#phantom phanfic

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35985625/chapters/89707783

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35985625/chapters/92010460

I did an update. A brisk 15 pages!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35985625/chapters/89956555

(I might start just doing actual sentences after this, we’ll see :) (me doing burns on my own near-age demographic except that I maintain it is distracting in a play about The Youth)

“You were not focused on--Romeo and Juliet,” said Erik, who must be looking at the balcony scene, which she had found prettily staged and simple enough to draw from memory. The performers had not moved much in it.

“No,” she said and took a drink. “...for one thing, I know what happens.”

She heard an odd, amused noise in response to this.

“For another,” she said. “Everyone was forty years old.”

“They have to be forty years old.”

“No, they do not! Why!”

“Almost no one under that age has the necessary vocal training. There is such a thing as suspension of disbelief.”

“I was unable to suspend my disbelief.”

“Did you try?”

“Not so hard.”

“Which one was it?”

“I am not sure what you mean.”

“There are four adaptations in opera form. That I am aware of. At this time.”

...how do you keep track of this, she wondered.

“I can think of no way to recall which one we saw.”

“You cannot remember the name of the composer? Nor did you keep the programme.”

“No, why would I? I did not care for it.”

Erik sighed and closed the sketchbook. This was apparently now a project.

“Did they die at the end,” he began patiently.

“What? Yes.”

“Then it was not Benda--”

“There is one where they don’t die?!”

“Yes, in accordance with the tradition of the time in which it was composed.”

“What time was that?”

“A dark time. Was--were their names in the title or was it Capuleti e-”

“It was their names.”

“So it was not Bellini, it was either Zingarelli or Vaccai.”

“How can you know all this?!”

“As you have often reminded me that I have apparently said...I’m different.”

Luciana, who was at that precise moment tilting the glass to take drink, laughed, narrowly avoided getting wine up her nose and could not avoid a coughing fit.

“You did that purposely and it is rude,” she managed.

Erik had risen, fetched a glass of water, set it in front of her, and returned to his place at the far end of the table before she had regained control of all her faculties.

“Rude,” she said again.

“I cannot imagine what you are speaking of.”

“...was there a bee anywhere near me,” asked Luciana. “Truly.” Sofia smiled again. To her credit, she was attempting to suppress a smirk.

“There may have been,” she said in a tone of exaggerated diplomacy.

“Sofia!”

“I was not close enough to determine conclusively that there was or was not a bee. He wanted to touch your hair either way, he succeeded in touching your hair, if not an--alleged bee it would have been something else, and do not ask me what is the meaning of touching your hair. We have swooned over the same silly passages in some very silly novels. I will say, for all your excitements about the attentions you believe paid to me--“

“I believe paid to you--when you know quite well that if you were in my same position--”

“Nobody has ever pretended there was a bee to touch my hair, Erik included, so--”

“And now you say there WAS no bee--”

“So--he is unwell, then--” Luciana did not wish to cry but did not think she had enough in her to prevent it “--and you only did not say so the other evening because you wished me to--enjoy the rest of the week, or some such thing--

“No,” said Erik, “I would not lie to you about your father.”

This was an interesting clarification that she could think about later.

“Is he well or not?”