A/N: Post-novel AU.


Tenderness

Christine hummed a folk song under her breath, her voice fading in and out as the warmth of the fire and the infant nestled at her breast nearly lulled her to sleep. Snow fell outside, frosting the windows and cocooning their little house in a blanket of white. Erik stood at the edge of the circle of light surrounding his wife and son, blending so well with the shadows that Christine did not notice him until the nervous shifting of his feet caused a floorboard to creak. Although it had been over a year since they had left the dining room on the lake, he still seemed to feel out of place in their own home.

"Only another minute or so," she murmured with a tired smile, assuming that he was waiting for her to put the baby to bed and focus her attention on her husband.

Erik hesitated before stepping into the firelight, wringing his hands in the way he so often did when he wished for something and feared that she would not agree to grant it.

"How...how can you bear it, Christine?"

He stared down at the pair of them with those glowing eyes that no longer frightened her with their intensity. Christine glanced between her child and his father. The resemblance was blessedly mild, yet undeniable - the same gaunt features in place of softly rounded cheeks; the same thin, dark patches of hair instead of golden curls. Erik had wept to see that his son had been born with a nose, small and stunted as it was. But his relief had soon been replaced by a new worry, the nagging concern that all these small reminders of the child's parentage would taint Christine's affections for it. Torment her with the memory of all that could have been, once.

"Because I'm his mother," she answered plainly. "Because I -"

"Erik's mother never…not ever..."

He trailed off, curling in on himself and tucking away the raw and ravaged edges of his heart. But Erik did not need to finish his phrase for her to understand. Over time, Christine's feelings had softened towards her husband. Her thoughts turned less and less to the little boy who had rescued her scarf from the sea and the fine fellow he had become. She no longer regretted that her once-tutor was a man of flesh and blood and not an Angel sent by her father from heaven. An ugly man, who had suffered a lifetime of pain, but who loved her and had proven to be every bit the lamb he had promised.

The baby began to fuss, as if sensing the sudden tension between his parents. Christine closed the front of her nightgown and passed the wriggling bundle to Erik, who carried it back to the bassinet in their shared bedroom down the hall. A few minutes later he returned, lingering in the doorway to the parlor. When she patted the space beside her on the sofa, he knelt before her instead and buried his pitiful head in her lap. She stroked the sparse strands of his hair as he wept bitter tears of mourning for the life that was never his.

A peculiar idea took shape in her mind as she continued to soothe him. Perhaps others might consider it indecent - obscene, even - but their union was far from conventional in many ways.

"Come here."

He lifted his bleary eyes to hers, and before she could change her mind, Christine pulled aside her nightgown to bare her other breast. He clutched at the fabric of her robe and let out an anguished wail.

"Cruel Christine," he moaned, "to tease her poor Erik this way…"

She shook her head and leaned forward, keeping her hand at the nape of his neck. He trembled and choked back his sobs as she drew him closer to her heart, until he finally accepted her offer with a soft whimper. He was clumsy at first, drinking deeply with tongue and teeth, and she stifled a cry of discomfort. But as Erik became convinced that she would not snatch away this gift immediately after bestowing it, he gentled and wound his bony arms around her. Christine cradled him as best she could and rocked him with hushed words of comfort.

She already knew the feel of his near-lipless mouth at her bosom and other, more secret places. Once she had accepted him as her groom in every sense of the word, Erik had devoured his bride with all the ravenous hunger one could expect from a dead man raised to life...but this was something else entirely. A different sort of intimacy, deeper and more primal than even the joining of their two bodies into one. For all the times he had lain himself at her feet and sworn to be lower than the lowest creatures of the earth, he had never made himself this vulnerable to her before, and the tenderness of it all brought tears to her eyes. This new closeness was not love, not yet - but for the first time, Christine believed it to be possible.


A/N: The idea for this story came not long after Communion, but it took me a while to actually write it. I'm not sure where this obsession with Leroux Erik and bodily fluids came from, but I'm just gonna roll with it and hopefully y'all enjoy the ride!