4A word before we begin, this is not a 50 Shades story.
"Five minutes. Please, I just want five minutes," my voice was edged with panic, fluttering like a trapped bird before a window. It was far too dark down here, the Rue Scribe was far too murky.
His anger sizzled through air, tumultuous and erratic like the howling of a storm. There was a pulsing vein in his neck, pale skin glistening with a sheen of sweat. Leather squeaked between his fingers.
"Five minutes. No more," he hissed, cape swirling as he turned mid-stride, glancing at me with flashing eyes.
Where had all the tenderness gone? Once kind hands would brush away tears, now the only thing they seemed to do was clench in fury. Soiled. My gown was soiled. At the edges, mud had crept along it. River water would only add to the collage of browns I had already collected.
I slid down the wall, uncaring about Erik's dismay, knowing I would be changing as soon as I would enter, knowing there would most likely be a bath awaiting, to erase the scent of the world above.
We'd entered the chamber that led to the boat, the mooring pier only a bit further down the path, but until we'd cross the Styx, as Erik lovingly called his lake, he would not relax entirely. He was not in total control until he'd delivered me onto the shore on the other side.
And in the absence of it, I needed a moment to prolong the loss of such. At least in the tiring confines of corsets and powdered faces, I had the choice of pretending I had escaped his attention. Once where I dreamed of his notice, the excellent façade of an Angel, now I dreaded his umber-eyed gaze.
There was light emanating from the lamp, which made the greenish ripples dance across the stone walls. It was almost hypnotic. I shudder, but not from the cold.
Erik paced, the soft footfalls and the flick of his cape entrancing, yet distracting.
Sighing, and pushing down the irritation that had flared up, I softened my voice into a quiet entreaty, "Will you stand still for but a moment?"
I expect to hear a sharp retort, a sneering comment, but I only receive a dark look before he comes to stand beside me.
Only inches separate me and the cloth of his trouser leg. The lantern comes to rest beside me, a slender fingered hand ceasing to carry the weight around when the user was not in motion.
Gradually, the light of the lantern dims, and the panic and fear of such a consequence touches the sides of my mind. But I am frozen here, on the ground, the stone beneath cold and unyielding saved only by the sheer fabric in the way.
All at once there was a snap and we were swiftly doused in darkness. A scream readily crawled up my throat at the thought of not being able to see the approach of a rat or a silent arachnid that climbed the walls and sought spaces to bring their webs to life, but it died at the soft whisper of Erik's cloak.
He was here too.
If things had gone differently, would I be in his arms now, a gleaming band of gold on my finger, giggling in the darkness as he swept me to his home?
If things were different, I know that my own damnable curiosity would have not led me here.
"Why did you follow me there, Erik?" I ask the darkness, my arms coming to hold myself.
I hear a sharp bark of laughter, "Is it Erik now? Did we not share the words of Angel and Maestro under the snow?" The sound of his aching longing laced beneath.
He wanted more. Don Juan lived and breathed in him, it would not let him go.
I shiver, hating the thought of the rapture his violin had given me, knowing that those tender notes had turned harsh and beating, leaving me all but writhing on the steps of my Papa's tomb. Yet, there had been something redeemable in his music, that when it was too cruel, too heated for my body and mind to bear, the notes that followed had caressed my soul, letting it fall once again submissively in his grasp.
Raoul had gaped when I told him of Erik's power, but I knew that I did not imagine what Erik clearly abuses in his music, how he revelled in my weak-willed, consumed adoration of his gift, his voice too potent for any mortal! Least of all me. He had worked with me for nearing five years, tirelessly gracing me with music too soul-touching for any addict to release easily, to be captured again within moments when laden with it once more.
I exhale, lowering my head to the tops of my knees, the world angling sideways, "I just wanted to visit Papa. I – You knew I did it every year. Why would you take it away from me?"
"You say I take, but you do not acknowledge what you have stolen either, Christine," there was an edge to his voice. A warning.
The sudden urge to shout back, to stand up and push those shoulders until they understood washed over me, but once more it settled at the knowledge those actions would change naught but Erik's mood into a seething pit of rage. It was hopeless.
"What can I do to appease you?" I sniffed, leaning my head back to hold the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. I was so tired. My ears still rang from rehearsal, my body still ached from running, my mind felt foggy from resisting.
And everyone was tugging on each limb, stretching me like a dress that would soon tear apart at the stitching, telling me what to do. What to feel. What to think. But what else could I do?
"Come to me, Christine, three times a week to practice. Do not see the boy, and do not run to another," he replied smoothly.
An incredulous laugh pealed from my lips, "Oh! You think that is easy, Monsieur? I am engaged,"
"I see no ring," he snapped and abruptly the atmosphere turned cold, "I only see the frightened child I collected at her father's grave, asking for guidance. Protection,"
"I did not ask that from you," I reply, equally icy, "Nor did I ask for him to murder a stagehand, or frighten me, or take me against my will – alas that has not what you have seemed to have gathered from our years of correspondence,"
"Do you truly believe that a few years makes up for those imbeciles defying the Phantom of the Opera? The Ghost that roams the halls, the Ghost that has put sweat and blood in making this Opera house the most notorious one of all of France? No, Christine. What I did I do not regret," he spat out with ferocity.
I try not to flinch under his anger, the grey shape of him in the darkness a coil of power and pride. It would have been breath-stealing if it was not directed at me.
My arms hug myself tighter, "I won't tell you that what I did before was wrong. We both know that I erred greatly in my wanton curiosity, but it did not mean to incur a wrath that threatened the foundation of this company if I did not attain Carlotta's roles. You never even asked if I wished to be prima donna. I only wished to sing well because of Papa, do well because of Madame Giry, inspire Meg…" my throat caught, suddenly far too easy to whisper a silent sob.
"…To do you proud,"
A sniff came from somewhere, and I continued, fighting the heart that throbbed as if wounded, "I just wanted to do you proud. All I had cared about for five years is gaining praise from you," a bitter noise escaped my throat, "But despite it all, I have done nothing but ruin everything. Raoul hates you and you hate him! Am I but a trifle selfish to want both kindness and safety in the men that surround me? Or is it truly too awful to imagine?"
Only water dripping into the lake is my reply. I knew it was foolish bringing Raoul's name up in conversation, it was dangerous, tempting fate.
"You do not understand it at all Christine, if you believe that it will end in peace," the words poked sharply, from a man that was not a man. A creature of darkness and an Angel that possessed all under His will.
"Maybe I don't," I whisper back, "But maybe there's a way we cannot see yet,"
I felt his shadow before his yellow orbs sprung in front of me, snarling, "Two men want their ring on your finger, two rivals wish for your heart to beat for them only. Christine, you live in a world of make belief!" he hovered above me, breath hot and warm against my cheeks.
I stare back, unwilling to cower, "But you wonder why, when it was you who let such a fantastical world bleed into reality,"
"You needed it," he hissed, eyes narrowing, the greyish shape of his mask above me by mere inches.
"What I needed was a friend," I insist, a steely edge within my voice, "And you gave me that in a capacity that suited you best,"
"You cried for an Angel on the chapel steps, at night, even when you went to your father's grave, did you not receive one?" his sharp retort was meant to hurt, but in doing so I could see the desperate attempt to spear-head some of the blame to myself.
"You were the adult! I was a mere girl, almost reaching womanhood, vulnerable after a death that I still have not healed from. I trusted you to not deceive me, bind me to you in my own grief," my voice tapered out, "You made me sign my soul over to you, and at that point, I gladly did," my fingers curled in the darkness, trying to shelter from the swirling torrent of anger before me.
"You make me sound like the devil, Christine," and his laugh grated on my ears, "Perhaps I was right to do so, little did I know that your heart would be so fickle,"
"That is not fair on my character, and you know it," my voice came out stronger than I had ever dared to be in front of him. He was not perfect. No, it was not an Angel with the power of divine jurisdiction. It was a man who was desperate for power to control the parts of the world his hands could not.
It made him human and the vulnerability to be wrong.
"I loved you as a girl would; I idolised you more than any friend, any position of power, any event that would have taken me away from you. Always believed in your innocence. I never once doubted you," I turn my head, glancing to the lake that had finally started to form at the furthest reaches of my vision, "But then when you murdered for me, threatened for me, controlled everything for me, that was when my doubt crept in. The steady voice of an Angel which had collected all my fears had turned into a man drunk on his own terrible power and I was scared," I wet my lips just as Erik's shadow moved away, as if struck.
"I would have never hurt you, Christine. Surely you knew that," his voice begged me of the faith I had once held for him in my girlhood and again, a sharp pain ignited in my chest.
Was this hurt I felt for someone who I once held in such high regard? No, it ached far more than that. It clouded my mind far more than an idolising girlish love. The pain I felt was more of a dagger inching its way into my heart.
"I wish I could say that I did," my lip trembled, voice rasping against tears, "But I couldn't put it past my mind that perhaps that you would come for me next, for disobeying you, for even perhaps revealing you – everyone said Joseph had seen under the mask, I thought –" I couldn't finish the sentence as a ragged inhale hurt my ears.
"Never, I would never dream of it, you foolish girl," his voice seemed to be as tremulous as mine.
I deflated, pressing my head against my knees once more, "But do you not see why now? Do you not understand that the only person that I had always gone to had vanished, turned into this creature I did not know? And then…"
"That boy," he seethed, his shape a dark blur in the corner.
"Yes," I whisper, "He became my lighthouse," I pause, my eyes seeking his but finding nothing, he had shut me out, "Do you truly blame me? Do you blame me for finding sanctuary when there was none?"
"I blame you for taking his ring, I blame you for betraying my secrets to him!" he thundered, and back were those tumultuous orbs, molten anger and rage making him rise like a bat.
"And what if I was terrified!" I cry back, impassioned, "And what if I needed something more than a disbelieving glance from Meg, or an unseeing one from Madame…I thought that my old friendship that had soared with so many tales, so many times of make belief would hold out for one more," and I am on my feet, hands clenched against the wall, my head touching the cool almost damp surface on it and breathed, "But he had grown up, in a world that had weened out fairy tales and yet still held a place for damsels. I loved him then for the hope that I would escape from the anguish that I had caused," I felt the blow of despair on my companion as I beheld my love for my playmate.
"And do you love him still?" Erik asked from behind me.
It would not stand for lies, not here within the darkness.
"I –" words that I wanted to come did not pour forth, did not surge and rise upwards in defence of my love, that should, as any bride-to-be, any future love, any woman for their betrothed.
Erik waited with bated breath, frozen with pain and hope.
Say it. Say you love him. Say you love him and Erik will know no more.
"There are different kinds of love," is my lack-lustre reply, both condemning and my saving grace.
But Erik would not have my escape.
"What kind of love, Christine?" his breath was suddenly there, on the back of my neck, the presence of him so close, closer than he had ever dared to be. If he shifted a fraction, his entire frame would swallow me.
Part of me wanted to be consumed. No more choice, no more fighting. Giving into something, soft and dark. Oh so dark.
"I don't know!" I all but whimper, and it's a sound that makes the shadow tense, a quiet sort of danger that made me shiver in a secret, terrified way. The same sort of way when I glanced at the libretto of his Don Juan, the red notes a cascading sort of heat of something deadly and untouchable.
"Do you love him?" he demanded in a harsh growl, "Does he make you feel different, when you let him brush away a curl, do you feel Christine?" and I shiver as cold fingers trickle over the nape of my neck, mirroring the action, stealing the breath from my lungs.
My eyes are turned away, and yet I feel his demand pressing against me, willing me to admit what he somehow knew, but no! I loved Raoul, I did. I truly did.
"Why were you wandering to your father's grave alone? Why would you purposely mislead the Vicomte, your precious Raoul, of your whereabouts? What could you possibly not bear to tell him?" he crooned, positively evil and cruel and warm, I was too warm. But I was trapped in his web, paralysed by the skating touch that ran up and down, up and down my back, entirely improper, entirely proper. My breaths came in pants, the chill on my cheeks that the graveyard had bestowed was now a flush, betraying me.
"He doesn't understand," I supply for him, feeling more of a frightened rabbit, trying in vain to find the exit of the wildcat's den. I should have never lied to Raoul, not when I was confronted with the phantom, the man that raged and begged in turn for something I could never bestow willingly.
"Understand you, my dear," Erik murmured, voice caressing the shell of my ear and I flinched, twisting my head away, "Tell me that he understands you better than I,"
I squeeze my eyes shut, "He respects me – he respects me in a way you do not,"
"And it is because of people like him that I am hunted like a monster, the only purpose for one is to be shot like an animal," he breathed furiously, the caress turning into a vice grip, clutching my side with pincer-like fingers, "Tell me then, am I beast? Am I beast whose purpose is to appease some cruel aristocracy and God who is meant to be omni-benevolent, who merely sneers at my existence?"
I bit my trembling lip, "I think He tests us, in order for us to become who we are meant to be,"
Erik all but snarls, leaning closer so that the nose of his mask pressed against the back of my neck, which was all but chilled by its porcelain touch, "And I am graced with this? This hideous gargoyle of a face? Yes, that is intriguing. I had no inclination that God would be merciful by presenting this unique challenge for me,"
I shudder in the agony that wracks his voice, "Oh, Christine, if it were a mere test, then I would have failed long ago, and have already arrived in hell by the time I first saw you," he inhaled, breath whistling in and at once the bruising vice at my side relinquishes into a delicate caress, "You do not know what torture I am in, at this very moment," his timber lowered in a way I had not witnessed before, and something dark curled inside at the rumble of it.
"Let me help ease it," I whisper, pleading.
A chuckle that alerted my senses washed over me, dark and bitter. What would that taste like?
"You would no longer be innocent if you did, mon Cherie, and I have no desire to take such from you unless you would consent to be mine, forever,"
"Forever?" I echo.
"Yes, forever. For once I take, I do not share. You know this, Christine," he made my name sinful. A decadent pleasure to be whispered, hushed between white and black, landing into shades of grey.
And for a moment, my heart beat in time with want. I wanted to know. I wanted to feel.
"He never made me feel this," I whisper to a man that would paw greedily at the token I offered him, why I did this, I cannot dare to admit it. I wanted that hand back, tracing down, tracing up, I wanted his hushed words and breathy exclamations. I wanted more than sick propriety and dispassionate pecks.
Raoul never made me want more. All those months shut inside a manor with elegant walls and fine furnishings, I had coped with the blue of Raoul's eyes on me at those pretentious dinners, knowing that his reassurances would stop the panic from coming back, that his love would carry us into the next segment of our lives. That when I was strong enough, I would commit to being his, bearing his children, using my voice for parties, leaving the stage and world behind.
But I wasn't strong like he, no, I was weak. Weak for the thrill of the stage. Weak for the touch of peerless beauty that was music. Weak for the companions that took the stage with me. Weak for the appraisal of a man pretending to be an Angel. Weak as our shared breaths touched my soul in a way Raoul's touch had inspired nothing more than residue affection.
No this, this that shuddered through my veins and made rationale hazy, was him.
"Oh? And what is 'this', Christine?" he breathed, and his hand brushed down my bodice, just as he did once many moons ago. Leaning into that touch was not of my own accord, it wasn't, it truly wasn't, but the primal growl he released told me he'd felt it even so.
Panic.
With more power than I'd thought I would have been able to possess, I use my hands against the wall to push away. Erik stumbled back, a look of bewilderment flashing in his eyes. I step back, and again.
He stood there a moment, narrowed eyes calculating until he sauntered forward, lazy in knowledge, in dominance. The power I used in pushing him away only confirmed the worst; he knew why. He knew why I was afraid. I was trapped.
"Stop! Don't come any closer," my voice was tremulous, weak.
"You cannot escape me, Christine," he didn't move, but the eyes held a wealth of power they hadn't before. They sparkled in victory.
It was a mistake letting him in, if only for a moment.
"They are going to hurt you if they catch you," I reply, eyes begging him to retract his Opera, to get away while he could. Let me be strong and move on, away from the passion in his eyes, the song my heart followed.
But we both knew that he would not, not while I couldn't tell him that I loved Raoul and all that our marriage would entail. Not while I wouldn't put the dagger I felt resting on mine, through his.
"Then it is a relief to know that I will not be caught," he quipped, musical and silver toned, his voice ran as smooth as velvet. The Phantom and Angel in one combined.
"Don't make me do this," I breathed, "I never wished to be part of their scheme, you must know that," it was now a tear finally dripped from my eye and I wilted at his pitying gaze, "I never wanted to hurt you!"
He turned to steel, his guard raising like his own portcullis, "Go back, Christine. Go back to the adoring world above, go back to your boy. Practice with what you felt tonight as Aminta and…And with that you will succeed,"
I'd long since known the route back to the Rue Scribe, but my soul sank as my last hopes were dashed.
My Maestro would not leave, not without taking me with him. We were going to pass the point of no return and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
"Please don't be in the crowd," I rasp, I was not begging damnit, oh no. I was pleading with my own soul on the line.
Don't condemn me, Erik, to knowing it is my fault if you get hurt. There will be no place for me in God's heaven if you die. I will never see Papa again.
There's a sly smile in his voice as he replied, "Oh, do not worry Christine, I don't intend on it,"
Hiya all, there's been a lot of angst in my life lately, so here's this for you to indulge in.
Who knew these two are my comfort characters? When you get deep, I feel like these two are the ying and yang that life is. Sometimes I feel like Christine and then there's Erik. I feel like him too, sometimes.
This piece was also part of an outlet that wouldn't affect the quality of my other series. I've needed something with no strings attached! This seemed like a nice compromise! Also SURPRISE! My first period piece that I've published here whoop whoop! ;) I generally find that modern AUs allows some freedom with perspective and preference(?) but I do love a bit of ALW universe period pieces, specially regarding the touchy scenario of Wandering Child, interpretations of it and 'what ifs' in the musical.
Book Erik I find is harder to find bits that one can twiddle with, but that I think is because it's a book rather than the interpretation we find of Erik in the musical. There are a lot of rewritten book endings, Erik's perspectives of that point in time and I find the rest of it less engaging than that of the musical to write for. It's a lot more set in stone. Please don't sue me, I know that my opinions won't match everyone's! Just know to take me and my ramblings with a grain of salt ok? XD
Also, AngstyDeepInLove!Erik is just so much fun to write, you know?
Plus, this piece was always something that I wished happened. It's the point of Erik using his ability of himself to charm Christine and *knowing* it works, but also time for them to air out some issues they'd come across. It still ended up with Erik's leniency of letting her go back, leading them back to the same outcome of the musical, but having that 'in-between' moment that is just a phan's hopeful phantasy.
So much for short A/Ns, huh? XD
Anyway, hoping you're having a great summer,
Enigma.
P.S How'd I do with all the dialogue? Was it too much or did it flow well? - Thanks :)