#levicomte

@le-vicomte​ || urls and feelings

❝ You know the AVENGERS, don’t you? ❞ 

“Oh, Raoul...”

She spoke in little more than a whisper, and the murmuring of his name carried every last bit of pain in her heart. Christine’s hand rested only briefly on his before falling away. 

“I know that you think I ought to hate him, but don’t you understand that I cannot?”

How she had tried to hate Erik; would it not make fleeing the opera and his reach so much easier? She had seen the worst in her once-Angel, had seen the dark, the wretched, the cruel, the terrifying. But she had also seen his pain, his loneliness, his self-loathing, and it made it impossible for her to loathe him as well. Her heart---sometimes it felt as if her very soul---was torn between fearing the monster he could be and pitying the man she knew he was.

But Raoul had not seen that side of Erik; Christine wondered if it would make a difference if he had. If he had seen the way Erik had crawled before her and wept and kissed the hem of her skirts, would he hate him still? Or would he be moved to understand the conflict she in which she was locked?

Christine turned away, feeling a dull ache in her chest that felt like the urge to weep although her eyes stayed clear of tears. She wondered briefly if she even could weep anymore, or if she had cried out every last tear in her body.