Chapter 9 - Delectable Agony
The good news was that it didn't look like the carpet would stain.
The bad news was that after a hiatus of almost 6 years, Erik was fairly certain he might have to kill again.
Not that he wanted to. But then, Erik hadn't wanted a great many of the things that had come to pass in his life. He'd had to learn earlier than most that you often have no choice but to play the hand you've been dealt - even if you'd never wanted to play cards in the first place.
All he had wanted was a few days of peace in the subterranean stillness of his old home, to take a break from the work which he let consume him completely. Spending the night talking himself out of murder had not been on the agenda. Neither had been scrubbing the contents of the little vicomte's stomach out of his prized Persian carpet, but here he was, working a soft brush into the fine wool and trying not to retch from the sour-smelling mix of lake water, whiskey, and bile.
His shoulders ached, both from the scrubbing and from the tension which had been pulling each muscle tight enough to snap ever since he'd made the mistake of allowing that half-mad fool to start spewing his nonsense. Erik wasn't entirely sure what to make of all that had passed between the vicomte and himself, but he was quite sure that he didn't like it: didn't like that he'd been caught off guard, didn't like the strain of pretending he hadn't been, and especially didn't like sharing so many words with a man he wished he could simply forget even existed.
Having finished with the carpet, Erik pushed the furniture back into place, tossed Giry's note into the fire, and took up his book again, satisfied that he'd erased all signs of the vicomte's presence. But trying to focus on the words on the page was futile; they couldn't possibly compete with the whispers swirling in his head. He glanced up at the clock. It had been a little more than half an hour since the boy had scampered out his door - he must be nearly home by now.
Erik took in a deep breath, held it, counted to five, blew it out slowly. It was true, he had changed. No, he wasn't perfect, but he'd at least committed himself to giving up the worst of the worst offenses: no more stealing, no more stalking or kidnapping, no more murder. A deliberately crushing workload had helped keep him in line, as had a handful of silly - but effective - tricks he employed for keeping his emotions in check. But now, that foolish boy had quite literally stumbled back into his life, and all the hard-won change suddenly seemed precarious.
The next breath didn't come easily. The thought of her, unhappy, had snaked through his chest like sinuous, suffocating vines, stealing his breath away. Her happiness was still the only thing that truly mattered to him, even after all these years. Sending her away in the arms of her valiant lover was supposed to ensure that she would have all she could ever want or ever need.
In all fairness, that alone should be reason enough to kill the boy.
But that wasn't what made his hands itch for his lasso.
Erik shot from his chair, nearly tipping it over. He needed to pace, and this room simply wasn't big enough. He snatched up his cloak, easily navigated the narrow, unlit paths and echoing corridors, and climbed high, higher, until he was as far from his suffocating underground home as he could possibly go.
In the moonless night, the city was a canvas filled with inky smudges suggesting streets and buildings, overlaid with a sprinkle of warm, twinkling fairy lights. Somewhere, farther than he could see from his rooftop vantage point, a light would soon appear in the window of a grand townhouse. Would he wake her right away, too eager to wait until morning? Or would he slip into bed beside her, silent, patiently awaiting the rising of the sun?
Goddamn it, he should have killed him before he'd even made it to the surface.
The proposition itself wasn't what propelled Erik's feet to pace the length of the rooftop again and again, as the wind whipped at his cloak and the whispering in his head grew louder and more insistent. It was true, what he had told the vicomte: he found the whole idea shocking, indecent, and frankly, stupid. (It was also true that it set his wicked pulse racing - he couldn't pretend otherwise - but that he kept to himself.) At the moment, though, even with the certainty that it couldn't end in anything but disaster, he wasn't overly preoccupied with the particulars of what the scheme entailed.
No, the whispering in his head had been singing a different song, one that dripped with honeyed poison.
It was the shameful stirrings of hope.
He'd worked for years to extinguish any and all such feelings, as if tirelessly stamping out each useless ember in a nearly burnt-out fire. But now it was apparent that he had not been as successful as he'd thought, for something had caught and flamed, and now inside his chest his heart burned hot and painful.
He hated it.
He'd tried so hard to avoid it, even going as far as allowing white-hot rage, that old companion he'd banished years ago, to come charging back, full-force. He could have happily strangled that insolent boy right where he stood. But then, suddenly, unexpectedly...there'd been his name. Yes, it had been from the vicomte's lips, but it meant that it had first been on hers. Real, concrete proof that she hadn't only referred to him by one of his unearthly aliases, or worse, labeled him as nothing but 'monster' to her gallant hero; she'd graced him with his humanity.
Could it be possible that he still meant something to her? It was a question he'd expressly forbidden himself to ask, let alone ponder at length. But the terrible heat in his chest was blazing, melting the icy fortifications he'd built up to surround and protect his most cherished, most forbidden memories - the ones which were as bitter as they were sweet - the ones which, in the early days in London, had often come to him at night in feverish, delirious dreams, from which he woke in the morning feeling hungover, as if he'd passed the night with several bottles of wine.
First there was the shock of touch where there had never been another's touch; then the taste of tears, briny and sweet. Warmth flowed into him from her lips, along with a tenderness that transformed. For the first time in his life, he saw himself reflected in her pleading, hopeful eyes not as an angel, or a phantom, but as a man.
Yes...and he'd also never felt more like a monster - he mustn't forget that.
The first kiss, that was for him. A demonstration that she was willing to submit in order to free her lover. But the second kiss...he could have sworn that one felt-
NO. NO MORE.
Erik stopped his pacing. He held his sorry head between his hands and let it hang, heavy. This thread of memory held a perverse ache of pleasure...but it also twisted and looped until it became a silken noose. He knew he had to cut the thread, now.
And yet…
...there was the feeling of her melting into him, the startlingly hungry crush of her lips, and there was the way he had to be the one to sever the connection… And then, most tormenting of all, that last view of her tear-streaked face, looking back as her lover led her away by the hand.
But that's right, isn't it?
He let her go - she went.
She left, and didn't come back.
She didn't want him. If that night hadn't proven that, then the many years following certainly had.
His heart spasmed beneath his clutching hands.
THIS. This was exactly why he kept these memories, these thoughts, locked so securely away.
Because...he could so easily slip away from reality, lost in the past.
Because...it hurt.
Because the agonizingly intoxicating spiral of what-ifs couldn't possibly last...the stupid boy hadn't actually asked her!
When he did, she would be horrified. Disgusted. And Erik wouldn't blame her - he was horrifying and disgusting, after all. A kiss was one thing, but this… And when he'd had confirmation he was correct in his assumption? To have hope rekindled only for it to be crushed beyond recognition? Well...he was certain he would not survive it.
Really, the only reasonable solution was to kill the vicomte before he could say a word.
Erik turned on his heel and made for the winged statue which crowned the building. The bronze, chilled by the post-midnight air, was cold beneath his palms. He scaled it effortlessly - he'd had plenty of practice. Below, the city lights had begun to wink out - few enough remained that it was hard to tell where the night sky ended and the city began. The darkened streets would allow him all-too-easy passage to his target. Then it would be a simple enough job to draw the vicomte out and silently dispense with him before he even knew what hit him.
So then why hadn't he done it already?
He knew by now he might well have missed his chance… Had it been intentional? Could it be that some secret part of him was holding out hope that she would agree?
That outcome was impossible to contemplate, like trying to stare into the sun. His head throbbed.
He slumped against the statue, letting his unmasked cheek rest against the cool, rippling folds of the figure's sculpted robe. He couldn't say how many hours he sat above Paris, arguing with himself until he was numb, but as the richness of the black sky began to fade to sooty gray, signaling the sun's approach, Erik had become certain of two truths: He didn't want to feel all of these feelings anymore, and...he didn't want to kill.
And so it was that finally, reluctantly, Erik came to the conclusion that if he was to keep his hands unbloodied, there was only one thing to do: remove himself from the temptation.
It was time to go home.
…
Private trains cars were not cheap, but they were well worth the expense. All it took was enough francs pressed into the right palm and an out-of-order sign would appear, allowing Erik to make the trip from Paris to Brussels in comfort and safe seclusion.
Life after his stint as the Opera Ghost had not always been so safe and comfortable.
In the immediate aftermath of that disastrous night, there had been pain beyond imagination - enough to drive him north to the sea, where he spent long hours perched on a cliff, staring down at the foaming sea as it dashed itself over and over on the rocks below. In the end, he'd been too much of a damned coward to end it all. Instead, just as the sun began to turn the water from black to inky purple, he spotted the light of a ship wink on not far down the shoreline, and he ended up taking a (ludicrously expensive) trip across the English channel on the salt-worn boat of a hesitant, yet shrewd fisherman. He arrived in London with nothing but the clothes he'd escaped in...which happened to include a fat stack of francs he had sewn into the lining of his jacket months prior, for just such a situation.
The gloom of a London winter suited him perfectly. He holed himself up in the seediest part of the city he could find, in a grimy one-room flat owned by a landlord who didn't ask any questions other than "D'ya 'ave the rent?"
He lasted far less time there than he had expected - as it turned out, wallowing in your misery is actually quite boring.
After a few months, tired of the squalid surroundings and the monotony of uninterrupted self-torment, he left London and traveled East once again, visiting Bucharest, Istanbul, Ankara, then - prudently skipping Persia - going north to Kiev, before finally starting the long journey home: to Rouen. Those few years alone, always moving, living meagerly on the fringes of society, picking up odd, unlovely jobs when he could - and picking pockets when he could not - felt like penance enough, and by the end, he was ready to settle down and enjoy all of the old creature comforts he used to hold so dear: soft linen bedding, good French wine, well-tailored clothes, and, dearest of all, his masochistic, self-indulgent suffering. And what better place for that than a stone's throw from his childhood home, the first place he'd learned that love was something he would never be worthy of.
There was no question that he wasn't worthy of Christine's love.
He'd done the right thing in sending her away with her lover - it was likely the only truly right thing he'd ever done in his life. Keeping her against her will had never really been an option, he knew that. Honestly, he couldn't even say exactly what he'd intended his endgame to be. Desperation drives men to do insane things, and if that man happens to be insane to begin with, well...clearly not a whole lot of rational thought had gone into the plan.
Oh, he'd been sane enough to know that he couldn't make her love him, but damned if he wouldn't burn the world down trying. He funneled all the years of pain and rejection and frustration into a rage that blinded with its heat, that deafened with the roar of blood in his ears - a suffocating red fog that cleared with a kiss, fairytale-like. It was all over for him then. The only thing left was to free her...from his horrible prison of a home, from his soul-enslaving music...from him.
In Rouen, he immersed himself in those memories, turning them over and over in his mind, probing them to produce a thrill of pain, the way you might tongue an aching tooth. The amount of wine necessary to accompany such intense brooding does not come cheap, so before long, the money began to run dry. Poverty can make a man, even one as attached to his notions of romantic melancholy as he was, become quite practical: it was time for the steady paycheck of honest employment.
He sent a letter to Paris, to his old friend who had so kindly moved there from Persia to "keep an eye on him", and who, Erik hoped, bitterly, had spent the subsequent years feeling the sting of his incompetence in that task.
Within the month, the pair had moved to Brussels, and with Erik as reclusive master architect and Nadir as chief of operations and the face of the company, they soon built quite a lucrative business renovating the city's endless supply of old buildings. As the work picked up, he found he had less and less time to devote to heartsick yearning, and those moments of blissful apathy were so refreshing that he decided it was time, finally, to eliminate his torturous desire to love and be loved, once and for all.
Clearly, he would have to stop glutting himself on the delectable agony of those most tempting, most tormenting memories of Christine, treasured though they were. But that was not all: music would have to go, too. Not that he'd felt its stirrings since she'd left, but he thought it best not to take any chances. As soon as he felt he could manage it, he made a short visit to his dust-covered and thoroughly-cobwebbed home beneath the opera. Having figuratively locked away the most tender portions of his heart, he now very literally locked away the last remnants of his musical soul: his piano, his violin, and piles and piles of his hand-written manuscripts.
He would work. He would stick to pursuits which did not inflame the soul. And he would live his life with the righteous conviction that his sacrifice - all that grief and all that pain - was but a small price to pay for the happiness of the one he loved best in the world.
That was how he planned to live out the rest of his days, until he finally earned the sweet release of death.
Leave it to that incredible idiot Monsieur le Vicomte de Chagny to foul everything up once again.
First off, I hope everyone is safe and healthy and happy. The state of things is pretty grim, and it gets me down. I'm grateful to have this as a much-needed escape, so thank you for reading.
Some good news! I made it most of the way through one very long chapter before I realized it really should be two. The next chapter is more than halfway done, so should be only a week or two next time.
Thank you to those who reached out with reviews and messages - I loved hearing from you!
PS - More Erik next time. :)