't save him, but Raoul was lucky Christine was around. She perhaps knew a bit too much about my infatuation with Raoul, and it was just because I was eager to share these new feelings that I had told her. Even if now I share nearly everything with her, as if she were my sister.
Christine had steadied her husband's hand and asked Raoul perhaps the most important question one could think in this scenario.
"Do you love me, Raoul?"
As I was told, father recoiled at that question. He hadn't been expecting his own wife to ask after another man's love, but he studied Raoul anyways.
"No."
The answer had been firm enough to convince my father that Raoul at least deserved a chance. I married him two years later. A few days before my wedding was when I was finally told the whole of my father's story. Some parts Christine knew entirely that she told me, others my father needed to say, and in the end, Mother Christine gave me the talk that prepared me to truly be Raoul's wife.
Funnily enough, I thought of mother on her wedding night, entirely fiery and fierce, winning my father's love and respect from that, while I already had my husband's love and respect like Christine had on her wedding night.
I wanted to be like my mother, but not in that way. Raoul and I shared the most beautiful ceremony with our friends and family, and after that, we stayed in the Grand Paris Hotel, leaving for Italy the following day to honeymoon. I learned more of intimacy in those three weeks we were gone than any other before.
To this day, while Papa and Raoul still bicker back and forth, and his family remains they are not overly fond of me, our love surpassed it all. It helped me to understand why Papa and Mother left Persia, and why he could no longer be in the house where he'd loved her for most of their marriage.
I returned from my own honeymoon to find a wary bunch. Reza was only eighteen at the time and hadn't met his wife yet, and Father and Mama Christine were still wooing audiences at the Paris opera house. I was worried someone was sick with the tone of summons we received upon our arrival home, not to mention the fact we were told to come as quickly as possible.
No one was sick, not really, only entirely taken by surprise.
Mama Christine was pregnant.
Considering my father and mother had miraculously stopped having children after Reza, it never occurred to me that a new, young wife would give Papa another child. Not to mention three entire years after they were married that made it a fruitless endeavor. I never even knew if Papa desired more children, or if Christine had wanted her own little baby to raise, not two young adults.
Turns out, they were worried over my reaction. I was newly wed, and their hesitancy in telling us was about more of them thinking they had purposefully stolen away attention from my wedding and new life as a Vicomtesse.
Instead, I was thrilled. Another sibling, a friend for my own children that would soon follow my father's announcement.
Reza met and married his wife in the six months it took Mama Christine to have Gustave. I thought he was veritably insane, but he turned eighteen, met his wife, and decided that a family was going to be his career, and Papa did not begrudge him this. He moved back home, and while I will always suspect it was from a smidge of subconscious jealousy, he never admitted to such a thing and loved Gustave as much as any of us.
He was still present when Mama Christine gave birth to what would be her only child, and Raoul was gently massaging my back from my own heavy pregnancy when we all heard cries echo through the house.
Papa raced out, after demanding to be in the room with her, an understandable thing in Persia yet unheard of in France for some reason, and proudly told us all he now had another son. Reza and his wife congratulated him first, and Raoul helped me up to give my father the largest hug I could muster in my condition. Those two only shook hands.
Meeting my littlest brother was a profound experience for me. It certified I was excited to have my own little one, but realizing their fragility scared me beyond wit. Gustave was just so small, and since Reza and I were only a year apart, I never actually thought about how little we might have been as children.
And Raoul was going to trust me with these tiny little things?
I didn't have anything to worry about, not really. I loved being a mother to babies, and I adore my now elder children in school, doing this or that as fits their fancy. My first pregnancy resulted in twin boys. It explained why I was carrying so heavy, and they were Gustave's best-friends from infancy. My younger children, two girls born at separate times, thank God, liked their plethora of cousins more than their Uncle Gustave.
Trust me, it's strange calling him that to my children as much as it is calling him my brother considering how young he is.
My children taught me a new kind of love, one that I had only experienced from their point of view. Loving children made me understand why my parents had fought so hard to take us from Persia, my mother's homeland it might be.
My father was my parenting role model. He had to start from the beginning entirely with Gustave, and even Christine was amused at the whole thing, having had a part in helping Reza and I to grow. It was funny to see him recall all the attention an infant needed, learning alongside me the difference over fifteen years had made in raising a child.
Gustave genuinely saved me. Raoul says I am a magnificent mother, but watching Father raise another boy, even now, gave me the confidence and assurance even my husband could not. In fact, my father taught me everything, how to love and be loved, even in his awkward fashion that both of my mothers had evened out with their out-going natures.
I couldn't imagine what Father would've turned out like if he hadn't been given my mother. And as much as that sentence irks me, I understand what a different world they came from, and I understand even in my world that there is less tact and commonality in our intricacies.
But I do thank God or Allah, or whoever you ascribe to, that they were brought together. That he was brought Christine, and in Christine she brought to me Raoul.
Sweet Raoul who begs me to put my pen down and kisses my neck even now, urging me to bed.
"Zahra, the children sleep and I find myself not at all tired."
I pray you all find this love, and you excuse me leaving the story for my husband's bed. May you understand our love, and my father's, and know that it continues, beyond a shadow of a doubt into a world where there isn't much these days.