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Hi! It’s UnofficialxDetective from Ao3 <3 Thank you for opening up requests, I’m very excited to see where this goes. Since I’m so enthralled by ‘In Silence’, I was wondering if perhaps for a oneshot you could write a scene that diverges from it?:
After their first night sleeping together, Erik decides to stay in bed the morning after. However, he still feels unworthy (We might even wake up to him crying?), and we/ Y/N, just want to reassure him that we’re definitely intending to stay with him, and we do so by praising him while making love to him (again) and definitely provide him with lots of cuddles and aftercare <3 like, angst —> smut + fluff —> fluff
(AND, after we fall asleep once more, post-cuddling, perhaps you could imply that he’s decided to buy the ring and propose while he reflects on the tender moment he’s in?)
No pressure, though! And take as much time as you’d like if you’re up to writing this. You’re amazing, dooset daram <3
Um, I might have gotten carried away. :)
MINORS DNI. There is indeed smut below.
The underground house seemed to breathe with a deeper stillness than usual, as though the tapestry-laden walls held the memory of the night before. The air was warm and faintly perfumed with the mingled scents of smoke, sweat, and Erik’s usual preferred rosewater. The hearth crackled low, the firewood in the grate cracked black; casting the chamber in a drowsy amber gloom. The silence was not the ordinary hush of the subterranean halls, but denser—an intimacy preserved, a secret laid heavy over stone and velvet alike.
Erik did not stir. He lay sprawled across the tangled sheets in a rare abandon, every long line of his body slack with spent exhaustion. His limbs stretched carelessly, and the angles of his frame were softened by something rare: repose. Sleep. His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm, his pale ribs shifting beneath his thin skin as he breathed. His mouth, usually pressed into grim lines, had fallen ajar, and in the dim glow he looked less the spectral figure of legend than a man undone, blissful and emptied. Stripped of vigilance, of fury, of genius and dread alike, he seemed so fragile in his sleep—human.
Beside him, (Y/N) woke slowly, rising from a dream that had been full of him—his touch, his devotion, the echo of his love. Her body ached with the residue of passion: her hips sore from his urgency, thighs tender from the weight of him, the faint press of his fingers stamped upon her skin like bruised flowers. Even her lips tingled faintly with the ghost of his desperate kisses. She lay still, cradled in the echo of their coupling, her mind unspooling fragments in a haze—his trembling restraint as he touched her, the way his voice broke in the dark, the savage hunger that had burned through him until it left him shuddering in her arms.
She turned her head, watching him in the hush, the firelight limning the gaunt yet softened angles of his face. She blinked herself fully awake, lashes parting to drink him in more clearly—and then her breath caught.
The mask was gone.
His face lay bare in the glow of the hearth, unguarded in a way she had never seen. Where once the mask had stood between them—boundary, mystery, warning—now there was nothing but him, wholly naked beside her.
Her eyes were drawn first to the absence: the gaping hollow where a nose should have been, nothing but a stark cavity, raw and skeletal, as though some essential piece of him had been carved away before birth. She had imagined it in fragments—echoes of his own words, fleeting glimpses caught by chance—but imagination had not prepared her for the truth. The cleft in his upper lip ran upward into that void, twisting the symmetry of his mouth, dividing his teeth in a way that startled the eye. His lips, thin and taut, had parted gently in sleep, revealing flashes of white around where the cleft cut through, a mouth at once familiar and utterly alien.
Her gaze lingered, unwilling and unable to look away, tracing the fragile terrain of his skin. It stretched too tightly over the bones of his face, as though it scarcely belonged to him, warped and pitted with textures that spoke of suffering etched into flesh. Long, jagged scars furrowed his face from brow to jaw—twin ravages of claws tearing down each side of his face. Even in repose, they bore the violence of their making, ridges that seemed to pulse with a history of pain she could not fathom. His eyes—closed now in rare, untroubled sleep—were sunk deep in their sockets, hollows that sharpened his features into a map of stark planes and haunted angles.
And yet—there was more than ruin.
His brows were thick, dark against the pallor of his scarred skin, still expressive even in slumber, arched faintly as though caught in some fleeting dream. His mouth, though asymmetrical, had softened, slack with exhaustion, the hard lines loosened into a fragile peace. His hair, coarse and shot with silver, lay mussed across the pillow in a disarray that was boyish. Stripped of the perfection of porcelain and veil, stripped of artifice and shadow, he looked older, wearier—yes—but also achingly human. Vulnerable in a way that pierced her, more intimate than even the night before.
A tremor passed through her, half shiver, half ache, as she curled into the sheets and let her gaze linger. Her body still remembered him vividly, as though each nerve held the echo of his body. This was the man who had kissed her, who had trembled beneath her touch, who had given himself with both hunger and abject fear the night before. This was the face he believed unworthy of love, the face he hid from her at every turn. And here he was: lying unguarded beside her, his chest rising and falling in quiet rhythm, his features soft in sleep.
There would be no returning to the world as it was before.
In that silence, listening to the steady cadence of his breath, she wondered what it meant—for him, for her, for the shadowed house that now seemed to guard a secret far more perilous than its labyrinth of traps. He was terrible, yes, but he was also hers. As she lay watching him sleep, her heart swelled with an affection she could not name, quiet and certain.
She reached out. With the lightest touch she brushed the unruly strands of hair back from his brow, her fingertips grazing the warmth of his skin. For a heartbeat she simply lingered there, afraid to wake him, tracing with silent reverence the unfamiliar terrain of him that had always been hidden away. The jut of bone beneath too-tight skin, the furrows left by scars, the soft rise and fall of his temple—it was a map she had longed to see, and now she could learn it without fear.
Her palm drifted down to cradle his cheek, stroking with a gentleness that would have killed him then and there, she was sure. She traced the ridge of scar and bone as though it were sacred; her touch cherishing. Near the hollow where flesh had failed him, she let her thumb linger, in sorrow and tenderness, as if her touch might fill the absence with something of her own. He did not stir. His breathing stayed steady, a soft cadence that reassured her he was lost deep in sleep.
Emboldened, (Y/N) nestled closer, her naked body aligning to his, seeking the solid comfort of him. Her arm slid across his warped chest before slipping around his ribs until her hand found the slope of his back. She let her fingers spread over the lean muscles there, rubbing slow, soothing circles into the slack lines of his body. Her caress was tender and protective, as though through her gentleness she might reach beyond flesh, past scars, and quiet the shadows that haunted him.
She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, closing her eyes, and let the heat of him seep into her. The rhythm of his breath became the rhythm of her own. She thought of how long he must have lived without such touch—without hands that sought to comfort rather than claim, without love that cherished rather than feared. The ache of that knowledge swelled inside her, filling her chest until it hurt.
Lying so close, she was consumed by it: not only desire, not pity, not even the fragile joy of triumph over his walls—but something vaster, steadier, and infinitely more dangerous. Love. A love so gentle it ached, so fierce it seemed to rise up and vow, silently, that she would carry all of his impossible burdens with him. That she would not turn away. That she would choose him; even here in the hush of shadow and ruin, with her hand on his scarred skin and his heart, at last, unguarded. She lay there, unaware that her vow, unspoken, was already being answered. For as the silence deepened, he began to wake.
The first thing Erik felt was warmth—not the constant, life-giving heat of his fireplaces or the close air of stone walls, but a softer warmth—human, alive, pressed against him with a weight both delicate and certain. He stirred faintly, the rhythm of his breath breaking as his body registered the unfamiliar sensation: her arm curved across his body, her skin against his, her breath feathering light and steady over his shoulder.
His eyes opened slowly, reluctantly, still heavy with sleep. For an instant, he thought he was still dreaming, still tangled in some impossible fantasy conjured by a starving mind. But the fire’s low glow was real, painting the room in embers. The ache in his body was real, a soreness that spoke of desperate passion spent in truth, not in imagination. God above, the most incredible of all—she was real.
She was here.
(Y/N), lying naked against him, curled as though she belonged there, as though she had always belonged there. Her hand rested over his ribs, warm and tender, her hand rubbing small, soothing circles into his back as she did before. Her face was turned into his shoulder, hair loose and unguarded, strands fallen across the bed. Every rise and fall of her breath brushed against him, steady as a vow.
His throat tightened. It could not be. Last night must have been madness, delirium, some cruel trick of longing that his mind had spun from the depths of hunger and loneliness. He had dreamed of her before—dreamed of her voice, her touch, her love—and always, always, he had woken alone. And yet now—
He dared not move for fear of breaking the spell. His eyes traced her in wonder, lingering on every detail as though to commit her to memory: the curve of her arm where it held him, the soft flush still lingering on her skin, the way her body fit so easily into the shelter of his own.
A sound escaped him, almost a laugh, almost a sob. He pressed his lips together, trembling, not trusting his voice, and not trusting anything at all. He closed his eyes again, turning his face into her hair, and let the truth sink into him like water into parched earth. She was here. She had not left. This was not a dream.
This was love, and it was his.
For a heartbeat she only held him closer, wanting to reassure him as he woke with the simple truth of her presence. Then, with a shy softness, she drew back just enough to see his face more clearly, her hand still resting against him.
Her lips curved into a small, tremulous smile. “Good morning.” she whispered the words gentle as the brush of her breath across his skin. The sound seemed to startle him more than any shout could have, for never in his life had waking begun with such grace.
His throat worked, and then, hoarse and unsteady, he whispered back, “Am I dead?”
Her brows lifted in surprise, and then she laughed. The sound broke from her unguarded and bright, ringing through the dim chamber like music, scattering the shadows into corners. She pressed her hand to her mouth as though to smother it, but the laughter kept tumbling out, effervescent and irrepressible, painting her cheeks with sudden color. “Why on earth would you say that?” she asked, breathless between her laughter, her eyes glittering with mirth.
He blinked at her, wonder stark in his gaze, his expression raw, almost childlike. “Because this—” His hand twitched as though to reach for her, then faltered, curling back against his chest as if the distance were safer. “This cannot be real. I am either trapped in a dream, or I have died and… somehow stumbled into heaven. Into the bed of an angel.” His voice fractured on the last words.
Her laughter faded, leaving behind only the heat that surged into her face. She blushed deeply, her lashes lowering, her smile softening into something shy, almost tremulous. He believed it. He truly believed it—believed that she, tousled and flushed from sleep and sex, could be angelic. The sincerity in his voice, the trembling awe that hollowed it into confession, stole the breath from her chest.
Slowly, she eased back, reclining against the pillows, her hair spilling loose across the sheets like a silken halo. The movement was unhurried, deliberate—an unspoken assurance that she was not retreating but beckoning. Her arms opened wide in quiet welcome, her smile softening into tender resolve. “Come here.” she whispered, her voice low, coaxing, as though the words themselves reached out to gather him in.
For a long moment Erik did not move. He hovered on the cusp of disbelief, his body taut with the fear that if he reached for her the vision would dissolve, leaving him once more alone in the dark. His gaze wandered over her—her open arms, the gentle curve of her bare breasts, the warmth in her eyes that demanded nothing, promised only acceptance. The ache in his chest swelled until he thought it might break him apart.
At last he yielded. Inch by inch, halting as if every movement risked shattering the fragile spell, he drew nearer. Then, he was in her arms. His head bowed into the softness of her breasts, his long frame folding against hers with a careful, trembling hesitation—until at last a deep sigh broke from him, raw and unguarded, as though it had released from the furthest depths of him.
She gathered him close, cradling him as though he were something precious, breakable, yet wholly hers to protect. One hand threaded through his coarse, unruly hair, smoothing it back in a slow rhythm, tender and steady; the other rested against the scarred expanse of his back, her palm a quiet anchor to hold him in place.
In her arms, he felt the impossible solidity of her warmth, her heartbeat steady beneath his ear. This was no dream, no imagined paradise—no heaven to which he had stumbled by mistake. It was her. Real. Flesh and breath and impossible love. That truth staggered him more than any fantasy he had ever dared to conjure, more than any music or vision he had ever created.
They lay together in the dim hush of the Louis-Philippe room, pressed close, sharing warmth and silence as though the world beyond the tangle of sheets had ceased to exist. His breathing had steadied now, no longer jagged with disbelief, yet still carrying the uneven cadence of a man who could not quite trust peace to endure.
She tilted her head, pressing her lips lightly to the crown of his mussed hair, and breathed him in—the faint trace of rosewater clinging to him, the smoky whisper of the lamps and candles that filled the house, and beneath it all the deeper, indefinable essence that was simply Erik.
After a long, quiet moment, she let a sound slip past her lips—soft, tentative, more breath than voice at first, a hum carried on feeling rather than design. His cheek felt the gentle vibration of her chest as the melody threaded into the stillness like a silken thread. At first, it was nothing but a lull of simple notes, unformed and wandering, but then courage steadied her, and she began to shape them—fragile contours of the piece he had been teaching her. Not careful, not measured as in their lessons, but free, un-tethered from technique or phrasing. She sang for him alone, low and tender, her voice trembling with intimacy more than precision.
Erik’s entire body reacted as though struck. His eyes flew open, molten gold blazing against the hollow shadows of his face. Disbelief cleaved through him so sharply it hurt—she was singing to him. Not for correction, not for study, not under his command, but to soothe, to comfort, to reach him in the only language that had ever been truly his.
The shock faltered, giving way to something heavier. His face tightened, his lips pressing into a thin line as though to dam the torrent rising within. Pain rippled through him—an old, bone-deep ache, the ghost of all the years when he had dreamed of such a gift, only to wake to scorn, to derision, to silence. But this was no mockery, no illusion.
His eyes eventually fluttered shut, and at last the tension bled out of him. The hard edges of his face, so often carved by anger or suspicion, softened by slow degrees. The rigid set of his shoulders eased beneath her hand, his frame yielding as if something long clenched had finally been released. A long, unsteady breath slipped from him, carrying the weight of a lifetime as though pried loose, if only for this fragile moment. Her song enfolded him like balm, soothing and unbinding, until the hurt gave way to something more delicate—release, surrender, the dangerous wonder of being wanted exactly as he was.
She sang on, quietly, her fingers combing through his coarse hair, tracing the uneven ridges of scar across his back, binding touch and melody together in a wordless vow. And he let himself sink—into the song, into her—the music dissolving the walls he had built stone by stone, leaving him bare, defenseless, yet for the first time in memory, unafraid of what such nakedness might mean.
Her delighted giggle escaped before she could stop it, soft and bubbling, scattering through the hush of morning like spilled light. At the sound, he stirred faintly, his golden eyes blinking open in bewilderment. Laughter—gentle, unguarded, and meant for him—was something wholly alien. She only smiled down at him, radiant with tenderness, her arms tightening ever so slightly.
The absurdity of it had struck her: Erik—the master of shadows, the Phantom who ruled the Palais Garnier—lay pliant in her embrace, his body slack with calm, his breath steady, his scars forgotten beneath her touch. The impossibility of it made her want to laugh aloud, to cheer as though she had conquered some wild and terrible beast. Instead, her laughter softened, dwindling into a hum of affection as she pressed her lips to his temple.
She nuzzled into his graying hair, breathing him in again. Her lips brushed the crown of his head as she whispered, her voice low and tender, meant for him alone.
“Last night was… wonderful, Erik,” she breathed, her fingers trailing slowly down the curve of his ragged spine, mapping the faint ridges of old scars with reverence rather than fear. “I’ve never been touched like that before. Never been… adored like that.”
Her voice caught, her breath shivering through his hair as her hand tightened gently at his shoulder. “You worshiped me as though I were something holy. As though I truly mattered that much to you.”
Her voice softened, dropping into something huskier, every syllable weighted with wonder. “No one has ever made me feel the way you did. You were perfect—every moment, every touch.” Her lips brushed his temple and lingered there, a sigh trembling out against his skin. “You felt so good… and I can still feel you in me, even now. It’s as though my body hasn’t let you go. It’s still holding on.”
Then his lips moved, barely parting, his voice no more than a whisper, frayed and aching. “No… not perfect.” The denial trembled out of him, half plea, half protest. His eyes shone with disbelief, with a rawness that betrayed how unaccustomed he was to being cherished.
(Y/N) only continued, her words spilling into the hush between them, breathy and confessional, heavy with awe and longing. “You’re still here—inside me, in every part of me. I don’t want it to fade. I don’t want to lose that.”
Her hand slid tenderly to his hollowed chest, settling over the frantic rhythm of his heart. She pressed another kiss into his hair, letting the warmth of her lips linger there. “I love you, Erik,” she whispered, her breath tremulous but sure. “Last night… it was the most beautiful thing I have ever known. And I would not trade it for anything.”
His eyes lifted to hers, wide and luminous, flickering with a terrified hope. His body remained rigid in her embrace, but inside he was unraveling thread by thread.
She kissed him again—his temple, the corner of his jaw, the mussed hair above his ear. Each brush of her lips was a vow. Her voice threaded through the silence, soft and steady now, weaving devotion into every word. “Your body…” she murmured, her lips grazing his skin, “your body was perfect to me. The way you held me, the way you… took me. I have never been touched like that, Erik. Never been loved like that.”
Her hand drifted across the scars of his back, caressing them with reverence where others would recoil. “You needed me,” she breathed, her voice faltering into a small, trembling laugh, “and I loved how desperately you needed me. Every moment… every kiss… you made me feel as though nothing else in the world existed but us.”
The words seared through him, sparking warmth low in his belly, dangerous in its sweetness. His stomach knotted, his breath hitched, his chest constricted around the unbearable ache. He closed his eyes against it, retreating inward as though the darkness there might shield him—but her voice was relentless, tender and merciless all at once, each syllable carving through him.
“You’re brilliant,” she whispered, her lips brushing his brow as though in benediction. “Everything you’ve ever taught me—every note, every word—you make me better, Erik. You make me shine.”
Her thighs shifted faintly against his hip as she leaned closer, her breath warm and unsteady against his ear. “You made me yours last night. Completely. And I have never wanted anything more.”
He drew in a ragged breath, his shoulders tensing beneath her touch. A greater heat stirred now, low in his abdomen, restless and wickedly alive, twisting through him until his hands curled hard into the sheets for anchor. His mouth opened once, twice, but no words followed—only the faint tremor of a sound, a half-caught breath that betrayed how thoroughly undone he was.
The silence stretched, heavy and charged, her praise sinking deeper with every heartbeat. It left him trembling—torn between want and fear, drowning in a devotion he could neither bear nor resist. At last, after what felt like an eternity, he forced words past the knot in his throat. His voice came hoarse, stripped of its usual authority, torn raw from the depths of him.
“Stop…” His golden eyes flickered open, searching hers with a helpless, pleading intensity. “You must stop before I…” His throat worked around the words, trembling, fragile. “Before I need you all over again.”
She smiled sweetly, knowingly, brushing her bare thigh against the sharp jut of his hipbone with deliberate grace. The contact jolted him, a tremor shooting down his spine, leaving his chest heaving in uneven pulls of air.
Her brows arched just so, her lips curving into a playful, tender line. But it was her eyes—bright, shining, and alight with mischief—that unraveled him more completely than cruelty ever could. She leaned closer, her mouth hovering at his ear, her breath hot against his skin. “Do you want me again, Erik?” she whispered, low and coaxing. A pause, a delicate torture, before she added with hushed, aching insistence, “Please… please say you do.”
The plea struck him like fire and thorns, tangling in his chest until he could hardly breathe. His first instinct was to recoil, to bury himself in shadow, to protest that he was too monstrous, too ruined for such beauty to want him, especially twice. But her words—gentle, needy, reverent—cut through his defenses, leaving him trembling, undone. His golden eyes widened, wild and luminous, then squeezed shut as though bracing against a blow he longed for and dreaded all at once.
He felt it rising again—the warmth, the pulse of hunger no denial could smother. Memory surged back with merciless force: her body pliant beneath his, her breath hot against his throat, her hands clutching at him, the way she had welcomed his ruin as though it were a gift rather than a curse. To hear her ask for more, to plead with that soft, sweet voice, was unbearable. His hands twitched against the sheet, curling into fists as if he could trap the storm inside himself.
His throat worked, desperate for words, but when they came they were fractured, stripped of their usual command. “I—” His voice broke; he swallowed hard, tried again, softer now, hoarse and raw. “I want you always. More than I should. More than I can….” He opened his eyes, locking onto hers, terror and reverence colliding in their depths.
His trembling hand lifted of its own accord, hovering inches from her thigh where she had pressed herself so boldly against him—as though his body was answering before his words dared to.
When he spoke again, the sound was halting, each word splintering under the weight of awe. “You… you cannot know what you’ve given me,” he whispered, his hand trembling as it ghosted over her skin. His eyes, fever-bright and wide, fixed on her. “I have lived in darkness. In silence. In the cold stone of my own ruin. No one has ever… no one could ever…” His throat closed, the confession choking him, too vast for language.
She only smiled at him—warm, luminous, certain. She brushed her lips to his temple, her thigh sliding closer against his hip. “Then let me give it again.” she breathed, her voice soft but unshakable. Taking his hand, she guided it to her waist, pressing his palm flat against the curve of her warmth. “If you think this is heaven, then stay here with me. If you believe I am an angel, then let me love you as one.”
For a long moment he only stared. His lips trembled, parted on a breath that sounded like a sob. “Then…I must be dead already,” he murmured, his voice breaking low and reverent. “I must have tricked my way into heaven—into the bed of an angel who does not cast me out.”
Her hand rose to cup his jaw, her thumb grazing the warped edge of scarred skin. He leaned helplessly into her touch, as her fingers alone kept him tethered to this fragile paradise. Shame gnawed at him, whispering that he should turn away, shield her from the ruin of his body and the hunger of his soul. Oh, but her nearness was fire, and his body betrayed him.
He bent toward her slowly, hesitantly, as though afraid she might vanish if he dared too much. His lips hovered above hers, trembling, uncertain. Then she shifted, closing the distance with quiet certainty, and their mouths met—soft at first, reverent, a promise in the gentleness. With each stolen breath the kiss deepened; the very act of touching her stripped away fear.
The last of his restraint gave way. His hands, tentative no longer, pulled her against him with sudden need, fingers threading through her hair, pressing into the small of her back. Every nerve in him seemed to blaze awake, alive with the miracle of her nearness. Shame dissolved into raw, urgent desire, until there was nothing left in his mind but her—her breath, her skin, her warmth enveloping him, the unbearable truth that she wanted him still.
He kissed her as though drowning, as though her lips alone might grant him air. His chest pressed to hers, their bodies fitting together with a desperate inevitability, as if they had been made to lock into this one, singular shape. All thought of restraint—of walls and caution—dissolved into the hush of this. There was only her—his angel, his salvation—and the unbearable sweetness of surrender.
The surrender broke over him like a dam giving way, a flood that tore him out of himself and into her. Erik’s mouth claimed hers hungrily, yet reverently, every kiss a vow he could not speak aloud. His thin frame trembled against her, strung taut with the ache of need and awe. He still could not believe she truly lay open to him again.
Her hands coaxed him over her, guiding him with the patience of someone tending something fragile, sacred. She welcomed his weight as he folded over her, his breath ragged against her ear, his lips feverish as they traced her cheek, her jaw, the hollow of her throat. His returning shame warred with his desire in every shudder, every halting pause—but the longer she held him, the more those walls crumbled again. Her whispered reassurances, the catch of her breath, the warmth of her thighs parting to guide him in—these banished the last of his restraint.
When he entered her, it was not with the violence of hunger, but with the aching care of a man terrified he might break what he adored. The sweetness of her body surrounding him dragged a groan from his chest—raw, strangled—as though he confessed some unholy truth in the sound. His hands braced at her sides, trembling, reverent, while hers clung to his back, her fingers mapping each scar as though they were scripture, as though every broken line of him was worthy of devotion.
They moved together in a rhythm unpracticed, clumsy at first—like music discovered by instinct rather than study. Every brush of skin against skin was a new note, every gasp a chord struck deep between them. She sang for him without words now, only breath and soft, broken moans that unraveled him more surely than any aria.
His eyes, fever-bright and unblinking, devoured her: the flush of her cheeks, the parting of her lips, and the shimmer of returning sweat tracing her skin. Each sound she made pierced him, driving him harder, until his body surged against hers with reckless abandon, shame drowned beneath the undeniable proof of her desire. His kisses turned frantic, wild—scattering along her collarbone, across the swell of her breast—each one a desperate act of worship, a vow pressed into flesh.
Her thighs locked tighter around his waist, urging him deeper, faster, until he was lost completely, undone in her. The world beyond their bodies ceased to exist—no shadows, no stone, no cruel history—only this: the fevered slickness of sex, the ragged breaths stolen from one another’s lips, the consuming fire of being devoured and devouring in the same trembling instant.
When a sudden release overtook him, it tore from him in a cry raw as marrow, his body bowing hard against hers as though struck through with fire. He buried his face against her throat, gasping his raw cries. Tears mingled with sweat and fevered kisses there; his voice a trembling prayer breathed into her skin.
When the storm ebbed, he did not flee. Shame did not drive him back into silence. He collapsed in her arms, limbs tangled with hers, his body still shuddering with the aftershocks of something too vast to name. His lips moved against her damp skin, words barely formed, ragged with devotion.
“My angel,” he whispered hoarsely, broken and worshipful. “Mine.”
She felt the trembling of him—caught between ecstasy and exhaustion—and a tender ache swelled in her chest. Her hands pressed gently to his shoulders, her voice soft, coaxing. “Erik.” With careful insistence she guided him back, urging him down onto the mattress.
He resisted for a heartbeat, eyes wide with alarm at the thought of relinquishing control. But her steady touch, her quiet smile, disarmed him.
“Let me,” she breathed, brushing her lips across his temple. Her palms slid down the fragile planes of his chest, over the jut of ribs, the frail cage of him. She pressed with steady insistence until at last his back yielded to the sheets. He lay stiff at first, unaccustomed to such surrender, his golden eyes fixed on her every movement—wide, trembling, caught between awe and fear.
She moved over him slowly, deliberately, the sheet slipping from her legs; the candlelight painting her bare form in molten warmth. Her hair spilled forward as she straddled him, brushing across the ruined skin of his chest like a benediction. Erik’s breath hitched audibly, his hands twitching against the sheets as though to seize her, yet he held them still, terrified of breaking the vision above him.
She bent low, her lips ghosting across the hollow of his throat, then lower still over the jagged, malformed muscle that cut across his chest. Each kiss was deliberate, reverent, a consecration of what he loathed most in himself. “You are beautiful to me.” she whispered against his skin, her voice breaking with conviction.
His throat worked, his mouth parting as if to protest—but the words withered beneath the weight of her folds pressing to his shaft. A raw sound broke from him instead, half-groan, half-plea, as she shifted deliberately, guiding him into her once more. His eyes clamped shut, his jaw taut as the sensation overwhelmed him. A whimper escaped before he could strangle it back, trembling from him like confession.
“Look at me,” she coaxed, her voice soft but insistent, as her hand cupped his cheek, thumb stroking along the hard ridge of scarred skin. Reluctantly, his eyes lifted—and the sight wrenched the breath from his chest: her, riding him with tender devotion, her gaze fixed on his as though no shadow in the world could dim her.
Her rhythm began slow, almost hesitant, then steadied as she felt him beneath her—his thin body straining, trembling, surrendering with each movement. His hands rose at last, uncertain, then gripped her hips with desperate strength, clutching as though he might lose her if he did not hold fast. Every time she pressed down, a ragged moan tore from him, his head tipping back against the pillow in helpless abandon.
She leaned forward, bracing her palms on either side of his head, her breasts brushing his chest as she kissed him deeply; swallowing the broken sounds he could not contain. Her whispers poured into his mouth between kisses—praise, devotion, the fevered promise that he was perfect, that she wanted him, needed him, adored him.
And Erik, unraveling beneath her, began to believe. His hips surged helplessly to meet hers, his grip trembling on her body, his golden eyes flooding with tears that blurred the sight of her above him, radiant and unrelenting in her love.
Another release tore through him, sudden and brutal, wracking his thin frame with a cry ripped from the depths of his chest—a sound that was equal parts surrender and salvation. Afterward he lay spent, chest heaving; his bare face slick with sweat and streaked with tears. She collapsed against him, cheek pressed to his hammering heart, and his arms closed around her without thought, clutching her to him firmly.
“You…” he rasped, voice hoarse and broken, “…you are killing me.” Yet the way he said it—his lips pressing into her hair, breath shivering over her crown—made it sound less like despair, more like prayer.
(Y/N)’s body trembled with aftershocks, thighs still quivering against his narrow hips as she lay draped over him. His chest rose and fell in ragged pulls, the thin skin of him glistening in the low firelight. She pressed her cheek harder against him, listening to the wild, uneven cadence of his heart, and a sound escaped her—half moan, half sigh—borne of relief, and of the lingering ache from the way he had filled her, claimed her, and moved within her.
The sound startled him. His hand—long-fingered, trembling—rose at once to her face, cupping her cheek with frantic gentleness. His golden eyes widened, scouring hers with desperate urgency, searching for the faintest flicker of hurt.
“Are you—?” His voice cracked, hoarse and terrified.
She only smiled, lips curving slow and mischievous, her eyes warm as she leaned into his palm. “You’ve undone me so completely.” she murmured, breathless still, teasing though tender.
His chest lurched beneath her, her words striking through him with unbearable force. For an instant he could only stare, his hand still cradling her as though she might dissolve if he let go. Then she lifted her own hand, light and reverent, and stroked the hollow of his cheek. Her touch was feather-soft, her gaze unflinching.
And in that moment, the world shifted.
Erik’s breath faltered. Her warmth seared into a place he had long believed untouchable. Slowly, terribly, it dawned on him—he could feel her. The curve of her fingers, the tender press of her palm. Not dulled against porcelain. Not through the cold barrier of his mask. But here, on his own ruined flesh.
His eyes—soft only moments ago, drowning in adoration so fierce it ached—flickered with sudden panic. Horror swept across his features, stark and merciless. His mouth parted, but no sound followed—only a shuddering inhale, a rasp of disbelief so sharp it bordered on dread.
The mask was gone.
His expression collapsed as though struck by an unseen blow, his whole body locking tense beneath her weight. His mind grasped wildly; should he surge for the sheets, the pillow, what was there that might cover him, shield him, bury what she had seen—what she still touched. His hand trembled violently against her face, torn between clinging to her warmth and shoving her violently away from the shame that howled through him.
When his voice came, it was broken, strangled. “No…” he whispered, barely audible. His eyes darted away, then back again, frantic and stricken, searching her face as though waiting—dreading—for revulsion to finally claim her.
Her smile, so bright only a heartbeat before, faltered, chased away by the terror overtaking his own. His body, which had moments ago trembled in release, had gone rigid, every line drawn taut as though braced for a blow.
Her brows knit in alarm, her breath catching at the sight of him unraveling. She pressed her palm more firmly to his cheek, refusing to let him hide, her thumb tracing slow, gentle circles over the ruined skin. “Erik?” she whispered, her voice thin but urgent. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
His eyes darted away and back again, frantic—golden irises gleaming in the firelight like those of a hunted animal. His lips moved soundlessly, words strangled before they could form, his chest heaving as though he could not get enough air.
Her free hand slid to his shoulder, then down his scarred chest, rubbing in slow, steady circles, coaxing him to breathe, to speak. “You’re frightening me,” she admitted, her tone breaking. “Don’t shut me out now. Don’t vanish into yourself. Talk to me, Erik. Whatever it is—whatever you’re afraid of—I can bear it.”
His mouth opened, but no sound emerged—it was only the shape of a scream, torn out in silence. His vision blurred; his pulse thundered in his ears, and still her hand lingered on his cheek, warm, unbearably gentle.
Now—now must come the punishment. His mind spun with certainty, each thought cutting sharper than a blade. She would laugh, that bright, cruel laugh of mockery. Or worse—she would scream, the sound splitting through the stone halls like a death knell, tearing apart the fragile sanctuary he had begun to build with her. Perhaps she would strike him, those soft hands—those hands that had soothed, guided, adored—turned suddenly violent as they shoved him away, spitting her disgust across his face.
It was inevitable. It had always been inevitable. What else could await a monster but to be unmasked and scorned? He had dared to believe—dared to drink from a chalice never meant for him—and now the dregs of it burned bitter in his throat.
His golden eyes flooded, not with the gentle weight of tears, but with the raw sting of despair. No anger rose to shield him, no fury to mask the ruin—only terror, only the suffocating certainty that he had trespassed into something holy and fragile, and now it must be torn from him.
This was hell. He knew it. Somewhere between her arms and the ecstasy of her body, his heart had failed, and he had slipped into the abyss. And here was the punishment: to wake in the illusion of heaven only to watch it collapse, to see the angel he had worshiped recoil in horror at last.
Her breath caught in despair at the sight of him. Erik’s mouth parted on a soundless cry, his whole body trembling beneath her, his chest heaving as though every breath tore him apart. A single tear welled and slid down the sharp plane of his cheek, catching the flicker of the lamp before vanishing into the hollow of his ruined skin. The sight pierced her more deeply than any blade could.
“Erik,” she whispered, horror and anguish twined in her voice. She cradled his face between both her hands, steadying him as though he might shatter without her. Her thumbs smoothed the wetness from his cheek, brushing it away with such tenderness that her own eyes stung. “Please—please, tell me what’s wrong.”
Her gaze searched his fever-bright eyes, desperate for an answer he could not speak. His terror stared back at her—wild, fractured—and it made her chest seize with pain. She leaned closer, pressing her brow to his, her lips brushing against his damp skin as though she could breathe steadiness into him. “Don’t shut me out,” she begged, her voice breaking. “Don’t bear this alone. Whatever it is—whatever is hurting you—I can take it. Let me help you.”
He shuddered beneath her words, his hands clutching the sheets as though they were the only anchor holding him to the world. His silence terrified her, but she refused to recoil. Instead, she pressed soft kisses to his temple, his damp hair, the jagged scars along his brow—each touch an unspoken vow that she would not flee.
“You don’t have to hide from me,” she murmured against his skin, her tears mingling with his. “I love you. I love you, Erik. Nothing you say—nothing you show me—could change that.”
Her fingers stroked the ruined planes of his cheek as though they were no different from any other part of him. Her gaze never wavered, willing him to see it, to feel it—that she would not flinch, she would not turn away. That she was his, not only in moments of passion, but here, in the raw aftermath, when he was most laid bare and afraid.
Her words struck him like a pistol shot, tearing through the fragile shell he had wrapped around himself. She loved him? The thought was so impossible, so violently opposed to every truth he had ever known about himself, that for a heartbeat he could only stare, mute and trembling, waiting for the illusion to dissolve.
Still, she held his face—his ruined, shameful face—gently in her hands, her thumbs stroking the hollow contours he had spent a lifetime hiding. She had seen all of him: every scar, every hollow, and every jagged edge. Instead of recoiling, she whispered love into the very skin he despised. Instead of casting him from her arms, she vowed herself to him, promising not just to stay but to shield him from the ghosts that haunted his every breath.
His breath came in shallow bursts, his thin chest heaving beneath her weight. His face slackened, struck by a deeper kind of shock. He had braced for torment, for the lash of scorn, for abandonment to come crashing down like the ceiling of a collapsing cavern. And instead—she gave him mercy.
His golden eyes flickered wildly, searching her face, tracing the earnest knit of her brow, the wet shimmer of tears caught in her lashes. They darted to her lips, trembling yet steady in devotion. To her body, pressed unflinching against his own, warm and unafraid. Even to the room itself, as though the stone walls might whisper the truth of the cruel trick that surely lurked within this miracle.
There was nothing. No laughter. No scream. No blow. Only her—her warmth, her nearness, her impossible tenderness.
His throat convulsed around a sound that would not form, caught between sob, laugh, and prayer. His hands lifted, hesitant, shaking as though they might tear themselves apart, before clutching at her wrists tightly. His gaze found hers again, and in it lay the hollow awe of a condemned man who had glimpsed paradise on the gallows.
“She…” he rasped, barely able to shape the word. “…you…” His jaw trembled; his eyes spilled with tears he no longer had the strength to hide. “You love me?” The question broke from him naked, childlike in its disbelief, edged with wonder and terror alike.
The realization shattered him. His head fell back against the pillow, eyes squeezing shut as tears slipped freely down the ravaged hollows of his face. His lips moved soundlessly, shaping fragments of thought—disjointed prayers, broken apologies, desperate thanks—but only a low, shuddering breath escaped.
It was too much. Too immense. He had braced his whole life for mockery, for hatred, for damnation. Never this. Never love.
She settled against him without hesitation, draping herself over him as though to shield him from the storm raging inside. Her arms wrapped tight around him, her cheek pressed to his damp chest where his heart hammered like a wild thing. He lay paralyzed beneath her embrace, every part of him exposed—his body bare, his soul undone—and the tears would not stop. They coursed hot and unrelenting down his scarred cheeks as thin snot gathered at the pit of his nose, spilling into the cleft of his upper lip.
Shame seared through him at the familiar, wretched betrayal of his body. The humiliating warmth of it trickled down, and with a strangled sob his hand shot up, trembling, desperate to shield it from her—to wipe away the evidence of his deformity before she could recoil.
(Y/N) caught his hand gently, pressing it down against his chest, answering his panic only with the softest shushing sounds—a lullaby of comfort breathed against his ear. Her fingers threaded into his coarse, silvering hair, stroking tenderly, soothing each quiver of shame as if her touch alone could cool the fever of his despair. Her lips sought him again and again—his temple, his wet cheek, the jagged scar along his brow. She kissed each mark as though it were precious, unafraid of his ruin, meeting his anguish with endless devotion.
Her tenderness only unraveled him further. The sobs wrenched out of him with greater force, great heaving cries that rattled his frail chest beneath her. His mouth opened against her shoulder in wordless grief, his breath catching, choking, as if every sorrow he had ever silenced now clawed its way free. He clung to her against his chest like a lifeline, his cries growing louder, harsher, until he no longer cared about the sound, the wetness, the collapse of his pride.
With a hoarse, desperate cry he pulled her tight, crushing her soft frame against him as though she were his only salvation. His fingers dug into her back, trembling. He buried his face in her hair, pressing into her as though he would die without it, his sobs wracking him until he thought his body might splinter apart.
His body heaved beneath her with every sob until at last the sound gave way to silence—ragged, uneven at first, then hollow. The storm had left him spent, his strength drained, his chest rising and falling in shallow, weary pulls. His face pressed into her shoulder, damp with tears and sweat and shame, but no sound remained. Only emptiness. A numb quiet, like the aftermath of a battlefield.
With a sudden, broken urgency, he shoved her off of him—not to cast her aside, but to clutch at her more tightly, to bury himself deeper in her embrace. His long arms wrapped around her, dragging her down against him until his face pressed hard into the soft rise of her breasts. He clung there, trembling, gasping, as though her body alone could shield him from the abyss yawning beneath his grief.
Her arms stayed firm, enfolding him, cradling his head to her chest as if she could hold him together by sheer will. Her fingers moved ceaselessly, tender and slow: smoothing back his mussed hair, brushing the ruined lines of his cheek as though they were marble worn by time, tracing the ridges of his chest where his heart still pounded faintly beneath her touch. Each caress whispered permanence—that she would not leave, no matter what storms tore through him.
Her lips sought him again and again: a kiss to his temple, his brow, the salt-streaked hollow beneath his eye. Between each kiss came a murmur, soft as prayer. “I love you.” Her voice trembled but never faltered, the words repeating like a litany. “I love you, Erik… I love you.”
He lay limp against her, weak, his thin arms still locked around her though their grip had lost all strength. He had nothing left to give—no mask, no music, no words, not even his pride. He was bare and undone, an empty vessel held together only by the warmth of her body and the unrelenting tide of her devotion.
He closed his eyes, exhaustion pulling at him like a tide, and—for the first time in memory—allowed himself to be held. To be loved, even in his ruin.
Her words wrapped around him like a balm, each “I love you” soft as a feather yet weighted with meaning. He lay trembling in her arms, chest still hitching faintly as the tide of grief ebbed away, leaving him hollow, emptied, stunned. Her lips found his brow, his temple, the jagged scars that had once made children scream and priests curse God—yet she kissed them as though they were holy.
At first Erik could not grasp what she was saying. Her whispers ricocheted inside his skull like echoes in a cavern, distant and unreal. His mind fumbled with them, disbelieving, his heart hammering in confusion. She loves me? The thought was absurd. Love was something other men received—handsome men, whole men. Love was a luxury denied him from birth; a flame glimpsed through glass but never allowed to touch. And yet here she was, pressing the words into his skin again and again until it burned deeper than any scar.
His lips shaped fragments of thought before his voice could rise. “You… love Erik?” he whispered at last, brokenly, as though the words themselves might crumble in the air. His golden eyes searched hers with a desperate intensity, wide and wet, hunting for the cruelty he knew must lurk behind her tenderness. But there was nothing—only her gaze, steady and luminous, unwavering in its truth.
The disbelief tore through him, shaking his frail body beneath hers. “No… no, you cannot… not Erik…” His hand lifted as though to shield her from himself, but she caught it, pressed it to her heart, and whispered the words again, silencing his protest with devotion.
And then—like a fissure opening in the walls of his despair—an idea surged in, brutal and unstoppable.
She loves me.
The thought struck him like lightning to the chest, jolting his body until his breath seized. And then, more violent still, more terrifying in its clarity: She will be my wife. His wife. The words did not soothe—they consumed, burning through him with a ferocity that left him trembling. His stomach knotted, his vision swam, and he gripped her as if she might vanish if he did not crush her to him.
Not a dream. Not a fleeting mercy. She would be bound to him, sealed to him in name and law as well as body and soul. His bride. The word echoed in him like a commandment, inexorable, undeniable. She would never escape him now. He already had the proof—the ring hidden in its little black box, heavy with promise, waiting in his coat pocket for this very moment.
His arms locked around her with sudden, crushing force, clutching her as though she were the axis of his universe. Possession and terror twisted together, shaking him until his body gave out, collapsing against her with the weight of the revelation. No longer did he brace for rejection. No longer did he fight her touch. He yielded wholly, feverishly, as though surrender itself was the only way to survive the enormity of it.
She was his. At last. His salvation, his prison, his wife-to-be.
He was loved—finally, impossibly, irrevocably loved. And he would never let her go.
｡*･ﾟﾟThe angelic voice student and her strange teacher...｡*･ﾟﾟ
° 🥀🎻🕯
I've wanted to draw them for a long time, but my biggest stumbling block was illustrating their faces. I'm basing it on Leroux's novel, so illustrating characters who are only described in words is an exercise that scares me. ( ´-ω-)
° 🥀🎻🕯
Well! I'm very happy for Christine, but much less so for the poor Erik. I'll have other opportunities to focus on him.
As you've probably guessed, the center of the painting is the young girl. ＼(^-^)／
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Kindred-A Phantom of the Opera One-Shot
Image by -https://www.deviantart.com/ofbeautsandbeasts
"NO! DAMN IT ALL TO OBLIVION!" Again the paper was crumbled into a ball and discarded. Erik collapsed forward onto the organ, causing the instrument to cry out along with the tortured genius. Red ink on his hands dripped down onto his face as he held his head. "Why? Why can't I put the music to paper? Why does Don Juan elude me?" He grumbled as he rocked himself back and forth slightly. This piece had been the tormenter of Erik for what seemed like an eternity. The music so very clear and hauntingly beautiful in his mind could not be properly transcribed. He knew he had to stop. To stand and take a break.
Kindred-A Phantom of the Opera One-Shot
"NO! DAMN IT ALL TO OBLIVION!" Again the paper was crumbled into a ball and discarded. Erik collapsed forward onto the organ, causing the instrument to cry out along with the tortured genius. Red ink on his hands dripped down onto his face as he held his head. "Why? Why can't I put the music to paper? Why does Don Juan elude me?" He grumbled as he rocked himself back and forth slightly. This piece had been the tormenter of Erik for what seemed like an eternity. The music so very clear and hauntingly beautiful in his mind could not be properly transcribed. He knew he had to stop. To stand and take a break.
As Erik walked along his subterranean house on the lake he paused. His yellow eyes fell upon the sight of a web that had been created in the corner of the room. In the center was a sizeable spider. With great care he approached the arachnid and smiled softly. "It is not often I entertain guests." Erik said with a sigh as he watched the spider working and competing the web. "Look at you, a master builder if I have ever seen one." He chuckled at the thought.
"We're kindred. We both build our own kingdoms deep in the dark. Those that lay their eyes upon us feel fear and disgust. But in truth we cannot help how God created us...we only want to belong in this world free of persecution. But, we embrace the fear they feel. Let them be afraid, and why not? We are deadly creatures, made so because of them!" He shook his head, realizing he was waxing on to this small creature. "If you are going to live here you shall need a name..." He tapped his yellowed chin for a moment as he pondered. "Otto I think. A fitting name, What do you think?" Erik paused and then nodded. "Yes you like it as well I'm sure. Good hunting Monsieur Otto."
With that, Erik stood back up and laughed. That had put him into a reasonable humor, so he decided to return to the organ where he would swiftly put an end to that as he tried to write again.
^The illustration above was a commission from @grechkathekasha. This is her work, don’t you DARE post it somewhere else or I’ll throttle you.
Summary: A remix of both the Gaston Leroux novel and the musical to resemble something of my own personal archetype/imagining of the phantom. But make it gay.
Warnings: Leroux accurate violence/murder mentions
A/N: This was a passion project that took a damn YEAR to write with my schedule, shared for the masses and their enjoyment. Because this is such an individual passion of mine, it doesn't make much sense without book and musical knowledge, so I apologize if it's vignette style is confusing/misleading to readers. Au revoir!
Word Count: 7k or so
The auction was a dreary place, dark taupe curtains covering what was once the grand stage of the Opera Populaire. Bidders sat in a sad line of chairs, none speaking with the casual air of Parisian aristocracy. Rain drizzled from the ceiling above, floodlights illuminating the makeshift stage constructed for the showing of each object. Mystery and memory blurred foggy here, each bidder with their own
"Sold! Your number sir?" the auctioneer called. "Lot 665, ladies and gentlemen, a papier-mache musical box, in the shape of a barrel-organ."
A burly porter in a tired suit walked forward, carrying a small monkey with cymbals, the hand-craftmanship clear.
"Attached, the figure of a monkey in Persian robes playing the cymbals. This item, discovered in the vaults of the theatre, still in working order." the auctioneer said, beginning the bid, "Showing here…"
With the twist of a hidden lever, the box sprang to life, monkey delicately clapping two cymbals together with feather-light touch, a melodic tune playing softly from the hidden box. For a moment time seemed to freeze, an elderly gentlemen dressed in a fine tux and overcoat pausing at the music, eyes misty with the memories of a hundred past circumstances.
" May I start at twenty francs? Fifteen, then? Fifteen I am bid." the auction continued, snapping the Vicomte out of his trance.
Two bidders began to slowly fight for the box, a gnarled woman raising her number again, much to the Vicomte's annoyance.
"Do I here twenty-five? Twenty- Thirty? Thirty once? Twice? Sold! To the Vicomte de Chagny."
Returning from the stage the porter moved towards the crouched man, showing him the piece up close. Fine lines deepened as he studied the figurine, weary eyes watery from the dim-light or memory, none dared to draw their attention for too long.
"A collector's piece indeed, every detail exactly as she said," he spoke softly to himself, "She often spoke of you, my friend, your velvet lining, and your figurine of lead. Will you still play, when all the rest of us are dead?"
Drawing one hand to the side, Raoul de Chagny dismissed the porter, leaning heavily against his chair. More bidding would come, more pieces to be pulled and bid for, like gulls scrapping for a piece of bread.
"Lot 666, then: a chandelier in pieces," the auctioneer continued, "Some of you may recall the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera; a mystery never fully explained."
The Vicomte sat up noticeably straighter, shoulders pinned back in attention. He knew well enough the mystery, the affair, the atrocities committed in this very opera house.
"We are told ladies and gentlemen, that this is the very chandelier which figures in the famous disaster. Our workshops have restored it and fitted up parts of it with wiring for the new electric light," he continued to narrate, voice gaining a theatrical tone, "So that we may get a hint of what it may look like when re- assembled. Perhaps we may frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little illumination, gentlemen?"
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Forty years prior…
The most human thing you ever saw Erika do was wash her laundry. Bent over a metal basin, salt and pepper hair obscuring her mask as her hands dove into the sudsy basin, she scrubbed a linen undershirt against the washboard. She looked peculiarly at ease, something uncharacteristic of her, something you knew she struggled with. Back and forth her hands worked, frothing the water beneath oil-lamp light. For all the effort she put into music, the rage-fueled tempo at which her hands would grate a horse-hair bow against her violin, this action itself seemed calming. Milky hands, scarred in odd, criss-crossed patterns up to about the elbow. A sadistic teacher, you'd assumed. In hindsight you seemed more naive than ever.
The wet slap of the cloth against the board ended, tendons flexing in her hands as she made quick work of wringing out the cloth. It was the closest to beautiful she was in your eyes, mundanity making sweet work of her otherwise erratic temperament. The cottage she lived in, though it was better described as a shack, put all of her capricious tendencies on full display. The drying rack was set before the fireplace, several bits of rope broken and retied. There were several holes in the wall, filled with a crude mix of clay and plaster, gently papered over in the original, unstained wallpaper. Every so often the chimney would cease it's filtration, belching ash and soot back into the living room, staining the red furniture almost purple. A single finger drawn against the fabric revealed its original hue, though the black had stained under your nail for days.
Throughout your time spent in captivity in her home, it was never easy to feel welcome. Her cooking was well enough, the bed she supplied you adorned with all of the proper sheets and such, but the very air seemed foul, though Erika assured you the ventilation system she'd constructed remained perfectly functional. On the fifth night of your stay, two nights before the destruction of tender trust between you, the air had been almost sweet. Erika seemed pleased by your noticing, her hands a bit stained with oil from the machine she'd been tinkering at. It was the new vent, Erika said. It sucked air straight from a garden some astonishing meters away. A cherry tree was in bloom, sweetening the air and filling it with the promise of spring, a spring you hadn't yet seen. Sometime in your slumber, the angel of music had slipped into your bedroom with a tender clipping of those same flowers. All this time spent smashed in your diary and the petals still seemed to smell of cherry.
Your captivity in her home had left more questions than answers. Her strange manner of speaking, though filled with large words, were pronounced carelessly, or with tentative recital, like she'd learned them sounding out the phonetics rather than hearing them firsthand. Her drawing room was her respite, filled with musical instruments and inventions alike, though sometimes the two intersected into marvelous music makers. There would be no tender entrance into her world, no sweet invitation to breakfast in the sanctity of her office. You trembled to imagine the potential greeting such an encounter would offer, wrists still raw from the iron grip you'd felt last night.
No sound greeted your ears as you ventured into the main sitting area. The fireplace crackled with dull life, left to burn out with the same disregard she was fabricating around you; merely an illusion, she would never stray so far as to forget. A small platter of bread, eggs and jam sat at one of the coffee tables, left so that you might eat something. Her generosity was something to be noted, no? Perhaps Erika still hoped for your relationship to be mended, though you'd wounded her so terribly.
Each bite of cold egg and stale toast made your stomach turn, though you felt more strongly than ever that refusing food from Erika would be greater insult than refusing the King. Mon ange, a woman with a voice capable of such low tones, almost a baritone, and yet more light and graceful than yours, spilling out high notes in a startling female falsetto. There were not the words to describe how her grasp of music pulled at your soul, how her wounded, solitary nature drew bitter tears of compassion to your eyes. Equal parts affection and terror fused together, love, and admittedly lust. No two women should love as you were beginning to understand you loved Erika, and yet she was such an abysmal individual you almost resented her as much as the love itself.
Least of all was her mask. The carved ivory molded so perfectly to her face, hardly needing a string to keep it in place. Bright eyes peeked out, always far more intelligent than you were ever prepared for, haunted and terrible where you wished they would be tender instead. What her body looked like beneath her appalling choice of men's fashion, one couldn’t know. Her hips flared, though only slightly noticeable from the tailor of her clothes. Her breasts seemed almost flat at times, though you knew them to be there. A roll of bandages, she'd tentatively admitted. Thus she could drop her voice, walk about Paris at certain nights appearing every bit a man as she desired.
"Anonymity is a privilege behind the privilege of masculinity. My dear, I have mastered both." she'd remarked one cold evening.
A ventriloquist, as you'd discovered soon after. And yet there was no true word for Erika's alarming ability to throw her voice around a room without so much as parting her lips. Her genius, her mystery and the occasional magnanimity she had shown you during the winter's captivity here only added to her strange charm. You'd been too brave, assuming she could withstand such an attempt, such an injury from the only person she had come close to trusting. You suffered her to exposure with the removal of her mask. And in turn you suffered her anger as Paris had never seen it.
"There." a voice said, coming from your left, tucked into the wallpaper like a centipede.
You turned, half expecting it to be a cruel trick, to find nothing but an empty doorway staring blankly instead. But there Erika stood, disheveled and glaring, still dressed in the clothes from yesterday night.
"… Angel." you spoke, voice betraying the smallest quiver of fear.
Though you tried to remain composed under her gaze, it was clear you offended her anew with hesitation, by the way you trembled across from her. Erika's eyes flickered, first in hurt, and then fresh rage as her lip curled in disgust.
"Come. You will dress, and then we will return you to your opera colleagues." she spat, hurling a simple pink dress at your stomach.
Return? Hope and humiliation warred low in your belly, fighting against the childish desire to cry, to break apart under her insensitivity. Mistreatment wasn't the correct word for her fit, rather resentment, petty frustrations nailed your heart like barbs.
"There is no reason to treat me with such inhospitality." you answered, clutching the fabric between trembling fingers, as fine as the rest of the garments Erika had ever provided.
"Inhospitality?"
Startled by the growl within her voice, you flinched, reminded once more of the way her terrible malformation had purpled with her anger, how the deformity had almost shrieked with its own fury. And yet it was not truly what you were afraid of in this moment.
"I have fed you, clothed you, taught you, kept you! I have given everything a guest could desire, everything that any better woman would have thanked me ten times over for! And yet you are unsatisfied?" Erika sneered, roughly shoving aside a music stand as she stalked towards you. "Tell me plainly, dear, why you flinch away from me."
Every rumor of the phantom spun slowly in your mind, the terrible tales of the malicious opera ghost that taxed its owners twenty thousand francs a month, left ballet girls trembling with the crack of a stage prop, a man injured by a falling beam after jeering up at the rafters. There was no doubt that Erika's anger had terrible consequences. But the worst of all was knowing how split her personality was, how remorse and guilt would follow soon after.
"Erika, please-" you tried, to no avail.
"Erika now? What happened to your angel of music?" Erika taunted, drawing closer. "It is my deformity, I know it! You fear me as the rest, despise me as the rest! You see the angel fallen and you flinch away from my every word!"
"Stop shouting!"
Your yelp seemed only to inspire more disgust, a blur of grey-black hair the final fragment of her figure before she slammed the door shut to her study. You waited for the infernal blare of the organ, perhaps the shrill wail of a violin, but were met only with silence. There would be no more explanation, no more requests to be made. Breakfast sat like a rock in your stomach as you changed in my chambers, the intricacy of the silk feeling only too rich.
Beautiful pink, perhaps even a pastel orange glowed with the complexion of your skin. To love a beast, was that what this was? To stand in a room she'd decorated for you, cleaned for you, altered for you, and to be afraid regardless? The days in her imprisonment had passed, had bled together until you felt compelled to call this place your home. But to return to Paris? To live with the other ballet brats and dance until your feet ached? To endure such a change was not one you felt incapable of, but to do it now? Without your angel of music and the soft tremble of the woman behind the mask?
Hands pale as the mask she had carved with them, tender and so timid when they rested on your back, bearing the pressure intended to flare your ribs, to engage your diaphragm and sing, sing, with the beauty of a lark fully consumed in the song of spring. What was the Paris opera without her touch? Without Erika's promise of comfort, of guidance and tutelage?
Feet moved forward, toes covered in soft moccasins padding out into the living room with new purpose. No world would be the same without Erika's touch on it, without the minuscule imprints of her fingers in the clay of creation.
"You're ready." she stated, voice stopping you in your tracks.
Cloak in place, short hair combed back into a sleek coil stood Erika, your guardian, cape pulled tight around her shoulders, lantern in hand.
"We leave now."
The dim light of Erika's underground lake house glowed ominously as she led you towards the door, the last object to greet you remaining a monkey marionette, still in pieces, still remaining to be finished.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Wind chilled your neck as you moved through the quiet streets of Paris. The changes at the opera house were too fast to understand, the new ownership of the building, the proposal of Raoul, a childhood friend from Nice. And yet she haunted you, a smell of jasmine and sage hanging close to your dressing room mirror. The call of the void, of the wild desires she'd instilled turned you to wandering aimlessly some nights, no chaperone or guardian to guide you, to watch closely after a young woman walking after dark.
Melody haunted you this night, the soft tune of the monkey's music box spinning itself in slow circles through your mind. Gentle steps pulled you closer towards the cemetery, your thin shoes too cold for the winter air. Six months without the whisper of Erika's voice in your dressing room, six months spent singing as the Primadonna of the Opera Populaire.
"There is no greater threat to femininity than solitude, my lady." a gentleman to your right warbled.
The ends of your hair raised at once, body stalling with the hypnotic resonance of his voice. Your arm raised without intention, looped firmly into the grasp of a leather glove. Feet moved to his rhythm, steps careful and soundless as your chaperone pressed forward to the opera house. Not a word was spoken, keys rattling with a dull 'ching' as you were let inside.
It was just in your bed, curled into the soft damask cocoon of your bed curtains did you recognize the individual. Not a single man alive could produce such a beautiful command, the subtle consonants rendering you hypnotized; compliant. Only one person alive had that power, and he was no man at all.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
The Opera Populaire glowed with Halloween festivities. Candles burned bright, music blared from quartets in every corner of the opera. A night of celebration, six months of peace without one threat from the phantom. The opera ghost had all but disappeared, leaving nothing but the present to worry after. And your present sang with potential.
"Ladies and gentlemen, ladies, gentlemen!" a short man wearing a bear mask persistently called, tapping a knife against crystal glass in increasing 'tings.'
You paused, letting your arms rest in the hands of your childhood friend, Rauol de Chagny, and current courtier for your affections.
"It is with great honor, and tremendous bliss that the Opera Populaire be unveiled in its pristine beauty for this momentous occasion, this wonderful display of…"
Amidst the ballroom decorated for the festivities hung several pristine chandeliers, gilded with gold leaf painstakingly applied across a ceiling mural painted in swatches of baby blue and ballet slipper pink, resembling a sky just beginning to turn with the sunset. Erika had once muttered about the integrity of the murals, driven by her resentment of the artist. Her primary complaint lay in the detail he used in painting clouds, "too floral to be real." You'd laughed then, amused that she would have even known a man. This was before you understood the true magnitude of her genius, before you had stood paralyzed like a moth in lamplight under the weight of a gaze so intense it shattered your soul into a few sole notes.
That was the night you'd sang under her tutelage, truly sang with the whole base of your being. It had frightened you to tears, collapsing at her feet in frightened sobs. To be consumed by your own voice, to press outward through your lungs until nothing else remained, that was what Erika demanded of you.
She'd soothed your exhausted mind with tales from her past, of the time she spent in a Persian prince’s home, sculpting and building a palace soon to be occupied by his entire harem. Each woman she described in jewel tones, one sapphire blue courtesan that sang and played the sitar. Another, emerald green, who danced and climbed aerial silks up, up, up, to the highest point on the vaulted ceiling, only do tumble down until she was suspended mere centimeters from the ground. Onyx, jasper, tourmaline and more. For each gem you named, Erika had a story of a woman from this distant place, of an enigma she'd witnessed while carving pillars of marble and limestone.
"This all really happened?" you whispered, staring up in dim candlelight at the ivory carved mask.
"Where do you think these carpets beneath your feet come from?" she'd answered, carefully tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear.
Perhaps it was the dimness of the room that brought on such musings, staring up at the dim ceiling and wondering quietly if Erika was staring down at you, watching through one of her many peepholes. Only your gaze caught a single note falling down, careening like a leaf through the night sky. It landed at your feet, deliberately gilded with the same gold leaf of the crown molding.
"… Raoul, wait!" you gasped, watching your suitor pick it up in modest curiosity.
He read it once, brow furrowing in confusion at the scribble of letters you recognized with merely a passing glance. Once, twice, you reached for it, catching it with a frustrated grunt. The back was blank, smooth parchment wrinkled by your consistent attempts to snatch it back from Raoul. Written in swooping scrawls, almost too even to be from a carpenter's hand lie a single message: Mon ange, don't look up.
It wasn't Erika's hand that prevented you the grief of seeing Petyr Ivol's body suspended from the ceiling with a single red noose. It was Raoul, valiantly shielding you against the screams of an entire ballroom, who dragged you out into the cold night air.
You'd kissed him then, whispered sweet promises of affection out of fear, valiantly fighting for a semblance of control. The Phantom of the Opera was the true master of your ensemble, of the cast and the show, of even the stagehands who had once tormented young ballet girls with tales of a monster hiding in the shadows. He had only whispered, only dared to face the truth in a caricature of a story, not lived to see such a monster.
But you who knew her, knew what lie deep in the bones of the catacombs remained trembling in your bed far longer than any of the others. The Phantom demanded his salary, a note tied to the body declared. Three days later, an opera appeared in a galleyway, stapled with the names of the owners of the Populaire. Don Juan Triumphant, it was titled. And you were to be its Primadonna.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Dark was the cape your scene partner wore, perfectly encompassing Paggicio's form. Scanning the opera boxes with slight trepidation, you wondered at what fresh horror would befall the performance, what wrath the phantom had planned for the night. Only the bright stage lights burned back at you, audience waiting with bated breath for this next scene.
"… Past the point of no return…" the voice began again, silky and tempting as the choreography displayed, feet moving like water over the stage. "Our games of make believe are at an end."
Your breath caught in your lungs, as stiff as the rest of your body on the bench. Shivers of delight, of passion came with his voice. Note and vowel spun together like silk, inflected across your spine with subtle twinge of tamber and inflection. A beautiful performance, clouding your mind like spider's silk. Brief fear slid slick like an eel down your spine, the prop goblet in your hand trembling slightly as you mimed drinking. Stage nerves, you assumed
"Past the point of 'if', or 'when'…" your scene partner continued, "No use resisting! Abandon thought and let the dream desceeeeeend…."
Graceful and smooth was your choreography, far more defined and fluid than rehearsals. Even Paggicio's grip on your wrist was firm, controlled with enough leeway for you to skip through your spins to the practiced perch at the bench. Still something felt wrong about Paggicio's pronunciation, some thin accent the man had never sung with, hardly an Italian dialect. The audience didn't favor doubt, too many eyes to be so concerned with nothing but Erika's opera.
"Past the point of no return, the final threshold;" he continued, hand sliding up your corseted sides, "What warm unspoken secrets will we learn?"
Too firm were the strokes, too desiring against your hands. Clutching firmly at your hand, raising it up to your bodice… Paggicio didn't smell of oil, of handmade soap and vanilla bean extract. Animal terror welled slowly, burning at your gut as a hand certainly familiar to you drew closer and closer to your covered breast.
"Beyond the point of no return?" the voice continued, the smallest hint of vibrato betraying a mastery Paggicio had never possessed.
No man sung like that, with the sinful depth of a baritone, with the high grace of head voice unbetrayed by the twinge of falsetto. It wasn't natural, how comfortable this covered singer was in the alto range, how rich the notes were compared to Paggicio's high vibrato, the notes he had resolutely declared as 'beyond his range, or did the composer intend him to go mute?'
Dark stage filled your sight as you dashed away, spinning under the stage lights to face the masked man. But he was no man, none at all. This had been a trap from the start.
"You have brought me to that moment where words run dry, to that moment where speech disappears into silence… Silence…" you sang, the insidious duality of the lyrics slowly dawning on you as you stared across from the very writer of them.
Sitting neatly on the bench, surely watching beneath the black hood was a figure too slight to ever be mistaken for Paggicio, he was too fat! The comments about his weight, the Phantom's cruel insinuation that he ate too many pastries, consumed too much wine… How much planning, how much work had Erika gone through to ensure this very moment, a place where she could court you, envelop you in her presence where no exits lay?
"In my mind I've already imagined our bodies entwining, defenseless, and silent," you sang, choreography and adrenaline keeping the performer alive in you, watching over Erika's shoulder at the audience watching, "And now I am here with you, no second thoughts, I've decided… Decided…"
What composure Erika had rattled slid neatly back into place. The refrain slid slowly over your lips, each word pronounced with the kind of accuracy the angel of music had toiled over you for months. A performance, is that what the angel of darkness wished? She would have it, most certainly.
"Past all thoughts of 'right' or 'wrong', one final question…" you sang, watching as your scene partner seemed to tremble with joy beneath the black robe, "How long should we to wait, before we're one?"
Sliding her hands up her body, you watched with fascination as they visibly trembled, Erika's hands clammy with nerves as you grasped them in yours.
"When will the blood began to race? The sleeping bud burst into bloom, when will the flames at last consume us?" you sung, pressing yourself far closer to her than you'd ever dared with Paggicio.
The trembles you felt, the breath hot and heavy beneath the cloth growled with rage as you released her, breaking from the choreography as she dragged you across the stage, digging hard into the flesh of your arms.
"The bridge is crossed so stand and watch it burn!" she howled, voice carrying above yours and filling the auditorium with her fury.
"We've passed the point of no return-"
One motion, the cloth flung over her shoulders was all it took to reveal her to the world. Porcelain pressed into her cheek, peppered hair wet with perspiration as it clung to her unobscured forehead. Not one of you moved, both lacking the courage to step close, to shatter the astonished reverie of the audience.
She, clad in trousers and a shirt stained with sweat, she stared down at you, panting beneath stage lights designed for illumination, not comfort. Vulnerable, exposed, the legend and torment of an entire opera troop staring blankly at you beneath the gentry of Paris.
"Mon ange…" she whispered, drawing close to you, hands extending up to ribs she had only clasped a few moments earlier.
To touch you, to fondle you in front of an entire audience in a choreography so grotesquely obscene, to sing in sprawling double entendres of the passion she felt burning through her soul, to have your voice echo twin desires in lyrics written for her own gain… Your foot slid harshly against blackened hardwood, searching for purchase in heels too high for true balance, stage shoes she'd certainly picked.
"No…" you whispered, shaking your head once.
"Sing with me, the rest of the opera," she answered, searching for your elbow, "They don't know it isn't meant to be this way, the orchestra will play if you sing."
"I won't, I can't."
"Yes, yes, sing the next lyric, sing it for me, sing."
"No, I won't, you can't make me!"
"Sing! Sing!" she growled, pressing down into a register that resembled a lion's roar.
"No, no, NO!"
Harder she grabbed for you, harder you pulled, trying desperately to make it to the edge of the stage where Raoul stood in shock, where police remained standing should you cry out for help should you-
"Release me!"
One pull of ivory. That's all it took to shove the mask off, to reveal the true terror of your soul to the world. One trapdoor. That's all it took for her to haul you downward, pressing you through handmade tunnels, through stone lit only by Erika's memory.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
"How was I supposed to love you from the sidelines?" she gasped, eyes wet and wide , devoid of the covering of her mask, "Like a spectator? Viewing the show of my creation with circus peanuts?" she spat, veins bulging from her temples.
The white dress of your costume felt all too restricting, cutting off the vital flow of oxygen through your lungs. You couldn't breathe, could barely speak as Erika paced like a woman possessed; a victim of her own immovable ambition. More terrifying than her deformity laid bare, more terrifying than the striations of purple and red splattered like wine across her face was the wolfish look in her eye. A hunger for blood, a lust for revenge, a lust for all life had denied her.
"You have harmed innocent people, you took the lives of innocent-"
"Do not speak to me of innocence!"
Both of her hands outstretched, grasping firmly at the meat of your arms. Your yelp of pain only seemed to antagonize her further, a snarl of pearl white teeth all you could see from the corner of your eyes.
"I do not hurt you, don't be so pathetic. You are a singer, not a ballet girl! I know what I've made, I know how strong I have made you!"
"You're scaring me!" you gasped, stumbling down the dim sewers towards the swaying gondola.
"Ha!" she shrieked, laughing like a harpy as you trembled in her grasp. "You would claim such a terror!"
The gondola was as unstable and jagged beneath Erika's furious hands, rocking to and fro like a see saw. Your captor only seemed to press forward with every successive paddle, gliding through the labyrinth of interlocking tunnels with more ardor than your first journey. Not a word was spoken, rather only the sounds of water rushing through the canal and Erika's own furious breathing stirring your imagination.
The phantom's abode sprung out of the underground lake like the gates of old Valhalla, unearthly and opaque in the lantern light. Each wooden board of the dock seemed to be made of the fog surrounding it, your feet sinking down grotesquely as you stumbled forward under Erika's murderous gaze.
"Ah, see how beautiful your prison is? How radiant it is this night?" Erika sneered, tying off the boat with maniacal glee, "It sings to its mistress, it yearns for her virginal embrace!"
Each step seemed to draw you closer and closer to collapse, trembling hands clawing at a nearby pole for support. You were dizzy with fear, uncertainty and terror, too afraid to gaze at the house you had once considered a home, too ashamed to look back at the woman who had built it. Erika had always been beautiful to you, lamplight had crafted an ethereal beauty that shone in the hollows of her cheekbones, the concave of her eyebrows. Lips you'd wished after, traced in your imagination puckered thoughtfully when she worked. But even the deformity, of which you knew it to be, could not fully puncture her beauty. White hair sprouting from her pale temple blended beautifully into the purple, blue eye just as vibrant as its twin set in perfect porcelain.
What terrified you now could never be her face, it would never be something so shallow as her body. The soul that lay beneath it haunted you more, the beauty you found in her tender care with you polluted like the deformity of her face, brackish and diseased with wrath.
"Oh, does my bride dwaddle at my door?" she crooned, boards creaking beneath her feet. "Ah! She waits but for her groom to carry her over the mantle!"
One glance at her expression and you would know for certain that this was all another game to the angel of darkness, a sarcastic farce at what would never be a true ritual of love. And yet you crumpled into her arms the moment they slid under your legs, grateful for the alarming strength of your captor. The dizziness you felt upon disembarking was still substantial enough that you worried of fainting, resting your feverish cheek against her shoulder. She smelled of tobacco.
CReeeaaAAAkkkKK
The groan of the door had it's own musicality, sending an ominous shiver down your spine. Spectral wind rushed through the cabin as you entered, glue and sulfur rushing in to pucker your nose. Electric light whizzed to life at the touch of a switch, warm incandescent light filling the room you already knew by heart. She dropped you to the floor, a pool of white silk and satin floating to her carpeted floor.
"There. You are home, wife." she spat, jab more hollow than venomous.
Moving around the room with slowing momentum, you watched from the corner of your eye as she arranged various papers and dishes with unnatural calmness. Fresh despair sang in your blood, re-igniting every ember of loathing you'd suppressed for this trickster, this two-faced harbinger of enmity and passion.
"Are you satisfied with yourself? Every life ended, every drop of blood spilt, has it all amounted to your desired outcome?"
Her hands slowed their arranging of papers, puckered flesh turning in the yellow light to glare at you head on.
"My appetites for blood, for violence, as you are so inclined to remind me of, are of the same nature as this deformity you hate so!"
With a wail of rage she sprung forward, grasping at your shoulders as the right side of her face bore down on you in all of its ghastly disfigurement.
"See it! Revel in it's corpulent hideousness!"
Red and purple puckers, the way her face twisted in one motion with each of her words blurred with each of her words, swimming in a sea of vermouth and indigo as tears welled in your eyes.
"I'm no longer afraid of your face. It is the twin distortion of your soul that holds the horror I feel so deeply now." you whispered, hands trembling in your lap.
The floor sagged towards you as you were released, despondent sobs dry and noiseless as you clung to the bear rug beneath your hands. To be trapped here with the Erika of eighteen months ago would have been a blessing. Nights spent with her songs, learning how to make pasta as she had done in Venice some years before, perhaps reinvent the kaleidoscope as she was attempting to do, throw your voice with the same perfect accuracy as she was capable of. Blood stained it all now, cherry blossoms dried and withered, springtime faded into a terrible, dry autumn.
"… You believe I would ever hurt you?" she murmured, a twin sob complimenting your own.
Shuffling hands reached out towards your own, grasping uselessly at fingers cold with hate.
"My love, my angel of music, please, I beg you-"
"Release me!" you screamed, twisting away from her from beds of satin. "You liar! You falsifier! I believed you, I believed you!"
"Believed what? My love? My devotion, was that never clear enough for you? I will burn down all of Paris if I must-"
"I wanted you!" sobbed your own anger, hands pulling and hitting at hers as she grasped repeatedly.
"Then you shall have me, body and soul…"
"Before I knew what you were."
Haggard eyes blinked unbelievingly across from you.
"A murderer. A deceiver. A false angel."
Anger, despair, terror and more complex emotions swam over her stuttering face. Ennui would be next, the worst of her moods, the most dangerous. A twin change was happening in your own soul, resentment and hatred condensing into a cesspit of slow-burning wrath.
"… I see I have corrupted you." she whispered, lower lip trembling just slightly, "… An angel of the dark cannot create another angel, I've ruined what was unsoiled. I see it now."
The bones of her knees cracked as she rose, stacking one limb atop the other until she towered over you, watching with expressionless intensity. You stared up at her, hands fisted in a white wedding gown.
"You've ruined me, is that your judgment?" you whispered, trembling at her feet. "Like a failed song, a melody too temperamental for your penmanship? Too wild?"
Erika's face spasmed once, tears brimming in her eyes for all too brief a moment.
"Go pity someone else. It's too late to lament what is already done." she turned, spinning on her heel and leaving to haunt her office.
The torches of Paris burned bright that night, police inspectors wading through the catacombs, voices loud and raucous as they searched for the Phantom, the murderer and fiend responsible for the misery of the public. You sat until dawn, cold metal around your finger warming with every immobile minute spent staring in the direction of her office. Only exhaustion claimed you, leaving you slumped against a tattered Persian rug.
‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹
Soft cotton cocooned every inch of your body. Dark damask curtains framed the bed, a nearby candle burning low. Not a fiber in your body ached for anything but more rest, a lifetime you could spend here, curled in a bed you cared not to decipher.
The wedding dress was gone, only a thin chemise remained. Your hair was undone of the headdress of the performance, your hair loose and wild against silk pillows. The phantom's work, surely. Done in your sleep, done without the barest twitch of your body. To be so defenseless, trusting in her grasp was injury in itself. But to be touched, toyed with, manipulated… Recoiling inward, turning from the light you hid. A body met yours, flinching immediately at your touch. Dark, salt and pepper hair splayed wildly against a pillow, a men's nightshirt covering her back.
She did not speak, assuming your movement to be involuntary, sleepy and innocent. Not a word left your mouth, eyes shutting immediately to avoid detection. So you wished, silently and as hard as you could, that this was a dream. That you'd wake in your dormitory in Paris, Meg Giry asleep beside you in a twin bed identical to yours. That this year had never gone by, that your world existed only as a ritual of dancing, soft singing in front of your mirror. No angels, no phantoms, no music besides your own.
But as you drifted back to sleep, curled into the warmth created by two bodies, a soft voice whispered quietly beside you, singing the slightest lullaby. A world without Erika's music was no world at all, none that you wanted anyhow. So when she sung a bit louder, voice sweet as candied almonds and resonant like an organ's echo, you prayed again. Not for the impossible, the constant passage of time to be unwound like string in your feeble hands, but for courage. Courage to love, to bear the strangeness of your companion, to show outwardly what you knew to be the balm to your torment.
One hand slid forwards, across the space between two bodies in a modest double bed. Ribs fluttered under your hand like a startled bird, her entire body seizing in shock.
"… Wife." she whispered, voice raspy and breathless.
"Yes?" you answered, heart thumping in your chest as you moved closer, carefully pressing close to your angel of music.
A small surge of desire burned through you, the same twinge of fire that had ignited when you'd performed hours earlier with her in front of all of Paris. No barriers existed now, no games to be played. Still you felt flushed with hesitation, the darkness of the room no true barrier between the two of you.
"Angel?" you found yourself whispering, fingers inching closer to that face on the pillow.
"I am no angel." Erika choked out, both of her hands fisted firmly into the sheets.
Her breath was hot as you leaned in, hovering above her prone form. You dared not touch her face first, rather placing both hands gently on her shoulder before your right inched up, cupping one smooth cheek.
"Will you let me go if I wish?" you asked softly, carefully stroking at her face with your thumb.
"… I know no world without you."
A single tear slid down against your thumb, wet and warm with emotion.
"But if I wished?"
Two noses brushed in the dark, the phantom's laborious breaths the only sound you heard in that dark room. She trembled with every breath, hands still fastened firmly at her sides, too afraid to touch, to consume with the true intensity of her restrained desires.
"I cannot keep you to myself," she sobbed, "No more than a man can keep the morning dew that graces green fields."
Blooming softly in your heart, with the same slow assurance it had first begun, you felt surely that you must love Erika. Desire, disgust, fear and loathing had burned too hot, too fast through your experiences. Not one clung solidly, none except the tender affections you'd felt at the first whispered song spoken so many months ago at your boudoir.
"But you're no man." came your reply, more tenderly spoken than the rest.
Erika moaned in relief as you spoke, hands finally grasping firmly at your waist, feverishly stroking over the thin chemise she'd left untouched.
"Angel, mon ange-"
The calloused hands that you'd seen work so firmly at chores, grasp with hideous strength at the levers of her inventions could not have been more feather-light, more delicate. She touched like she was learning how to cradle water, tracing the curve of your shoulders, your spine, finally cupping the back of your skull in perfect devotion.
The pads of your fingers stroked carefully at her unmarred face, cheekbones, eyebrows, even teasing the sharp curve of her jaw up into her ear. She shivered when you leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to one wet cheek, yelping when you cradled the left side of her neck.
"Don't fear me, let me see you." you whispered between kisses, tracing the curve of her nose down, veering to the left side by a hair.
She gripped at your hips, firm and defensive, bracing herself to throw, to turn, to prevent the touch of your lips against her deformity. There was nothing you could do or say to prepare her for that invasion, to so senselessly adore the one thing she could only despise. So you did the next senseless thing you could imagine; you kissed her.
Every fiber of tension in Erika's body went lax, tensed again, and then melted entirely, mouth bowing slowly, pressed against yours. She did not flinch away as you cupped both sides of her face, too overwhelmed by your sweet kisses, peppered slow and gently against her mouth. Only when you tried to pull away did she make a sound, whimpering softly like a deserted kitten.
"Shh, shh." you soothed, stroking a hand through peppery hair.
Her mouth bobbed, quivering as she fought for air, for words, for strength. The second kiss she reciprocated, moving her lips ever so carefully against yours. The stutter of her ribcage beneath your hands, the way with which she moved her lips so carefully, like arranging the pieces of some impossible puzzle to fit, it filled your heart with warmth.
