Ch. 19— Cold Comfort
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Christine was cold.
No, that was an understatement. Christine was freezing. The radiator in her room was doing absolutely nothing to keep out the chill, and even though she wore a pair of long underwear, her thickest flannel socks and her robe, it still wasn't enough to keep her from shivering under her mound of blankets.
The temperature had dropped so suddenly. One moment it was cold but tolerable, bearable even, and the next, she couldn't get warm no matter how close she huddled to the radiator near her bedside. It just wasn't putting out enough heat to keep up with the demand.
She closed her eyes, trying to forget about the cold, forget the fact that her nose felt frozen and her feet like ice. How she wished she'd made herself a hot water bottle when she had the chan—
There was a knock on her door. "Ms. Daae?"
Christine's eyes flew open.
"Ms. Daae, are you awake?"
Her heart beat triple-time. The bedroom door opened, and then the light from the kitchen outlined Mr. D'Anton's silhouette as he stood just inside her door.
"Y-y-yes," Through her shivering, Christine just managed to answer him. She heard his shuffling footsteps, and then he was by her bedside. And even as she watched, he was reaching down and feeling for her shoulder, and his hand was moving towards her face, particularly her nose.
"Your nose is an ice cube, my girl."
"R-really, I'm f-fine." Her words would've had more validity if she could have stopped her teeth from chattering.
She saw his mangled eyebrow rise as he frowned down at her. "Well, I'm not, and I've been huddled near the woodstove all night trying to get warm. Budge over a bit, my girl." Shocked into compliance, Christine did so, and watched in wonder as Mr. D'Anton lay down beside her upon the bed. "If it gets any colder, I'm moving us both to the living room by the woodstove."
Christine could only teeth-chatteringly tremble, her eyes wide as she realized how close they were. The mattress could barely accommodate them, and he was still above the mound of covers… but she could feel his warm breath chuff along her cheek, and his body weight above her pile of blankets was providing much-needed insulation against the chill.
His hand again moved from her shoulder up until it touched her cheek, "Christ! You're shivering! Why didn't you come to the living room?" Christine felt his hands move until they touched her shoulders. "Never mind that now. Come on, my dear. Up you get. We're going to the woodstove, and we're going to get you warm."
Bringing his hands underneath her back, he helped her rise. And then wrapping her in a swathe of blankets, they hobbled—she wracked with shivers, he making limping progress with bones gone stiff due to cold, Christine was sure. They made it slowly from her small meat locker of a bedroom to the slightly warmer icebox of the living room.
He had moved the sofa so that it was lying lengthwise close by the woodstove, and Christine could see he already had a pallet set up for himself there.
She stopped in her tracks. "Mr. D-D'An-nton, I d-don't want to im-mpose."
His hand at her elbow propelled her forward, "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, sit down on the sofa, Ms. Daae, and warm yourself. Now."
Christine was seated on the sofa before she knew it, watching as Mr. D'Anton fed more logs to the hungry woodstove. He had just compelled her here, but try as she might, she couldn't muster the energy to care. She closed her eyes basking in the radiant heat and the numerous blankets he had spread over her. He'd obviously added to her pile when she'd been entranced.
However, a moment later, her eyes shot open as she felt him at her side, lifting her up and moving her so that she was laying prone in his arms: the both of them now lying on the sofa underneath the pile of blankets. Her back was to the woodstove as she faced him, and if she thought the bed was small, the couch was miniscule. The only thing keeping her from toppling to the floor was the man who held her clutched to him.
But even as she had the thought, he was turning them so she was laying half across his chest, half on the sofa, his chest her pillow as he used the arm of the sofa to rest his head. He smiled, the flickering firelight turning his features into something suited to Beelzebub himself. "Relax Ms. Daae; close your eyes and go to sleep."
Christine felt her eyelids grow heavy; her body—previously riddled with tension—suddenly went pliant against him. As she drifted off, she thought she heard him say with a slight smile in his voice, "Don't worry, little mouse, this lion has no plans to make a meal of you… tonight."
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Erik held her wrapped in his arms.
How he wished he could see her! Watch the light of the woodstove play off her hair. This was one of his favorite pastimes: daydreaming of what Ms. Daae looked like. Her hair was brown tonight. Surely she had brown hair, perhaps the color of chestnut, maybe even the color of mahogany… with eyes the color of spring… or perhaps the color of the sea just after a storm. And when she was angry, when that stubborn chin of hers was up, her eyes would darken from tranquil smoky gray to turbulent steel, piercing him with her ire.
Oh, yes. He could just picture her now.
While she slept, Erik took time to feel along her jaw and neck, contentedly charting the topography he found there… memorizing. She had a pointed, stubborn chin set in a heart-shaped face if he wasn't mistaken. Her neck and shoulders were small, and Erik surmised that when she'd been a child, she had probably looked like a tulip: a too-big blossom on a too-small stalk.
Her top lip was full and luscious; he could feel it with his fingers. And Erik felt himself begin to harden at the thought of kissing her—finally being able to kiss her—having the ability to suckle and explore that beautifully-shaped top lip to his heart's content.
Quickly, he removed his hand from her face before he could think any more thoughts that would surely get him into trouble where his Christine was concerned. It was enough. Enough that she was here with him, lying in his arms and not freezing alone in her room. Enough that she was asleep on him. Never mind how she got here: his compulsion of her to sit down and sleep notwithstanding.
His thoughts again wondered to that beautifully-shaped top lip that fascinated him so, and his fingers itched to find out if the bottom lip was just as full or if she was top-heavy as it were.
It was going to be a long, agonizing eternity until sunrise.
He shifted a slight bit causing Ms. Daae to stir as well, and mumbling something in her sleep, she drew closer to him.
The girl was bundled up tighter than an Eskimo in winter with the blankets over them both and her multiple layers of clothes. And yet, he could feel the swell and weight of her breasts as they pushed against his chest.
And even as he had the thought, she moved until her slightly parted mouth was at his neck and her warm breath fanned the sensitive, unscarred skin there causing his body to ripple in gooseflesh. She squirmed, her thighs writhing against him until she settled with her hips aligned with his. Erik could feel the warm cleft of her cunny as she unknowingly moved herself right over his burgeoning erection; the layers of clothing between them doing little to dissuade it.
Sweet fuck! Erik quietly moaned, squeezing his eyes shut tight and forcing himself to think of something—anything else—to calm his mind and take away the temptation his little innocent had just presented him.
He had only himself to blame for his present circumstances.
He could have chosen the wingback chair; he could have chosen the floor. He could have gone to sleep in his own frozen tundra of a bed for that matter. And with the way he felt now, he could certainly use the cold…
Hell, a brisk swim in the ice-strewn sea might not be enough to cool the fire burning within him!
He had only himself to blame.
Only himself.
Only.
Himself.
To bla—he noticed he was rolling his hips up and down in punctuation to his thoughts, grinding himself against her, and he immediately stilled, his jaw grit tight.
His behavior was disgraceful; Ms. Daae would be mortified if she knew.
Control.
He.
Needed.
Control.
Again, he had to stop himself from butting his length up against the warmth she'd unconsciously offered. You ordered the girl to sleep! he chided himself. She is unconscious and unknowing! This is wrong. Think of something else, D'Anton. Anything else!
Erik allowed his mind to wander, an often perilous diversion, he knew.
And sure enough, unbidden, the exact opposite of his little mouse's heaven presented itself to his mind, plunging him into his own personal, self-inflicted hell.
His ardor quickly fled as the ticker-tape of buried thoughts once more surfaced to haunt him.
In the three years, eight months he had spent serving in the French Resistance, Erik had seen many things to regret, but he had absolutely nothing to apologize for. He'd done what he had to do. He'd killed. And many times he'd been almost killed himself in his service to his country. He'd lied, had told countless half-truths and falsehoods until he was blue in the face, schmoozed and bewitched, enchanted and tricked to achieve his aims, in order to see that all those who remained within the sphere of his protection stayed safe, secreted, and secured.
These days, Erik rarely slept. For to sleep without the blinding succor of alcohol needed to dull his memory and anesthetize his heart, the nightmare reality of those three years, eight months returned full-force to haunt him.
It wasn't the death-defying coups and battles he recalled when he dreamed.
No, when he dreamed, he saw the horror, the certain devastation of watching his friends and employees, their parents and children— those placed under his care, secreted by his hiding— march to their certain deaths because of him. Because he wasn't smart enough, brave enough, fast enough, or present enough to be there for them in their hour of need.
There were those he'd tried to save through whatever underhanded means proved necessary; others he consigned to their deaths due to his absolute failure in ability to save them.
'Survivor's guilt' Nadir had called it.
And it was true he did lament the fact that, but for a quirk of that bitch Fate, he was still alive when so many good and innocent friends and loved ones were not. All of them sacrificing themselves so he could continue in his mission: Lecerf, Nicollier, Sylvestre, Maltese. Their names and others besides that were a part of an ever-revolving list resounding in his skull, weighing heavily on his heart.
And he could picture them all, even blind as he now was, he could still remember with perfect clarity. And in some cases, he could recall their death-throe cries as they died protecting him—protecting them.
Erik shivered, but it wasn't from the cold.
He was far now from being chilled by the temperature in the room or taken again by Ms. Daae's charms as she lay upon him. He knew if he were to try to sleep tonight without the soothing balm of alcohol he still sometimes needed, he would most assuredly dream, and in his dreams, have nightmares.
Holding her clutched to him, Erik put a hand on her back and turned them, moving her until she was lying tucked to his side nestled against the back of the sofa, her head supported by his chest.
And as he had so many times before during his convalescence and in the months of darkness here at the cottage, Erik turned to music to help distract him from these thoughts and ease the emotions that filled him with despair.
Clutching her tenderly to him, he again cradled her cheek in his hand and thought of the score he was composing aided by the angel he held in his arms: the exhausted, so tightly-bound angel that lived in a web of inhibitions and a sea of self-doubt.
He was changing his entire opera to suit her, not that she would know, tailor-making it for the little mouse he held securely nestled in his embrace. And Erik dearly hoped one day, his little mouse would find her place in the sun and think herself worthy of it.
With how her voice was now, she could perform and stun audiences the world over with her precision, the absolute mastery of her craft. For technically-speaking, Ms. Christine Daae's performance was perfect in every way. But music was more than just precision; a lesson her father had neglected to teach her. Music was about the soul connecting with the body and creating a sound that when heard resonated in the hearts and minds of its listeners.
It was about surrendering to passion and emotion.
The heart—the soul— was missing from her voice, and she remained unmoved, even though she gave him exactly what he asked for.
But how to explain this to her? Would she even understand?
In this, his Ms. Daae presented him quite the quandary. And holding her tightly to him, Erik closed his eyes and thought of numerous unique and interesting solutions of how to awaken the passions and invoke the emotion of one timid, little mouse.
And the tendrils of sleep curled around him, catching him unawares.
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A/N: Don't worry. I'm not going to leave you in suspense, my readers, for it looks like this is going to be another double-feature for your viewing and reviewing *nudge, nudge, HINT HINT* pleasure :D
As always, thanks be to the divine FP33 for her wisdom and expertise. And thank you readers one and all for following me on this journey!
PFP