40A/N: This is probably the most "me" thing I've ever written - the purest, most concentrated version of my style, with zero apologies. My dream chapter fic condensed into my signature format, a one-shot (with a few more related one-shots to follow). I love it and I hope you'll enjoy it, as well.
Death and the Maiden
When I first learned that my Angel of Music was a man, little had I known how true that would be. Erik was thinner than he should be, impossibly pale, extraordinarily ugly...and yet, remarkably human all the same. In the early months of our marriage I learned every inch of his earthly frame - counted each scar, explored every sinewy muscle, even discovered (to his dismay) that a ghost could be ticklish. Given the sparse strands on his head, I was surprised by the coarse, dark hair that trailed down from his chest between his legs, leading to that most intimate part of him. It frightened me, at first - the raw, physical evidence of his desire for me - but as ignorance turned to understanding, it became a source of endless delight for both of us.
Though he had held himself apart from the world for so long, swearing off the weaknesses of mankind, Erik's needs were the same as other men. I made it my mission to fulfill them - to nourish his body and stimulate his mind, stroke his ego and soothe his hurts. I gave him my heart, my voice, my body. While he came to me countless times as a husband to his wife, shuddering with long-denied pleasure as I cradled him deep within me, I knew that it was those quiet moments after when I held him in my arms, kissing his wretched face and murmuring my love for him, that did the most to begin healing decades of pain and self-loathing.
He had thought me a dream when I returned to him, but in time I would show him that his own Angel was a mere mortal, as well. A woman with needs and faults - sensitive, sometimes fickle. Desiring his attention and approval yet her independence all the same. Erik learned all of me, in turn, uncovering a side of myself that had lain hidden beneath layers of grief. Awoken after what felt like an eternity of sleep, I sought him out just as frequently, desperate to be brought back to life by his touch, to join with him in that primal duet until I no longer knew where my body ended and his began. He was astonished the first time I trembled and sobbed in ecstasy in his embrace, but soon mastered the art of pleasing me as he would any other skill. I became his favorite instrument, and he loved to coax new songs from my throat with his cold hands and twisted mouth.
It was not always simple, living like everybody else. After a lifetime of solitude and darkness, Erik crawled back out into the light, determined to rejoin the world of men…but a home above-ground and a wife to warm it were not the miraculous panacea he had imagined them to be. There were still days that I would lose him to his music or dark thoughts, nights when he would torment himself with memories of the past. There were moments of cruelty, of biting sarcasm and suspicion that his bride could not possibly be true to the monster to whom she had chained herself. The path to redemption was a difficult one, fraught with new challenges to be overcome at each turn. But while time did not heal all wounds, it diminished them, made them easier to bear.
As the decades passed his humanity became more apparent - his once lithe and powerful frame withering, the dark patches of his hair fading to gray then white. Years of neglect had taken their toll, stealing precious time from both of us. It was a pity to watch the bright flame of his life dwindle down to a faintly glowing ember, but Erik's sharp mind never dulled. Ever-pragmatic, he begged his still-young bride to forget him and begin a new life, unburdened by an ugly old man. With matching stubbornness, I refused to leave him, remaining by his side until the bitter end. I was his wife and would be his widow, regretting neither.
Nonetheless, I wept for days after my Angel of Music returned to heaven, struggling to remember and obey his final commandment to me - to live on, not to quiet my soul's song after his had been silenced. I buried him with his Don Juan Triumphant and the ring he had given me, per his instructions. I spent hours stroking his cheeks, now both sunken and skeletal, before laying the mask in place a final time. He was a striking figure, even in death. It was a wonder how much life had been contained in the wiry frame of a man who had called himself a corpse and entombed himself deep below the earth years before his appointed time.
It was tempting beyond measure to send my voice into the grave alongside him, a treasure to ease his journey to the afterlife like the kings of old, but he would not have wished it. His music comforted me in his absence, my mind conjuring up his otherworldly tenor as I sang alone, my only accompaniment the piano he had taught me so painstakingly to play. Grief was my bosom companion for a year, yet I knew that Erik did not want me to suffer the same life of solitude he had known for too long, to cocoon myself in a black veil of mourning forever.
I reemerged into the world as he once had and, in spite of my doubts and previous protestations, remarried. Marcel was a kind man, an homme d'affaires with no particular talent of his own but who enjoyed the arts and encouraged me to fill our home with music. Even so, he did not question the tears that came unbidden to my eyes at the sound of a violin. Did not press when I refused to sing for any of our guests, fearful of reviving society's memory of the Swedish soprano who had vanished from the Opéra Populaire all those years ago. A widower himself, we did not begrudge each other the pieces of our hearts that had died along with our first spouses. It was a different sort of love - a warm, crackling fire, a stark contrast to the inferno of Erik's devotion that had burned to beautiful ash.
There were no children from either of our previous marriages. I had accepted motherhood as an impossibility, but to our joy and surprise, I bore him a baby girl. Renée was the light of the latter halves of our lives. Marcel taught her reason and practicality, while I passed down the folk songs and fairy tales of my homeland and saw my father in her wide-eyed wonder. Wanting to shelter her from the pain of my past, I wove the truth into bedtime stories of a princess and her three suitors - the mariner, the maestro, and the merchant. Hers would be a life of security and relative comfort, free from the want and instability of my own childhood.
I watched our daughter grow into a fine young woman as age stole my own beauty, celebrated her marriage as Fate made me a widow a second time over. The passing years tarnished my once-golden throat and chipped away at my mind, weaving together my fables and reality until I could no longer distinguish between the two. The child became the mother, brushing my silver hair and tucking my threadbare red scarf around my shoulders to ward off the chill of evening. She smiled patiently when I asked which of the suitors the princess chose, and hid her shining eyes when I wondered where her father was. There were other questions she could not answer, about the Vicomte de Changy and the Opera Ghost, a wind-swept seashore and a candle-lit lake underground.
The change of seasons was irresistible, autumn to winter. While my love for him remained evergreen in my heart long after his body had returned to dust, the memory of Erik's voice gradually faded over time, like my father's had before. But as my days grew fewer, I heard those sublime tones once more - my fallen Angel made flesh, descending one final time to sing me to my rest.