"Love implies anger. The man who is angered by nothing cares about nothing. "
-Edward Abbey
A drop of sweat was forming along Erik's hairline, then oozed its way down his forehead. It rolled over its smaller companions, consuming them, gaining momentum as it finally reached the peak of his right eyebrow. His brow furrowed briefly, irritated with the disruption of its faintly-lined surface. The drop paused, contemplating its next move, before squeezing out in a direct path for the inner corner of Erik's closed eye.
The salt stung and he flinched in annoyance, reaching up to flick it away.
Then he paused for a moment. He opened his eyes to look at the drop dangling off the bottom of his finger. It swayed briefly before it gave up and fell with a tiny burst onto his waist.
Erik stared at it. Then he stared at his hand, the gears of his brain momentarily unable to function.
Since when did he wake up sweating? Even at the height of the sticky Parisian summer, his home was just as deep and coolly removed from the heat of the muggy city streets as ever.
Blinking, Erik turned his head slightly and briefly registered Manon's form beside him, mind whirring as memories of the night before shuffled back into their places. Manon storming off, Manon in the lake, Manon cold as ice.
He moved gingerly so as not to wake her and extracted himself from her damp body, leaning on his elbow to regard her more closely.
Immediately, he felt cooler.
It didn't take long for him to come to the appalled realization that the heat was radiating from her.
Suddenly it was difficult to breathe as his hands flew to Manon's side and tore open her shift, exposing the wound which, as he knew it would be, was streaked red, swollen and foul.
Erik's eyes flew back to her face and his fears were confirmed. Manon's lips were moving faintly, her eyebrows furrowed and her pale face glistening with the sweat that clung to tendrils of hair and plastered them to her face and neck.
Christ, it's infected.
Erik vaulted off the bed and hurtled towards his lake, snatching a basin from the dresser and rushing to fill it with cold water. He was beside her again in an instant, soaking a cloth in the water and pressing it to her face, her neck, her shoulders.
Manon responded by letting out a strangled exhale as her lips parted, eyelids fluttering.
"Manon!" His voice was high.
Her eyelids fluttered again, a clear effort. She tried to raise her head, but Erik found himself murmuring softly at her as he pressed her back down.
"Erik?" she asked dazedly, casting her eyes around before slumping back, muttering nonsensically and panting.
Erik dipped the cloth again and again in attempts to cool her. Despite his efforts, her agitation grew. Her eyes slipped closed and her head began to move back and forth as if seeking something.
"Charles…Charles wait…."
Erik pushed the hair off her face, passionately wishing that he could sweep away her dreams as easily. Manon's voice rose.
"Charles…Moreau! Moreau, you bastard…STOP…tell them, please, Moreau!"
Manon let out a shriek, followed by a flood of incoherent rambling.
He had had enough. The buzz of alarm in his mind had reached a breaking point.
But he couldn't move. Erik cast an agonized look down to her wound, then back up to her fever-flushed face, momentarily at a loss for which to try and mend first. He had never felt so completely incapable of action.
Suddenly Manon jarred him from his gridlock of alarm. Her hand flew to his wrist, grasping it with surprising strength as she wrenched her eyes open. They were glassy and unfocused, but after a moment registered his face – the mask, Erik realized – and were clouded with what looked like momentary relief as her grip loosened slightly.
"Erik," she gasped, "Oh, God, Erik, fix it…"
"Manon."
He tried to keep his voice as controlled as possible. He cleared his throat as his voice cracked.
"Manon!"
His voice was clearer now, authoritative, his fear spawning pragmatism.
He gripped the sides of her face, keeping it still, holding her eyes forcefully to keep her from slipping away again.
"Manon, your wound is infected. It is filled with pus and I am going to open, drain and mend it. Do you understand?"
Her response was a shuddery laugh that managed to be feeble and cynical at the same time. How very like her.
Taking her laugh as a yes, Erik stood and left the room, returning immediately with a small brown bottle. He tipped several drops of its contents into a glass of water at the bedside and held it gently up to Manon's mouth.
"Drink."
Fading in and out of her delirium, Manon managed a few difficult sips before spluttering and trying to push the glass away, turning her head aside. Erik gripped the back of her head, tilting it back to encourage the last few tinted drops to slide down her throat. He allowed his thumb to graze her ear, caressing it for the briefest moment.
He hated to drug her like this. After her strength during the earlier surgery, Erik had no doubts that she could handle the pain. This was pure selfishness; seeing her pain and nightmares was somehow horrendous to him now, and drugging her would soothe them both - though he did so uneasily. But his instincts stampeded over his discomfiture as he tilted the glass once more into her mouth. She drained it.
Erik stood to retrieve his surgery tools, leaning Manon back down onto the pillows. She was becoming calmer, her mumbling hushed and her unconscious movements deadening as the drug slid through her veins and the veil of sedation fell.
He glanced at her, washing his hands in the basin, as her breathing, though still shallow, grew more even. How was it possible that he had been so clumsy? That his knowledge, his severity, his composure could have all lapsed at once and allowed this infection to happen. The medical facts were plain and concrete, and he knew them all so well, and still. And still.
Erik picked up his tools, took a breath, and returned once again to Manon's bedside.
A surgeon once more.
As he re-opened and debrided Manon's wound, re-stitching where necessary, Erik kept stealing worried glances at her face. She was still muttering, but the laudanum was effectively keeping her steady and prevented swings in and out of consciousness. She flinched frequently as he manipulated her infected flesh, but she did not whimper.
All the while his hands worked, methodically, undisturbed.
Through a haze, she felt cool, gentle pressure on her throbbing side. She wanted to hum, sing, cry with relief.
Manon felt as if she were blundering drunkenly through a world muffled by cotton wool. She couldn't string together where she'd been, where or when she was, or any of the sensations in her body save for that heavenly coolness.
She veered woozily in and out of the cotton-world, rising up briefly to touch a sky of pain and pleasant pressure, then drifting back down into the effortless lull.
She could only remember the sensations – cold, then pain, then fire – as she drifted back and forth in this thick-minded limbo. Her head reeled as though she were staggering down a hill, or spinning with arms outstretched. Figures blurred in the distance of her mind's terrain, receding, yet pulling her, and her heart wept with yearning and with relief as she drifted towards them.
Again, that pressure- finger, ah, fingers! And strong, stringent-smelling stuff. Rubbing into the painful place on her side. Manon felt herself tugged irresistibly to the conscious realm, away from the blissfully wooly darkness and towards the prickly surface.
She dragged her eyes open, still caught between worlds.
She registered a tall, masked man sitting close to her. Erik? Yes, Erik.
Manon was just conscious enough to notice the worried creases in Erik's face, the unmasked side clearing as she smiled lazily. He inhaled deeply and his face seemed to relax.
She liked his face like that. Such a nice face.
Manon let her slow gaze travel over the stern visage. She lifted her right arm– so heavy – and she touched the faint lines around his eyes, his brow, his mouth.
Mmm. This was nice. Manon hummed as she felt the strength and warmth of the face –Erik's, yes, Erik's face – grow heavy in her palm, his eyes closing as he sighed, just like her.
Manon's fingers continued. Her arm was still so heavy, but her fingers…her fingers were curious, holding up her arm for her. They felt many landscapes – thick, smooth strands of his hair, hanging down. Smoothness of a cheek. Rough terrain near the jaw. Firm softness of lips, and then...? Ah, yes, it was the mask.
Once Manon's fingers reached the edge of his mask, they began to trail lightly down its edge, and Erik stiffened, quickly grasping her wrist, gently but firmly, and bringing it back to her side. She seemed not to mind, breathing deeply again and folding her hands across her waist.
Manon raised her eyes to him and blinked.
"You fixed me," she slurred delicately.
Erik managed a smile, but only just. The swell of relief he felt comingled with that rising indignation which so often comes when danger has passed.
"Yes, Manon, I fixed you," he responded tersely, swatting away her wandering fingers which were creeping down towards her stitches.
"Leave this salve on there. It is pungent, I know – honey, garlic, a few other things that alleviate infection. You'll need to sleep if it's to do you any good, though. And you will not be touching it," he added as he swiped away her other hand which looked ready to do just that, "much less doing anything else for the moment."
"Paff. I'll dance if I please," though she was nestling herself further into the pillow.
He ignored her bent to arrange the cover around her legs, but Manon made a noise of protest, kicking her legs.
"Erik, please, I'm boiling…no covers..." but Erik gave her a look. She missed it entirely, but as she kicked again her face flinched and she gave up, her head rolling to the side as she grunted.
Erik frowned as he finished tucking things in around her legs. Tentatively, he reached up and pressed her wound again. When she recoiled away from him, he realized he hadn't given her enough laudanum to truly numb her pain. He reached for the brown bottle and swirled several more of its drops in the water glass.
"Here. Sit up, and drink this," Erik commanded, pushing her gently into a sitting position. She frowned at him but sat up, narrowing her eyes both in suspicion and in attempts to focus on the drink he was pushing on her.
"What's this swill?" she grumbled.
He sighed. "Water, my dear. Necessary to life, and all that." He tipped it closer to her lips.
"Ohh, you men and your logic," Manon muttered, giving in. She drank it clumsily, spilling only a bit, then slumped back on the pillows and eyed him blearily.
She began speaking again, slurring her words more than before.
"I'm clever too, you know. Women's intuition…you wouldn't understand, you and your manly logic…"
Erik fought the urge to laugh. He'd almost forgotten the lack of inhibitions and messy ramblings of those under the influence of laudanum.
"Don't you smirk at me, son. Don't you realize that I see through you? You…you all think you know…everything. All about…what's best for me…"
Erik's desire to laugh faded. Manon slipped further under the drug's influence.
"Manon, why don't you close your eyes-" he tried, but she plowed drunkenly on.
"Oooh, yes. Men. You've got all the answers, haven't you. 'Do this, Manon,'…. they say…and…. 'don't do… that,'…and…and….. 'drink this, now!' and 'Obey, girl, I'm your father…"
"What?" Erik asked, taken aback.
She gasped theatrically, her eyes unfocused.
"My dear..! The vainglorious...the vain… and glorious…Edward….Moreau! Oh, you bumpkin…don't you know, the…marvelous, hideous, gratuitous Moreau…"
Manon's face had taken on a strange, dispossessed air, her far-away expression mixing with a look that was both cynical and pained. She hung her head.
"I'm his daughter, you know," she confided, glancing around as if expecting this Edward Moreau to leap out from behind the armoire.
Erik stared at her. Manon's hair was a mess, tousled and sticking to her face and neck. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, squinting at him, half present, half entangled in the threads of memory. Her cheeks were flushed, and her brows were furrowed in a manner that was almost comically didactic as she slurred on.
He wasn't entirely sure what to do. Should he indulge or ignore her? Which would lead to her calmly falling asleep faster? He went with a noncommittal, "Mmmm."
Manon replied as though he'd said something supportive and emphatic, her eyelids sliding shut as she plowed forth. "Yes, exactly, that daughter! Keeping her out of school, didn't do much, did it. Can't read, has no friends, still manages to whore…"
He was still sitting close to her, still holding the empty water glass. Manon's body settled heavily into the bed, listing a bit towards him as if hungry for their closeness of the night before. She was still chuckling to herself.
Erik stared at her. He set the glass down on the floor and looked into her face.
"Your father is the reason you cannot read?"
A bitter giggle rose up from somewhere in the nest of blankets beside him. "Moreau's daughter, in school? How indulgent, my boy… how perfectly…revolutionary…"
Erik's jaw clenched, slowly, as he willed himself not to cut her off, shake her and demand clear answers to the hundreds of questions which sprang into his mind. He could see that sleep was beginning to claim her. His mind was beginning to build into a familiar growl.
Meanwhile, Manon blundered on.
"Haaa….Just something else I can't do, eh, Moreau! Ohh, you…men…so clever…"
Erik could see that she was fading, and so he eased her away from him, settling her down into the bed – but he couldn't help but catch her head as she sank down, held her face with both hands, searching her face, needing to read her eyes, to understand.
For a brief, unexpected moment of perfect lucidity, Manon's dark eyes caught his.
They held, searching his gaze just as intently as he was searching hers...
But the moment passed, and Manon surrendered in her battle against sleep. Her eyes drifted closed again as he released her, and Erik sat there by her side, yet again, as she slept deeply.
After several long minutes of sitting beside Manon, lost in his thoughts and in the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, Erik finally got up and left the room.
It felt odd to put distance between them after the intensity of their closeness of the last days. Still, he busied himself for a while before retreating to his study, to his desk, tinkering mindlessly with some contraption or other.
Before long he had sat down beside her, again, staring at her and uselessly turning over and over the fragmented bits he'd acquired, trying to make sense of them.
"What sort of tangles are these that you've brought to my doorstep, Mademoiselle Moreau?" Erik muttered, brushing her hair off her face again, absently, possessively.
Still with that inexplicable bit of insolence, his fingers continued without his direction, lingering on her cheek…her collarbone…. lower…they had made it to the faded damp lace of her chemise's edge before he snatched them back, rising again in self-chastisement. He was going to leave for real this time. He had a symphony in pitiful need of attention.
A few steps away, he allowed himself one final, guilty, lingering glimpse of Manon, covered to the waist in blankets and furs. She looked eerie and elegant, draped behind black gossamer bed hangings. An exhausted doe veiled in ghoulish ferns.
He was about to turn away when his eyes caught on a spot directly between her breasts, a spot at which he had no business looking, but which his wandering fingers had evidently uncovered by brushing at her chemise.
Was that…a shadow? The curtains?
Frowning, he craned his neck to the side, and to his fascination, the strange mark didn't move. Warily, he stepped closer, peering at it. Lifting the curtain, Erik bent towards Manon and brushed the lace at her breast aside, glancing quickly down, nervous that if he looked too closely she would wake up. Another quick glance.
Was it a tattoo? Erik almost laughed in relief. Strange thing, he thought, glancing at it again. A fleur de lis.
Erik was just getting up when his damned fingers allowed themselves to brush against the sinuous design – and stopped.
Incredulously, and suddenly without hesitation, he turned back towards Manon and yanked the material firmly down so that he could see this mark properly, and brushed his fingertips over it again.
It was raised.
What to the casual eye looked like a decoration was no such thing.
It was a brand.