Author's Note: Also, many thanks to my new Beta. PhantomoftheBroadgrass for sparing me the humiliation of silly mistakes by spotting things like "His said." How embarrassing... (O.o)
Many thanks to MarilynKC for the constant love for this story. It helps keep me going for it.
Haunting Memories
Charles winced and squirmed a little in his chair.
"Be still," Erik said, as he stilled with a sharp thread cutter in hand. The small forked instrument was common in any sewing kit to cut a single thread of a bad stitch in a garment.
"I can't."
"You can, yet you will not," he said, struggling to curb the tide of his frustration from having delicate work interrupted. Charles's arm was stretched across the table again, as Erik tended the wound in the tender flesh of the underside of his forearm that ran from elbow to wrist.
"It hurts."
"I numbed your arm. You should barely feel anything."
"But I do."
"Then do not watch."
"I want to, and what if you poke me?"
"I do not recall such complaints when I gave you these stitches to begin with, Charles."
"That was different."
"How is it any different from then and now? I did not give you much to numb anything."
"Because the cut hurt more than the stitches."
Erik let out a long and exasperated exhale, struggling for patience. "I will not poke you if you remain still. However, I cannot make such a promise if you keep moving whenever I attempt to break a stitch."
Charles buried his face into the crook of his left arm, resting heavily on the table.
With Charles finally still, Erik began breaking each of the twenty stitches he had laced along the boy's arm. The relief he felt at the fact the boy did not suffer a cut to the artery went beyond description. It came close. Very close. Layers of skin had been penetrated until it was at the cusp of those primary veins. There was little doubt the initial injury held more pain than the stitches Erik made to bind it back together.
Four days passed since the Inspector had paid that 'visit' and one week since Charles's and Erik's worlds were violently thrown together in mutual tragedy. In that time, Erik came to the slow and prudent realization that young Charles was becoming more comfortable around him and his environment. How did Erik know this? The simple fact was that various items either moved or disappeared. Luckily, things moved more often than vanished, and despite what many may have thought, Erik knew he was not that senile yet. Thus, he possessed the sneaking suspicion that Charles figured out one of his many ticks: move something out its specific place and the old man will notice, then put it back.
Heavens, this child was a spitting little mirror of him in adolescent misdeeds and genius, apparent afflictions aside. This forced Erik to open the box of tricks he long ago locked away in a dark corner of his mind, and spur the clever Opera Ghost awake again. Oh yes... the little amateur prankster would be repaid in kind.
Another point of behavior that confirmed that Charles was comfortable was endless questions. Luckily, none of them were about the mask, his past, or Christine…but he asked about every other question imaginable. Annoyingly so. Every time Erik went to handle a task, such as tending the horses, Charles was right there, peering over his shoulder and wanting to know every detail of what he did and why. What made it all ironic was the fact that the boy was doing exactly what he did all through his childhood and younger years, only Charles did not have to deal with the discrimination of being different.
Through it all, the only thing that kept Erik from losing his usually volatile temper was those wide blue eyes filled with curiosity. Christine's eyes. It made a part of his heart melt at the endearing sight every time. There were moments that it seemed those eyes would not be enough to sate Erik's temper. As yet, his temper did not win out.
The day thus far was plagued by constant, pouring rain rather than snow, keeping Charles trapped indoors away from nature and the horses. The strange part, however, was the sudden absence of questions from the boy. Finally, a bit of quiet so Erik could rake his mind over everything that brought them together; her death. Yet, in that quiet, he discovered the silence from the boy equally maddening.
Erik finished breaking the stitches and began pulling out the strings from the boy's arms with tweezers.
"I feel that," came Charles's muffled voice from his crooked elbow.
"I promised no poking, not twinges."
Charles huffed.
"There are worse discomforts," Erik said academically. "Even you admitted such."
Charles craned his head in the crook of his arm to watch Erik with his now visible eye. "I know," he replied, in a small voice. The bruises on his face had faded from the darkest shades black, blues, and hints of red, to faint greenish brown, nearly the shade of green olives. Yet, the dark circles were growing around his eyes from near sleepless nights.
Erik finished removing the stitches and began cleansing the arm and applying ointment again in his usual precision. "I find your silence for much of today to be most vexing."
"Why? You get irritated when I talk too much."
"Yes," Erik was never one to sugar his words as he set the ointment aside and began wiping his hands on a damp cloth before cleaning up the mess from treatment. "Yet, I have not discouraged you either."
"Not in words."
Erik paused as he placed glass bottles of various purposes into specific order in the box that housed most of his medical supplies. "Then I apologize…" he said carefully before looking to Charles and motioned towards his mask, bring levity to his voice. "I am not the best at masking my thoughts."
A small smile cracked Charles's otherwise solemn expression. "I can't imagine why," the boy teased.
Erik offered a brief smile as he rose and put the box away. "It would appear I prefer you prattling on about whatever strikes your mind, even if it may seem irritating. I am merely unused to such…socialization for such extended periods. I am fond… of the sound of your voice at my ear."
Charles's fingers traced the grain of the wood on the table. "You mean that?"
"Yes," Erik spoke softly as he returned to his seat across from Charles. "You are my progeny. While I will never be a proper parent in any vague sense of the word, you are still a son to me, and I rather not be a barrier to your ability to learn anything. Few things are more agitating than asking a question to learn practical things when those who held the answers refuse to share their knowledge."
"Because that's what happened to you?"
Damnably smart, his child. "Yes," Erik answered slowly.
Charles's eyes shifted to his fingertips, still tracing the wood grain. "You are trying…" he granted softly. "I know that. This is just hard when I miss…them. I miss home…and the comforts of what's familiar. But…your voice is comforting to me as well. Like Maman's was."
"Her voice had a way of calming the spirit," Erik said, with moisture threatening his eyes. "I could listen to her sing all day, every day, and never grow tired of hearing her."
"Me too," Charles whispered. "I can hear her when you sing that lullaby. She used to always sing it to me."
"Did she?" Erik asked, with some indescribable feeling stirring within his spirit.
Charles nodded. "Whenever I was tired or upset."
"I used to sing it to her, when she was saddened and missing her father."
"She learned from you?"
"I wrote it because she had troubles sleeping, as do you. Though, I believe you have far more reason to have nightmares."
Charles uncomfortably turned away from him, looking towards the window where rain pummeled against the glass pane in gale force winds, and said nothing.
Erik looked out the window as well, unsure how to proceed. How would he ever convince him that talking about what happened would help bring them both closure? Tell him outright? Charles was a bright child, mature enough for his years. He could handle these truths. In his own youth, Erik recalled many horrors, including a few when he was younger than his son. How things could have gone so differently.
Even with Giovanni.
Rising from his chair, Erik made his way to kneel beside him. With reluctance born out of a lifetime of horrific experiences, he reached up to touch the boy's shoulder with his fingertips.
When Charles turned back to him, Erik jerked his hand away as if his fingers had touched a hot wrought iron skillet. "Horrors are not easily forgotten, Charles. They never go away. They want to haunt you and eat at your core until there is nothing left but misery or worse, nothing left to feel."
A frown stretched across Charles's face while he watched Erik's withdrawn hand in the corner of his eyes. Never the less, he settled his gaze on the masked face before him.
"I have known many, unspeakable things. Things that, while it seems the world turns in blissful ignorance, much of that pain, suffering, and hurt will keep you in a suffocating hold."
"Like what? Your mother?"
Erik shook his head, closing his eyes, trying to block out the memory of Javert. How foolish of a child he was to believe sexual assault affected only women, or was even just between male and female. No, in that, genders and age knew no bounds. "Not just her, Charles. There are many kinds of people out there. For as horrid as she was to me, there are those who are…worse. It was not until I was a few years older than you are now that I became more than just an object to be caged, displayed… and used."
Charles's small faced crinkled in his confusion, struggling to comprehend the meaning.
"I have never forgotten anything that has caused me pain, Charles. I wish I could. I wish could forget many things. But the mind does not work like that. You will never forget what happened to them, no matter how much you wish otherwise. What you can do, is search for a way to find some measure of solace and acceptance of that pain. If you can find it in yourself to tell me what happened that wretched day you want to forget, I will do everything in my power to help you find whoever harmed them."
Fear and pain shone in his son's eyes, giving Erik only a mere hint of what must be raging through his mind. Charles would not tell, not now, perhaps not ever. Without a recounting of events from the only survivor, finding whoever killed his beloved and traumatized his son would be a near impossible feat to accomplish.
Erik closed his eyes with a tired sigh as he hung his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I wish I knew of more ways to help you. All I can really offer is my attention and music."
"What if they kill you too?" Charles asked, voice small and young, wrought with fear. "What happens to me then? I go to Madame Corbin and Helene? I have no aunts or uncles left."
Erik furrowed his brow at the mention of relatives. "They will not kill me, Charles."
Something in Charles snapped then. "How can you be sure? You're of flesh and blood just like Maman and Papa, and they're dead! They can kill you too, and they will kill the Corbins! Everyone!" Tears stained his cheeks now, his chest heaving with ragged breaths he sucked into his lungs between sobs.
Erik straightened immediately, turning to grasp his son by the shoulders. "No! I have fought for my right to live every day of my life, and I will not die by the hands of men when I have you as my reason to live now. I will never leave you and I will never abandon you. If they harm me, I will recover. If they take you from me, I will find you. We are tied to each other until age takes me, by which point, you will be a fine young man who will have everything I have to give you, to teach you. I swear it."
Amid Erik's vow to his dear child, the boy reigned in his cries and drew himself up a little. Charles's eyes shone like glossy marbles from tears not yet fallen down the streams of his dampened cheeks. Time seemed to pass irrevocably slow with the silence that hung in the air, interrupted only by the patters of plump raindrops splattering against the windowpane in rapid succession. Even that sounded far away.
Charles drew in a breath to bring forth words, then the kitchen lit up in a garish flash of white light before a loud clap boomed a second later, shaking the house and everything in it a little. Both felt like their skin leapt from their bones from the startling interruption as they jerked their gazes towards the outdoors, where the reality of nature came back to them. Rain fell in torrents, some visually thicker than others as the wind gushed the bands of water about.
Whatever Charles was going to say died in his throat with that clap of thunder.
Then the sounds of rain and wind seemed fill the room in a deafening roar, though the view beyond the glass never worsened. A steady percussion of thunder rolled overhead like a heavy ball on smooth floorboards with bright flashes and astonishing jagged streaks of light between black billows. Some claps even backlit clouds that would have been mountains in a mythical fairy tale. The rain provided both cadence and melody with the wind as haunting strings.
"It's music," Charles whispered, entranced by the orchestra of nature.
Erik snapped his gaze to the boy, his blood running rapidly in his veins while his mind screamed at him.
No, it could not be true.
He looked back to the window. Could it?
The piano was never as he left it anymore.
He looked back to the lad, who appeared entranced by the sounds of music around them.
"Come with me," Erik said as he rose to his feet, holding his hand out to the boy. In the instant Charles took his hand, Erik quickly drew him to the music room and set him at the piano. "Sit, play."
Charles sank to the bench, but obliged no further when he looked up to Erik with a slight downward turn of his lips and a furrowed brow.
"Do not look at me like that! I know you can, the piano is never as I leave it!" he flew to the windows and threw them open, not caring if rain fell in or the cold chilled them. That did not matter now, when he possessed the skills to fix it later. Sounds of the storm flooded into the room and their ears. "You hear the music! Play it! Feel it! Give yourself to it!"
And he did, oh sweet heavens he did. Erik closed his eyes and let that intoxicating feeling devour him and ripple his skin with gooseflesh, which happened whenever he gave into the music.
Charles beat at the keys, playing what nature inspired in him; the pain, fear, and sadness that the poured into the music. He released the pent-up emotion, letting it flow through the outlet that no other could provide. Erik felt what the boy felt. Whenever a musician free-played while venting their troubles, the music that came forth told much of what said musician released.
Young Charles was a musician.
The Chateau in Chelle
A simple knock at the front door drew him from his room to the second-floor balcony that looked down into the main foyer where he spotted the butler, Niles, walking in his usual austere gait to the door. As he flipped the locks and opened the ornate wooden door, the person on the other side kicked it open; sending Niles reeling as a deafening gunshot sent him to the floor, a smoking whole in his chest.
Fear raced through his chest and clenched his sternum and trachea in an icy grip that prevented the passage of breath.
The maid, and Niles's wife, Jeannette, screamed from the threshold leading into the parlor, drawing Charles's eyes as well as the man's, to her. With another report from the gun, she fell silent as the wound forced her down the same path her husband had taken to the afterlife.
Charles could not move. This could not be happening. It was surreal and he felt like all function and sense of self abandoned him as fear tightened its wretched clutches on him.
These men made their way inside, but he could not count them, not now, with his heart beating against his ribcage.
Papa snatched his arm and dragged him into the safety of the hall when another gunshot pierced the air, hammering his eardrums with the violence of sound. This bullet pierced Raoul in the arm with enough power to send him staggering into the wall with a cry of pain.
Paralysis abated with his father's pain mounting and Charles stayed by his side, tugging at his good arm in a silent urge to further retreat. One of the men ascended the stairs two at a time, closing in on them fast. "Papa...!"
Raoul shook his head to himself, as if he was trying to clear away the fog. Charles put his full weight into the next tug at his arm, lurching his father forward a few steps to keep his balance.
"Papa! We have to go!" Charles begged him, just as the first man turned to the corner.
A filthy smile spread across rotting teeth when he caught sight of his target, but that smile didn't last as another gunshot rang out, and the man was thrown back by the bullet hitting him center of mass.
Charles looked back behind him to see his mother standing there, holding Papa's pistol out before her in a true and steady grip.
The brief reprieve brought a flood of relief into Charles's veins from her assertive action against the invaders. This lasted little more than three seconds when four men appeared at the top of the stairs behind him. Christine shifted her aim to the closest one. "Leave my house," she growled, though her voice shook.
The closest of the pair, a tall oafish man, let out a booming laugh. "Think you can get us all before we get 'em, Comtesse?" The brute gave a nod to Charles and Raoul, who had managed to straighten himself out, but remained still since he and he boy were in the crossfire.
His Mother tightened her hold on the pistol, glancing between her family and the men,
Unbeknownst to her, a fifth man was creeping up the hallway behind her. Charles tightened his grip on Raoul's hand, as the older man cleared his throat while looking towards Christine. The standoff would not work favorably.
She looked over to see Raoul shake his head slowly, and she put down the gun. Once she straightened up, she issued a startled cry just before a flash of pain exploded on Charles's temple, sending him into darkness.
In the music room, Charles struck a final, jarring chord without conscious thought, just as darkness descended and he fell backwards, off the bench.
