Chapter 8 - An Unparalleled Delight

A prickle of heat spread across Raoul's face like the ghost of a slap. Thick, acrid smoke filled his nostrils and tickled the back of his throat. He tested his sore, screwed up eyes, but could see nothing but spinning black stars against flickering orange light. For a wild moment, he feared he might be in Hell.

He tried to sit up. His mouth tasted brackish, like it had been filled with stagnant, black water. His stomach wrenched, and he gagged as he felt its contents rise up his throat. Doubling over, he heaved up a bellyful of bitter water, still burning with the smoky tang of whisky. It soaked his shirt, flowed through his cupped hands, and splashed onto what appeared to be a very fine Persian carpet.

An exasperated sigh sounded behind him.

"That was gifted to me by an actual Persian prince, you know."

All these years later, the voice was still just as he remembered it: as soft and rich and beautiful as velvet. Lazily arrogant, but with a coiled-snake core. His skin prickled.

"Well," the voice said with a sigh, followed by the soft thud of a book being closed, "at least I needn't drag your corpse up several flights of stairs and find somewhere to dispose of it after all."

Raoul attempted to arrange himself with as much dignity as possible, which was nowhere close to enough. He was sprawled across a silk-covered couch which had been pushed directly in front of a blazing fire. He was barefoot, wearing only his still-damp trousers and shirtsleeves, streaked with drying mud. A clock sat on the mantle. Thank God, he hadn't been out long; less than an hour since he'd stepped off the street. He grimaced and sucked in a deep breath. The air was damp and smelled of wet stone and furniture polish. He turned to face the room.

In its fundamentals, it remained just as he remembered it. It was still uncanny: a smartly furnished sitting room in a place where it shouldn't exist. It still felt oppressive, with its cold, windowless walls and creeping shadows; its essence, however, had transformed entirely. Gone were the scattered piles of paper, the manic charcoal sketches pinned to the walls, the gaudy props pilfered from above. All evidence of the shattered mind who lived there had been cleared away, leaving only a tidy, comfortable home that could have been lifted directly from any upper middle-class dwelling in Paris. Perfectly ordinary.

Except for Him.

He - the Phantom - sat like a bored king, weary of his audience: ankle crossed over a knee, elbow propped on the armrest of a throne-like armchair. The smooth white mask made his face appear ageless. The contemptuous set of his jaw, the polished-rock hardness of his eyes was like looking at a memory. Only a few tiny lines etched around his unmasked eye revealed that any time had passed. Raoul could feel himself staring, helpless.

The fingers of the Phantom's free hand tapped a ticking-clock rhythm on his knee. "Felt like a little rest after that swim?" One dark brow arched over an unreadable, glittering eye.

Raoul's head was pounding, each throb a pulse of pain which felt like the inside of his skull was being hollowed out with a spoon. He racked his brain, attempting to summon the line of reasoning which had led him to his current situation. For the first time in days, the haze of alcohol and cigarettes and sleeplessness had cleared, and this newfound clarity did not do his confidence in his logic any favors. This whole plan had sounded a lot better with a few glasses of whisky under his belt...and before he'd gone tumbling headfirst into the underground lake.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of watching the Vicomte de Chagny nap upon my settee?"

Raoul winced, heat rising up the back of his neck.

He steeled himself. This was it: foolhardy or not, it was time to put his plan into action. He opened his mouth to recite the words he'd prepared, and out came...nothing but a rasping, strangled sound, like an alley cat choking on a fishbone.

The Phantom's lips pressed together in what Raoul felt with stomach-sinking certainty was an attempt to suppress a smile. He was silent for several beats, then rose and strode around Raoul to where a high-backed wooden chair sat to one side of the fireplace, upon which Raoul's jacket was drying.

"Don't bother. Rest your voice," he said, lifting the jacket and holding it out with one hand. "I think I might be able to divine your motives myself." His free hand disappeared into the folds of cloth, and returned with Raoul's well-worn flask pinched between two long, fine-boned fingers.

"A midday refreshment, or...liquid courage?" He shook the flask, then uncapped it and tipped it into the fire. A lone drop slid from the mouth and fell into the flames with a pop and a hiss. "A little too much courage, perhaps." He arched his brow. "I've always thought that too much courage tends to border on stupidity. Though I think you and I might have a difference of opinion on that point."

The hand with the flask disappeared into the jacket again and this time reemerged with a small, sodden notecard, with a single word written in block print, each letter bleeding ink. "'HOME'?" he asked, a puzzled expression on his visible features. "And, if I'm not mistaken… No, it couldn't be! Is that...my dear friend Madame Giry's handwriting?" He turned to Raoul, scandalized.

Raoul glanced toward the door, the edges of his ears blazing. He cleared his throat again, this time managing a hoarse, stuttered "I…I..."

"Pay her to keep tabs on me, and inform you when I come and go from Paris?"

Raoul's heart dropped into his stomach.

"Oh, I know." He paused, apparently relishing Raoul's stricken expression. "In fact, I pay her twice as much to make sure that she tells you what I want you to know. And to keep me similarly informed, of course." He tucked the card back into a pocket, replaced the jacket on the chair, and assumed a thoughtful pose.

"Confirmation of my whereabouts, and more than a sip or two of whisky… One could assume that you were plucking up the courage to come kill me." He fixed Raoul with such an icy stare that a cold sweat broke out immediately on the back of his neck. Raoul shook his head violently in protest. "One could...but I wouldn't," The Phantom continued, a twitch at the corner of his mouth giving him away. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't believe that even you are stupid enough to try. Besides, if I thought it were a possibility, that would make me even more stupid for pulling you out of the lake, you drunken wretch."

Raoul shrunk into himself. This had been a spectacularly bad idea. A complete mistake - no, more than a mistake: he'd gone temporarily mad.

And yet...wasn't genius sometimes born of madness?

Raoul cleared his throat once again. "And I," he croaked, smoothing out the roughness in his throat with a thick swallow. "I really would like to thank you for that." His voice was ragged, but serviceable. He sat up a little straighter. "I know I've given you no reason to-"

The Phantom cut him off with a cool wave of his hand. "It was nothing. And I won't be distracted with apologies and ingratiation. I am still owed an explanation." He gripped the back of the chair and stared down at Raoul. "You want something from me...but are afraid to ask?" Raoul's silence could only be taken for assent, and he continued. "Could it be...money? Don't tell me you've secretly squandered your fortune at the tables!"

"No, that's not it at all!" Raoul shook his head, hard, his cheeks inexplicably burning.

"No? I thought there was no greater humiliation for you people than poverty." He leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. "So, not murder, and not money. What could it be then?"

Sitting under the unrelenting glare of a man who'd once had him strung up by the neck not far from this very spot, Raoul not unreasonably began to worry that he'd lost his nerve. He opened and closed his mouth several times, attempting to get his useless tongue to form the right words.

"You look like a fish, Vicomte," The Phantom said, his tone teasing but his eyes hard. "Maybe I should throw you back in the lake."

Raoul clasped his sweaty palms together in supplication. Everything rested on him getting this right. "No, please, wait..."

"I am waiting," The Phantom replied through gritted teeth. "And you should know that I find waiting quite tiresome. This is your last chance." He stood up straight: shoulders squared, jaw set, eyes challenging. "I won't ask again."

Raoul pressed his fingertips over his eyes, wishing more than ever that the alcohol was still fuzzing his brain. This had been so much easier in his whiskey-soaked imagination. "We need…" He released the last shred of his dignity with a long sigh. "...a child."

With the exception of the thudding of his blood in his ears, there was nothing but silence for an immeasurably long moment. He bit his lip and forced himself to look up at the Phantom.

His raised brow was arched in an expression of genuine bafflement.

"A child?" He fixed Raoul with a wry, quizzical look. "What, were you under the impression that I'm running an orphanage down here?" He swept his hand across the room. "I certainly don't see any children lying about - do you?"

Raoul's cheeks flamed. The creeping tension that had been hardening the lines of the Phantom's body evaporated, and he collapsed onto the chair, chuckling to himself.

"What I mean is," Raoul began, his voice sharpening, "we haven't been able to have a child and I…"

"Thought I might steal you one? Oh, of course!" he said, with mock sincerity and a flourish of his hand. "Please Vicomte, make yourself comfortable while I pop up to the surface and snatch you a baby. I'll only be a moment."

"This isn't a joke!" Raoul said, triggering a burst of derisive laughter which rang in his ears and echoed in his head, blending with the hearty chuckle of Dr. Simmons. Around the edges of Raoul's vision, the room began to shimmer like heat off the pavement in the height of summer. His chest buzzed. "Listen!" he shouted, hammering his knees with his clenched fists. "This is serious! I'm not able to get Christine pregnant and I need YOU to!"

His piercing voice echoed in the sudden silence.

A slow-moving wave of nausea engulfed Raoul. The temperature in the room seemed to have jumped twenty degrees. He longed to wipe away the sudden trickle of sweat at his temple, but his arms could only hang stupidly at his sides.

Beneath a furrowed brow, the Phantom's eyes were fixed on his, though his gaze was closed and inscrutable. A minute's worth of heartbeats passed.

The Phantom blinked slowly, and then stood with an impossibly straight spine. He smoothed his waistcoat with his palms. "We're finished here," he said, his voice pure indifference.

"But-"

"Enough." He held up a palm, the long, pale fingers rigid. "This was amusing for a while, but you've overstayed your welcome. You need to leave. Now." He strode across the room to an overstuffed bookcase and began rearranging books, pulling a few out and stacking them in a neat pile on the side table. He didn't even bother to turn to look at Raoul as he spoke. "Since you're obviously concussed from your fall and I'm feeling generous, I'll allow you a moment to gather your things. But," he wagged a warning finger over his shoulder, "if the next words out of your mouth are anything other than 'Goodbye, I'm leaving and never coming back,' then you'd better be prepared to walk home through the streets of Paris barefoot." His hands stilled, and he waited, shoulders tensed.

Raoul eyed the door longingly. Turning tail and running sounded like the best possible outcome at this point. But here he was, standing in front of his last best opportunity to keep his wife. True, he'd been half-drowned, humiliated, and was possibly in mortal danger...but the Phantom hadn't exactly said no.

He made sure he'd gathered his shoes and coat and had a clear path to the door before he tried again. "Please," he said, trying to sound more like a man with a serious proposal and less like a petulant, pleading child, "you must hear me out." He took a large, confident, and only slightly-wobbly step towards him.

Raoul's foot had hardly hit the ground when the Phantom whipped around, his expression wild. "No," he spat, the word like a slap, "the only thing I must do is try very hard to remember that I am no longer a murderer." He paused, shaking his head in bewilderment. "What is wrong with you? How dare you think you have any right to ask me for a damn thing." He began to advance upon Raoul, who mirrored each step with his own step backwards. "I've already given you everything. Everything! You think I owe you my time? My consideration?"

Raoul felt his back press against the solid wood of the door. "All this time I never, not once, interfered in your life! But you trespass, stumbling drunk, into my home, to try to make a fool out of me with some, some...grotesque joke, and somehow I'm the madman?" The Phantom now stood inches from him. His eyes were aflame, but the corner of his mouth just barely trembled. "Now," he whispered, his hands clenching and unclenching as if they were itching for a handful of Raoul's throat. "GET. OUT."

With his free hand, Raoul clawed at the doorknob. "I'm going, Erik, I'm going!"

The Phantom flinched, as if stung. A fleeting look of confusion passed over his face. "What?"

Blood rushed to Raoul's face, stinging his cheeks.. "Is that...not your name?" he asked haltingly. He knew he was an idiot in many respects, but he thought for certain that was the name Christine had told him.

The Phantom - no, Erik - took a step back, assessing him with calculating eyes. "Oh, I have a name now? I thought I was 'Monster', or 'Demon', or maybe 'That...Thing,'" he said, each name spat out like something bitter.

Raoul cringed. "Well, Christine said..." he began. And then it happened. At the sound of her name, the cool veneer of contempt cracked, exposing something pure and painful and as raw as an exposed heart still throbbing beneath a split rib cage. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was unmistakable.

Finally, a chink in his armour, and damned if Raoul wasn't going to exploit it. "It's what Christine always calls you," he finished, hoping he sounded convincing. He hadn't outright lied, she had called him that, but he was certainly taking liberties with the term 'always'.

Erik didn't back down, but Raoul noticed that he was holding his breath, and he would have sworn he could detect a slight tremor in his hands.

"She told me more than just your name," Raoul said, hoping that he was making good use of his last chance and not about to push his luck too far. "She told me that...that she believes there is a lot of good in you."

Erik scoffed. He turned on his heel and began pacing back and forth, but he didn't interrupt. Raoul pressed on. "She said that you've changed. That she can feel it in her heart."

Erik whipped around to face him. His eyes were narrowed, though the expression now felt more shrewd than menacing. "And you believed that enough to try to come here?" While his voice was still harsh, the venom seemed to be draining from it. "We both remember what happened the last time we met. You don't think I might welcome the opportunity to rewrite the end of the story?" He scowled. "At the very least, I could have let you drown."

"But you didn't. Which proves her right."

Erik continued to glare at him from across the room. His arms were crossed, but his shoulders had relaxed, and, Raoul noted with relief, he still hadn't asked him to leave. He spread his hands and tried for his most earnest expression. "I'm sorry, I've done an awful job of explaining."

"We are agreed on that," Erik snapped.

Raoul released his breath. "Please, let me try again. I promise I will throw myself back into the lake when I'm finished if you want, but I can't go without trying to help Christine."

Erik arched an eyebrow. "I may hold you to that, Vicomte." He stepped back and swept a hand toward the settee. Raoul sat, and waited for Erik to do the same, but he simply remained in place with his feet planted and arms crossed.

The fire warmed Raoul's back. He hadn't realized how cold he was until he felt the heat start to seep back into his bones. He tried to clear his mind of everything that had happened over the last hour or two. He needed to focus if he was going to do this properly.

He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. "I know the sacrifice you made, letting her go," he said in a practiced voice, hoping he sounded like a calm, reasonable, and very sane man. "And I've tried to honor that by making her as happy as I possibly could."

"Move along, Vicomte," Erik interrupted, glowering.

Raoul gave him a sheepish grimace and forged ahead. "However, I've failed her in one of the most basic ways. She desperately wants a child." An unwelcome thought started to surface, a challenge to the truth of those words. Raoul pushed it back down before it had the chance to fully form. Of course she does. "A baby," he continued. "And I can't give her that."

Erik's scowl faded. "You don't mean to say you're…" he paused, a nasty smirk spreading across his face. "Impotent?"

"No! Not at all!" Raoul was indignant, despite his pinkened cheeks. "We've always had quite a…" The deadly look of warning on Erik's face stopped him in his tracks. "It doesn't matter," he said quickly. He swallowed the last of his pride. "I saw a doctor...I'm sterile."

The silence his admission was met with was somehow worse than the insults he'd braced for. He closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips to his lids hard enough to see stars. "My God, can you imagine how humiliating this is for me to say to you?"

"Yes," Erik said, his voice dripping with smug satisfaction. "I do believe I can." Raoul had never heard anyone sound so pleased. His stomach roiled.

He changed course quickly. "Adoption is out of the question, so-"

"Why?" Erik interrupted. His tone was not one of curiosity, but of irritation - irritation which was quickly replaced with understanding. "Ahhh...an heir." Raoul's silence was confirmation of the obvious. "That's right, poverty may be the biggest humiliation to the aristocracy, but inability to produce an heir is not far behind."

Raoul scuffed at the rug with his toe.

"So," Erik began, his conversational tone not quite disguising the hitch in his voice, "why, exactly, are you here?"

"As I said, we can't adopt, so that leaves one other option: if I can't do it…" he gestured towards Erik.

"You can't be serious."

"If you had any idea how much this means to her…"

Erik shook his head, unbelieving. "And you're asking…"

"You. Yes, I'm asking you. I'm begging you, really."

The two men considered one another from across the room. The tick-tick of the clock on the mantle marked time as the silence stretched on. Finally, Erik took a few heavy steps and collapsed in the chair opposite him.

Raoul's confidence began to swell. He knew he could fix this. All that was left was for Erik to formally agree. "So, will you?" he asked. His stomach did a little flip.

Erik squinted at Raoul as though genuinely surprised by the depth of his stupidity. "No," he said, his tone at once astounded and disdainful. "Of course not."

"What?" Raoul blinked. "Why?"

Erik snorted in derision. "Because it's ridiculous and it's vulgar and I don't think you have any idea of what you're getting yourself into, were you to actually go through with this asinine plan."

"And I don't think you have any idea of what we've been through," Raoul said, his tone as hot as the blood fizzing in his head. Images of Christine's tear-streaked face flickered behind his eyes and he shook his head to clear them. "This is nothing," he huffed. "I can bear it if it brings her happiness."

Erik sat back in his chair, his hands gripping the armrests. He was silent for a minute, two. Finally, he sighed. "This is not to say that I'm giving any consideration to this plan, or that I even condone it in the first place, but...I have to ask the obvious." His voice softened. "Why me?"

"The short answer is that no one else cares as much about Christine," Raoul answered easily. "Believe me, I thought through so many different options. But who else could truly be trusted to have her best interests at heart? Who could we be sure wouldn't turn around and sell his story to the highest bidder or spill her secret after one too many drinks down at the bar?"

Erik stood and walked around Raoul to the fireplace. He picked up the fire iron and prodded the smoldering logs, sending up a shower of sparks. "Couldn't you just sail to America and find some blonde-haired, blue-eyed idiot to do the job?" he asked, his expression pinched, as if the suggestion tasted as unpalatable as it sounded.

Raoul twisted around in his seat to face Erik fully. "Do you really think an American would handle this situation with the delicacy and class it requires?" Raoul scoffed. "Could anyone else truly be trusted to treat her like the treasure she is? Or…" Raoul paused, doing his best to infuse his voice with an appealing flavor of deep gratitude and admiration. "If they were to develop feelings for her, could simultaneously love her...and let her go?"

Erik went still. The tip of the fire iron hovered over the flames.

A slithering feeling of uncertainty turned Raoul's stomach. Uncomfortable thoughts began to tickle at the edge of his consciousness. Surely, though, he had simply made a mistake by dredging up the painful past. He flicked his eyes away from Erik's whitening knuckles.

Raoul cleared his throat. No more talk of the past: it was time for unabashed flattery. "And then of course, there are the obvious strengths you bring to the table." He began counting on his fingers. "A genius, musical…"

"And this?" Erik turned, gesturing to his mask. "Would you like this passed on as well?"

The mask glowed amber in the firelight, the deep black rippling shadows seeping from beneath its edges hinting at what lay beneath.

Raoul swallowed hard, his throat suddenly tight. "Do you really think that's possible?" He had been fairly confident that he knew the answer. Was he wrong? He shifted in his seat. "I mean, excuse me for saying so," he said, grasping for the most sensitive way to put such a touchy subject, "but I assumed your mother must have experienced a shock, or had seen something…" he trailed off under Erik's withering, incredulous look.

Erik rolled his eyes and tossed the fire iron onto the hearth. "I suppose I can't say that I'm surprised you believe such simple-minded superstition," he sighed. He stepped around the settee and settled back into his armchair. He threaded his fingers together and stared down at his hands. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but his nails were pressing white half moons into the backs of his hands. "To be honest, I really don't know why I had the misfortune to be cursed with this face. It's entirely possible that it was just an extraordinarily unlucky random occurrence, but...I certainly couldn't promise that any offspring of mine might not be subject to the same fate." He was silent for a beat, then flung his hands down, and looked up at Raoul with an expression as pointed as his tone. "And how do you think life would be for Monsieur le Vicomte and his wife if they were to welcome a child who was the exact likeness of the Opera Ghost?"

"I've already thought about that," Raoul said quickly.

In truth, he had not. Between his delirious predawn plotting and his near certainty about how Erik had come by his deformity, he'd skimmed right over the issue. But now was much too late to turn back - he'd figure things out, somehow.

"It's worth the risk," he said decisively.

"And your wife?" Erik asked, his voice just above a whisper. "She feels the same?"

Raoul tugged at a stray thread on his cuff. "Well…" His eyes darted to the door.

The room went silent. Erik stared, unblinking, his eyes gone flat and dark. "Do you mean to tell me," he said in a tone which matched his eyes, "that she doesn't know you're here?"

Raoul's stricken expression gave him away. He made a mental note: he really needed to work on that.

"She doesn't know you're here." This time it wasn't a question. A deep red flush was creeping up the pale skin of Erik's throat towards his jaw, which was clenched tight enough to break teeth.

"Not exactly, but..." Raoul stopped short as Erik rose from his seat and turned his back on him.

"I'll give you the count of three," Erik said, his voice low and lethal, "and if you're not out that door, you can forget the lake - I'll murder you right here, with my bare hands."

Raoul snatched up his things and was on his feet in seconds. He had no intention of waiting to find out if the threat was the hyperbole he hoped it was. "Fine, fine! I'll leave! But please, just, think about it. For her sake!"

"ONE."

Raoul scooted around chairs and tables and scurried to the door. He clutched the brass knob, but didn't turn it.

"She'll say yes, I'm sure of it! I just didn't want to get her hopes up if I didn't have a commitment from you."

"TWO."

"I'm going, I'm going!" Raoul was more than halfway out the door. He paused, considering Erik's rigid shoulders and trembling hands. He was close, so close...

"If she says yes, will you do it?" Raoul asked softly.

Erik swung around and faced Raoul with a sneer. "Oh, of course!" he exclaimed, his voice rich with irony. "I'll even sing at the christening."

Raoul couldn't help the stupid grin which bloomed on his face. "I'm going to hold you to it!" he called out, and slammed the door behind him.

Yes, hello, I'm back. (Thanks, quarantine!) I'm cooking with this for real, so no more year-long breaks - stick with me if you're enjoying.

Is this story a little weird? This story is a little weird. But I promise it all comes together and makes sense. Though it still might be a little weird. :)

You know who still gets thanks like literally TEN YEARS LATER? Nade-Naberrie. She got this thing polished up and helped untangle the future of the plot so thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thanks for reading!