Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The process of hand-finishing a piano is tedious work, of which many an expert would snub in favor of an en mass spraying technique that is far more expedient.

But he has never been one for the sub par solutions, particularly when it comes to the artistic nature of his craft.

Perhaps instrument refinishing isn't the most glorious profession, indeed a hard sell for someone like him, who would be astounding audiences with his talents and redefining a myriad of entities in their application were it not for specific circumstances well beyond controlling.

This is the niche he has settled into after years of adversity throughout his youth, and if it is the sole method of which he might inspire attention under the same context as his person, and not anonymously, then it is one he must adhere himself to with the precision and resilience of a specialist.

He cannot allow his thoughts, once he has reached a state of focus beyond the seeming dimension of physical being and the movements of his hands, to unravel their moorings and drift toward grandiose ambitions. Not when he has always belonged fettered to the realm of possibility.

Late nights spent in the after hours of the theater's operation amidst a location that attracts little attention, particularly on the evenings of shows when he can file through the hallways and down the steps without more than the rare interloper as witness, have passed with only the scraping of sandpaper and the steady strokes of the gloss he's now applying, alternated in the finishing process for several rotations of swapping tools and intermittently stalking about the room to stretch his tight and rigid muscles.

This won't be the end of the process. Once the surface is so polished that one's reflection can be glimpsed in its lustre, the tint of its shade just right, he will successively proceed to tune and repair the compounded defections before the piano is worthy of gilded practice rooms, rather than the abandoned vaults of the building's basement that attract only cobwebs and abide by an annual staff's inspection.

He lifts his wrist to wipe away the sheen of perspiration at his chin, debating the next phase of the project.

The interruption of footsteps truncates all concentration, his thoughts clambering to an abrupt halt.

So long as they aren't necessitated within any short span of time, this establishment has always contacted him for repairs. They know of the perfectionist streak he carries, the stubbornness upon which he won't relent, the peculiar hours he keeps to and the solitude he requires if it is quality they entail. He prides himself on the artistic temperament he maintains in all areas, including what amounts to a technical pursuit.

Therefore it is beyond rankling, beyond incensing, that they have allowed someone to interfere with conditions he has come to expect.

He conspires to whirl around and catch this officious soul in the act of almost disrupting him, when the rapid trod of sneakers scuffs the doorway and a soft breath does him in. They're already halfway across the room, and he's lost the shot before deciding on its prudence.

A woman's voice interrupts the burgeoning obscenities poised at the cusp of his exclamation. She's noticed the angular frame stooped aside, stripped to his waistcoat, facing opposite the line of her vision. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know anyone was in here! I just needed to, uhm—I forgot that I left my libretto in here. In this room."

He's careful to remain where he is, in the shadows that secret perilous intricacies, taut bones and tangled, roping veins that combine to complete a most unnerving picture. He longs to pull down his shirtsleeves.

"It's fine," he supplies at last, with the apprehensive sensation that something crucial has been forfeited.

"I really didn't know anyone came here." Every syllable sounds uneasy, and he can't say that he blames her for it.

Exempting, necessarily, how blatantly obvious it is that she hasn't considered the dangers of wandering alone in a dark basement late at night. Pitiably naive, that.

His query rises gingerly from the expansive penumbra of his shoulder-line."What libretto has made itself so very forgettable?"

"Tristan und Isolde. A classic, but it's alright. The German is enough to keep any performer on their toes"

He scoffs, well in time. "If one is unused to singing in German."

"Mm, yeah. It's pretty melodramatic, too. Forbidden love, and all."

He tries not to let the passion seep too unabashedly into his retort. "It is an opera. They're supposed to involve those themes, or I daresay any work that masquerades as one would be a monumental disappointment to its peers and predecessors. The audiences that attend them seek dramaturgy in all its histrionic splendor, engendering the impression that modernized renditions are laughably inadequate in comparison. Wagner was a genius of compositions and libretto alike, and remains a testament to the former glory of his art."

"You're probably right."

The lack of enthusiasm in return for his effort gives him pause. "Is it a habit of yours, to frequent the bowels of theaters at ungodly hours?" He attempts not to sound as mocking as all that.

Part of him is at least moderately curious as to why she has so far strayed from the comfort of nearby others, to pass words with a beast in the dungeons: or in a more common denotation, a disgruntled instrument factotum.

He hears what he imagines to be her moving towards the outdated bureau at the far end of the room, the zipper of a bag and the shuffle of papers.

"Yes, well...It won't be any longer." she announces, with clandestine effect.

Auspiciously, it wouldn't be.

"Uh, thanks for understanding!" she interjects upon his ruminations. "Have a good evening."

White-toed high tops and striped socks flit across his periphery, followed by the rustling fabric of a skirt, and just as swiftly the spritely apparition has absconded.

Again immersing himself in the work at hand after the distraction does not take but a moment altogether, although he's humming the prelude of the aforementioned composition, and he thinks it's been at least twenty minutes before a voice startles him out of it, followed by the thwack of his head against the underside of the keyboard's edge.

Pain resonates in the spot, and he backs up on his heels stinging, the bench of the piano scraping against concrete.

"Oh my god. I'm so, so sorry. Are you okay?" The same intruder as before, emitting modulations of apparent and genuine concern.

"Fine. Bloody fantastic. What is it you now require?" he demands gruffly, rubbing at his skull.

"I-I left my purse, I'm so—" an audibly shaky, wavering curtail of voice that melts the bitterness lodged in his chest, leaving the pound of anxiety in its place—"Are you bleeding? You hit your head. Hard."

She steps closer.

Damn her; damn the meddlesome parties that think it their charitable duty to intercede, and only end up pitching themselves disastrously towards a Pandora's box of complications that never fail to upset the most consistent of standards!

"Please, don't concern yourself...Your bag is over there, you'd better fetch it and leave." His voice crackles, a hissed breath that seems to weave through shards of serrated glass.

"But this was my fault!" she sounds exasperated. "Let me help you."

"I would sincerely prefer not to receive aid, thank you."

The wound, if there is any, will be found under his wig. An ichorous seepage of heat does seem to trickle faintly against his scalp, but it is nothing alarming in any case, and cannot be enough to warrant the intervention threatening to shatter his dignity.

It would require a devastating amount of exposure to attend, and inevitably lead to other discoveries.

An indecorous groan. "Hej, you don't have to be this rude. Just let me see—"

When he's so convicted of registering the hand she moves towards his tense, unyielding shoulder that he can feel its warmth through his sleeve, he shoots to his feet, a thin spire tall and aloft. They stand frozen as statues rooted to their respected positions. His eyes blink open, hers are already latched to his face.

"Oh."

He has witnessed this reaction before.

Seen for himself a hundred times over how others are spellbound by the silk chords of his timbre, lulled by its golden threads into false complacency corrupted with an edge of the uncanny, then stunned to silence when they catch sight of him; an atrous specter, comprised all of awkward angles and juxtaposed realities.

She is lovely.

Spiraling chocolate rivulets frame the oval of her face, rendering her something reminiscent of an old-time portrait. Sharp eyebrows, peach skin peppered with the smallest specks, florid-hued cheeks that have gone ashen since he's turned around; full lips set in a near-pout, and the most dazzling, dark pair of eyes he's ever seen.

In another life, he might have flirted with her—might have been bold enough to respond with his witty arsenal of repertoire, if he were younger and generally pleasant and on the opposite spectrum of the erroneous.

But he is much too old, and gawkish and has been abhorrently uncouth thus far, and her eyes widened immediately when she caught sight of the mask.

Really, she shouldn't be expected to help it—the way her mouth tugs at a grimace and she tries to conceal it all beneath a veneer of affability. His discernment can penetrate through this sheer and filmy gauze with ease. He cannot help but admire how she employs it, with grace that is nearly seamless.

How manifestly obvious it is that her composure only extends so far as the creases of her smile: one that is clearly false, at that—false as the prosthetic plastered against his face and all the unruly contours that finagle themselves beneath it, evidenced in awkward ridges and raised skin and cavernous recesses that cause the covering to droop with the twitch at his cheek which is nigh inscrutable.

No matter how full and encompassing the respective integument is, it can never be enough.

Nausea turns his stomach and his mouth goes dry, leaden tongue hovering at the roof of it as he tries to form a coherent response to what has gone so far unspoken. Every beat that passes makes it that much harder to vocalize a single intonation.

Her lilt—clearly foreign—shatters the empty air instead. "Oh! I forgot to introduce myself."

Forgetful one, isn't she?

She tells him her name, and it's like the Red Sea has parted, the voice of a divine phenomena bequeathing to him his long-awaited deliverance.

She extends a hand with an extremely minute give of hesitation just before it is offered his way.

He beholds the gesture while detached from the cue at present. The air is alive with their breaths and nothing more for a time that feels much longer than it is.

As the mechanisms of his mind turn at last, creaking their rusted gears into motion, he recalls himself and turns over his shoulder, raises his hands with the palms spread wide for her to see the sap-like residue that coats the blue latex gloves and seeps into the eddies between his fingers, containing unsightly digits that look like hoary ash underneath, just like the rest of him.

Her gaze oscillates from them to the mold affixed to his face, to his eyes, and back again. It is dizzying to keep up with their movements, futilty to try.

Comprehension, blessedly, dawns. "Right. Well, it's a wonder to meet you…" Her eyebrows furrow, forming endearing crinkles at her forehead. "What did you say your name was?"

He hasn't told her his name.

Lips part as he meets her expectant stare even though he towers above her, a beacon radiating insecurity, stymied by social gestures that he's witnessed but experienced himself only a handful of times, never quite like this.

This is something altogether more extraordinary.

He can't help but sense that his world has shifted on its foundations when the name slips through his lips, startlingly unimpeded.

Her head tilts aside, and she looks at him like it's easier than it was before. "Erik. Do you attend the theater often?"

"Only to enhance inoperative pianos," he replies, "...and receive grave injuries."

Oh, her laugh is something utterly intoxicating, short-lived as it is, which is sufficient for a twist of pleasure to wind up in his core tight as a spool when it surprises him. His very insides are liquefied; his entrails and possibly his vital organs muddled to mush by its beguiling chime. The state of his internal health is of microscopic concern when all he wants is to hear it again.

"No," he confesses, prodding the edge of one glove, "no, I haven't been a patron of the theater for quite some time. But the word of the night crews and late-night stragglers have it that the current production is less than superb, as they've been patternly in recent years. I am apparently not missing a great deal."

The lines of her face come alive, as though she's apprising every visible inch of him, and his stomach drops farther with the pert lift of her jaw, one hand finding the curves of her hips. "Is it a habit of yours to believe everything you hear?"

He swallows, throat bobbing against pallid sinew. "When it is lucrative, or when it makes little difference if one teeters off the brink they're set upon. I haven't discovered for myself anything otherwise, so it is by all accounts merely an observation." His voice is rough at the edges, increasingly out of breath: how exhausting it is to play at palaver when one is unused to talking extensively!

The set of her narrowed stare is maddening.

"I'm a part of the current production, you know," she elaborates. "It's not good for artistic rapport to hear unfounded negativity."

Tristan und Isolde. He should have known, and saved himself the remorse now flooding his veins.

"My apologies."

He wonders if she observes the hands hanging at his sides; wringing fingers with static to vent the tension that coils his wiry frame and threatens to spark forth, stemming from his hands like an outlet.

"If you're interested in developing your own opinion, you should see one of the performances," she says. Her lip raises conspiratorially, and he notes her gnawing at it. Nervously, perhaps? "There are three this week. I could even get you tickets."

The skepticism must somehow show on his face, the chin that meets his chest and the stiffness that has replaced the fluid dexterity of his former focus.

"Oh, for the love of-" the impatient note in her tone ceases, as she comes alight with an improved understanding, superseding irritation as easily as if she's donned a new mask of her own. Her delicate fingers sew themselves together. "I would be happy to get them for you. God knows you need to see reason, and that means it's the least thing I could do. For your head."

"Ah." His eyes flit about her diminutive form. He can predictably refuse, as he should. She doesn't owe him this (he would have hit his head eventually anyways, or so he tells himself) and it can hardly help the potential throbbing of it to listen to an opera subsiding just above the tier of an amateur one. He could get tickets himself if he wanted.

How doesn't the proposition sound weak to her ears?

He muses over whether this really matters to her in any case.

"Will you be here? Tomorrow night, I could bring them then. I just have to talk to the stage manager, but there's no worries there. I'm the only cast member that hasn't invited any family to—"

"You're insisting." His lips purse tight, a mannerism that crosses his mien whenever he's been undermined.

"I am."

He huffs his relent, pointing a spindly forefinger to his halted work on the instrument. "Presuming that I am not hospitalized, I will be finishing this piano by Thursday."

"Great." She smiles, and if he doubted his attraction to the enticements of before, he can no longer deny the hold it has over him now.

Dread eclipses anticipation, to know as she backs away (offering a 'see you soon!' of all absurd utterances) that everything has changed within the span of moments; that it conceivably always could have and it's waited until now, only for him to witness the alteration helplessly through a crystal clear lens, stark and unequivocal.

He never thought to ask what part of the ensemble she plays, or discuss the vagaries of the plot, the music which he knows by heart, and the libretto that was so imperative for her to retrieve that she interrupted a boorish stranger twice.

There's no telling what her level of talent or musicality might be, but the chance of finding out invokes hope in his chest, alate on wings long tethered to the ground by stale prospects.

Considering the mahogany grand waiting tucked away in this abandoned alcove that no longer seems so isolated, the nascent opportunity that just retreated down the hall and up the stairs, and the dichotomy of his emergence from the undertow, the welt on his head is reduced to nothing but an occupational hazard.

He stands in the door frame long after Christine Daaé is gone, left to burn the midnight oil on his own.

And just how lonely he's been has never seemed so resonant before.

Chapter Text

This is not dependence.

Dependence was the revolting grade of necessity he once possessed for his mother, that compelled him to sit at the bench by the uppermost window nearly every day of his childhood. He, careful to remain out of sight, would shoot glances to the sidewalk before the dingy facade of their townhouse in the hopes that she would arrive after all: that a part of her cared whether her son could aspire to any quality of life, with the meager offerings scattered throughout a bleak and ominous future.

But that need has long been driven away, as a nonessential component for his continued resignation.

Not a part of him actually depends on pacing here, around the corner from the fire exit, in what is truly a glorified alleyway. He is only clandestinely positioning himself precisely where he should be. There is no fear of others that cripples him like this; it cannot be to what he attributes his preference for the empty, unfrequented and even unfavorable locations that allow him freedom from the eyes of any onlooker which might discern more than what he wants them to see.

Here, where he will not be caught under the resumed lights in the auditorium when the cast bows commence (they have long passed now) and no one will catch a glance of him, not even by accident.

In these surroundings, he cannot help but anticipate a lasting solitude, until he makes sense of his thoughts, and has the prudence to gather his bearings and depart.

The back of the building rises in a high, overarching wall with little to no variation in its design, as though its architect thought it well and good to deceive the public with a grand edifice, where behind its doors and out the back there is little to nothing that can please the eye in the way of grandeur.

He has visited, in his travels, the classical opera houses planted like rare and precious stones across the landscape of Europe, with their towering domes and rising statues ascending to the sky, as beacons of artistry, testaments to a glorious past. And yet he has ended up here, in an inconsequential city with nothing but momentous tendrils of thoughts that remind him on occasion of the visions once dazzling his mind with their nascent genius.

Would that there could be an uncompromising explanation for the way he lingers late into the night, hopeful for a chance that cannot help but be elusive. Indeed, it is in his interest to avoid anything like that awkward and groundbreaking instance when their orbits first crossed.

But every reservation he'd possessed about having accepted her offer and allowed another to intrude upon his comfortable, isolated life had vanished the moment he picked out her voice.

His ear, ever attuned to the individual chords of each note that comprises a symphony, can focus solely the strings of a violin and hear their refrains alone, or hone in fixation to the each passing key of a performer's voice. For so long, music has comprised his being, its chords and bowstrings, refrains and melodies flood his veins, even now and ever since he can remember, with a resolute capacity for brilliant formations of his own.

A conduit for this restrained passion seems found at last, in Christine Daaé.

Therefore, this folly of an idea propels the quiet desperation that his pride beats against, as if an incarnation for the seraph in his head could possibly tether this unearthly feeling of cataclysmic attraction back to the ground where it belongs.

Maybe he is an old fool and the sanity which he requires for essential function has at last fled his miserable being for good.

He might very well have hit his head too hard, and is still in the bouts of recovery as a result, which he can only blame her for all the same.

Or, perhaps, an existential reversion to solitude has finally drained a part of him — which his pragmatism knows not — that still seeks carelessly beyond his limited scope.

He is debating which of these two are more likely, deciding on one and then recanting his choice, considering that both could coexist as symptoms of his plight when the door creaks open, and the very subject of his musings comes into view. The confirmation of her identity is made most evident by the mass of curls sprawling out like brush from a red beanie.

His stomach does flips at the sight of her, and the familiarity of the feeling causes him to grit his teeth.

Had fate ever been a tangible concept to his rational mind, he would have pronounced it entirely sound at this moment: for there is nothing else to determine his presence here despite the reticence which so compels him to flee. Even the objections he was just cognizant of point to the same conclusion: that he is helpless in its clutches, and will continue to be until this disaster pans out.

She descends two of the concrete steps, before looking up and doing a double take when she perceives the statuesque figure close by. Her eyes widen, his heart races. Her posture becomes defensive before she recognizes him. His struggle to find somewhere to avert themselves, and settle on sizing her up.

She wears a loose gray overcoat that cinches at her waist, a pair of jeans with manufactured tattering, and the white sneakers from the other night. Her scarf matches her hat, as does the flush in her cheeks, and the tip of her nose. The additional layers that bundle her from the cold are endearing, where his are unquestionably ominous.

He fathoms his blunder and pulls the neck climber shielding the lower half of his face, a force of habit, under his chin. "I didn't mean to frighten you," he attempts to assure her, all the while noting that this detail of his dress can only serve to aid her in recognizing him.

"Oh," she breathes, the warmth of it clashing against the frigid atmosphere in a puff of steam. He doesn't miss the way her dark eyes narrow just slightly. "Getting some air?"

He shrugs noncommittally. "I didn't know anyone would be back here. It is not the most welcoming of exits, is it?"

"No," she agrees. "But it's the only way to avoid the backstage activity after a show."

"Is it, now?" his responses are quick, and safe as far as conversation goes. Perhaps she will not notice he is horrible at it, nor the anxiety safeguarded behind his learned carefulness.

It is curious, that she should wish to hide away. A chorus member, he's found out, and yet how magnificent that voice of hers could be if she aspired higher! Then again, he still doesn't understand why she lingered in the basement that night, either. She exudes a subtle mystery, and the enigma of it is not a little tantalizing.

"This is the second time I have discovered you in an untoward location."

"I could say the same for you," she returns, somewhat impishly.

"Ah. But I was working the first time," he retorts, shifting the hard planes of his back against the building. "You cannot fault me for that."

Her lips twist together into a fine line, and the silence that panders around them is more unsettling to him than he lets on. "Did you enjoy the performance?" she asks after a few moments, and he notices in his periphery she is digging for something in her purse.

"For an amateur production, I was pleasantly surprised," he offers, most graciously he thinks.

She's pulled out her keys, not an alarm, or pepper spray. There remains the possibility that she has one of them clipped to her key-chain. Her discomfort is evident. He should flee before she believes she has another reason to find him unnerving. He cannot help but determine that her caution, while not unfounded, might apply specifically to someone like him.

"Since you know so much about opera, I'm going to take that as high praise," she emphasizes the last wryly, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"The highest I will offer." He sounds abhorrently arrogant, but his dark timbre softens when he adds, "unless we are talking about your voice."

She stops tapping her fingers against her leg, regarding him with newfound alertness. The octave of her tone pitches higher. "My voice?"

"I have a good ear, Miss Daaé. I can recognize talent, even when it's deceptively cloaked in mediocrity."

"Hej," she says, and this time he places her origins as Scandinavian with this automatic inflection. "You don't get to insult everyone I work with, something I'm a part of, and praise me as recompense. I just wanted you to enjoy something for what it is, you know?"

Where has he gone wrong? He complimented the production as best as he knew how, and there was nothing untrue in his phrasing. He's miffed, and finds his gaze drifting beyond Christine to the cars passing on the road ahead of them, with a twitch in his jaw.

"I should go." When her foot meets the pavement, his heart drops in his gut, and any sense of palpable indignation falters.

"Wait," he says, stepping forward and out of the shadows, decisively less protected than he's made himself around another person for some time. "I'm sorry. That was inconsiderate of me." She's paused, measuring him up with her eyes and he tries not to let it rankle his contrived air of social aptitude. "Will you allow me to walk you to your car?"

Her eyes peruse him with heavy suspicion, before her lips form an 'o' shape with the word "No," uttered softly.

He can only blink.

"No, but thank you for offering," she amends, turning over her shoulder to glance about him once more. "I'm fine though. Have a good night."

"Will you at least let me reimburse you for the tickets?"

She stops a second time, obviously annoyed. A breath lodges in his chest, loaded and biting against his sternum before she pivots again. "What? No. They were free. The only condition was that you'd take them at all."

"I didn't use one of them. That is unfair of me, isn't it? I've prevented a more optimistic and deserving viewer from a night of culture. You shouldn't even have to think about what a travesty that is."

He remembers the last time he saw her, when she returned during his delayed progress on the piano to make good on her promise. Why he had opened himself up to the chance of a second meeting now registers to him belatedly as poor judgement. She'd given him two tickets, joy upon joys, instead of the one.

You can bring someone, she'd said. As if he could possibly have anyone to attend an event with. Then again, Christine undoubtedly assumed well enough of everyone, and thus posed a stark opposite to his own cynicism.

This is only confirmed to him when she hesitates before bridging the gap of rain-slick pavement. The light at the end of the alley grants a sort of halo to the strands pouring out of her hat. She's closer than she's ever been, and still only rises to the level of his clavicle when matched to his height.

She bends her elbow and lifts her palm up. Out of stupidity, he briefly wonders if she means for him to take it, but luckily comes to his senses and pulls a leather-bound checkbook from the pocket of his overcoat instead. "How much?" His eyes dart cautiously up to hers.

"I got the cast discount, so about fifty-five. The second one was free."

He tries not to balk when he poses the tip of his ink pen to write the amount. Instead, he only raises a patrician brow. She went through all this trouble, for a stranger? When juxtaposed with her reception to him now, and his recent behavior, he cannot help but grimace.

He quickly slides the pen across the check, writing his name, surname, and the numbers 'fifty-five—' in spidery black handwriting. When he hands it to her, he inwardly recoils against the concept of granting this additional information to an outsider when it isn't necessary or even advantageous for him to do so.

When she accepts the check, he's careful not to touch her. Rolling back on his heels, he prepares to take his leave.

"You know," she says, (an echo of a former comment of hers that he now recognizes as a most particular quirk) "It's you who has the phenomenal voice, at least while speaking. I don't know why you think mine is anything special, since I was singing with a bunch of people. But I think I needed to hear it anyway. So thank you."

When faced with this incredible confession, he can do nothing but nod in response. He does move to turn around, then, but to his astonishment, she speaks again.

"Do you know anything about violins?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Her lips fold into each other again, the muscle movement offsetting the refined contours beneath her sculpted cheeks. "I have this old violin that I've been thinking about getting fixed up. But I've been afraid to trust it to anyone else, and you seemed to know what you were doing with that piano."

Yes, he accedes mentally, the enthusiasm of opportunity burgeoning between his ribs. He's taken the bait after all of the trouble it's caused him before, yet can think of nothing he wants more than for her to go on.

"I don't know, maybe you work exclusively in pianos, or you might charge something exorbitant for it, but I think it might be worth it—"

"I do happen to have a certain level of expertise," he interrupts her, approaching the theater's edge, where he comes to realize they've slowly drifted from the uncompromising darkness into unfamiliar territory. He reaches in his pocket again, and between the tips of his gloved fingers, his hand emerges with a stark piece of card stock. "You will find I am a jack of considerable trades, as they say, and violins are in this case not an exception."

The smile he receives in return reminds him of her laugh, and the amount of influence it had over him before. Euphoric warmth curls within him despite the chill of their surroundings, and the cold bite against his chin and lower lip where the mask doesn't stifle his skin beneath a sweaty embankment.

"Perhaps we can settle on an agreement that is mutually beneficial. I can give you a free appraisal."

This time, she raises her brow, in what he perceives to be a mimicry of his earlier gesture. It is so innocently mischievous that he feels as though he's finally lost his depth of understanding, with the show of dichotomy before him. "I am not sure that is possible, Erik. But maybe I'll call anyway."

The edge of his mouth is caught in this inexplicable tugging sensation, like a nervous tic against his skin — one he didn't know he had. "It's up to you," he murmurs at last.

"Great," she dawdles at the curb, hands in her pockets. "I'm sorry for being rude to you earlier, but it seemed odd that you were standing there...really, really still, like you were dead or something — and I only saw a pair of eyes...It was startling, but you had your own reasons for wanting to be alone, and I understand."

Could you, he wants to ask. Could you possibly?

As she walks away, he is at last met with a startling epiphany. It is this strange, unfathomable likeness that she carries to his own lonely tendencies. This time he doesn't tarry his departure to watch where she goes, both content and overwhelmed with what has trespassed.

When he closes his eyes, shutting them tight against the sensory implosion of what he's witnessed this night, he can remember just how deceptive his prior impression of her had been. He can recall to mind the haunting refrains of a crystalline voice, never intrusive in its purity, and obstructive to his mind all the same.

He can't pinpoint precisely what quality of it has managed to draw him out of a dark shell, so long enveloping his periphery that he has forgotten how imprisoning it can be, and yet it is as though his soul is grasping its calling; his heart, its song.

And when he remembers his name against her lips, and the remarkable courtesy she's shown him, without comparison to any other connection he's had, it's far too tempting to hope that this isn't the last time he'll see her.

It is not often, nor ever, that he meets someone who endeavors to understand him.

They are, when matched against a universal standard, almost complete strangers. There is no trust, not even the workings of a friendship between them. Only brief flickers of kindness, and something like potential. As long as nothing else happens, he can remember it exactly like this, and find solace in one, extraordinary exception.

There is nothing that can impede upon her faith, until she sees him plainly.

Thus, he is more than ever determined that this should never come to pass.

Chapter Text

He's grown used to many things, in life.

Solitude. The inevitability of a routine filled with passions, yet devoid of pursuits others would use to satiate their longings. The emptiness that pervades even a highly intelligent mind. Leaving his house in the evening or very early in the morning. Utilizing the merits of delivery services rather than entering a business or patronizing a store in the flesh. The mundane nature of existence as he's known it for years, apart; detached. A road he has taken so tirelessly that he's set grooves in its well-worn path. To step outside of them is to commit possibly irreparable damage to himself going forward. He has no idea if he'd find footing on solid ground.

There are some things you can't deviate from. Namely, old habits.

It is not a habit of his, for example, to agree to meet with his clients in public settings, much less amicably and with no clear intention beyond that of a consultation. He could have returned the violin by having it shipped to her residence or arranged for her to pick it up from his apartment, with as little contact as possible required.

But this far more rational exchange had been negated by a friendly voice, suggesting that instead, they meet over coffee. Like an easily goaded whelp, he'd agreed, without so much as a concern to counter her offer. He doesn't consider the myriad of failures that could ensue as a result of his acceptance until he hangs up and a frown chases the stupid look on his face away.

Perhaps it's cliché of him, to thwart his habits like this.

Yet he finds himself making preparations to meet her as soon as the miniature panic attack her phone call induced, passes. No. He'd called her, only she'd been the one to ask him out. A ridiculous phrasing, that: one he chides himself for many times over. Whatever happened to his determination to maintain life as he'd always known it? Out the window without so much as a reservation that was not belated, then pushed away with indifference: as though he could ever be indifferent to the monumental task of appearing in public, especially with her.

He regrets what he's about to do with every article of clothing he assumes and each precaution he takes for his appearance before leaving his apartment. These too, he is reluctant of. Christine has already reacted to him twice, and while both times were not wholly discouraging, they were enough to make him grant credence to the possibility of a third and consummately damaging encounter. 'Doomsday' is ever his default expectation.

This encounter is one he embarks on, nonetheless. The door shuts behind him, the automatic lock bolts into place, the elevator rings, the engine of his motorcycle revs up, and just like that, it is too late to retreat to the confines of his home. The city streets pass by, a blur of commotion and lights against a sleek gray backdrop, and all he can do is imagine his impending mishaps.

Whatever can he hope to accomplish by indulging himself with the chance to speak to her again?

She is young, energetic; talented to the degree that he cannot scoff at her ambitions, that needles his usual pretension for the subject of vocal ability. Profoundly good looking he thinks, too. The conduct he's diverged from is not only consistent, but a necessity. He finds himself hopelessly caught in a mire of questions he cannot answer and anxieties that nearly overcome his resolve to go through with this outing at all.

Certainly, he can pride himself on his knowledge pertaining to the instrument she'd entrusted him with, if nothing else. Perhaps conversation will remain set in this course, and he won't have to display his social ineptitude before her this time.

Wishful thinking rewarded him little in satisfaction, historically.

He's quick to recall the previous faux pas he has made, twice over, frightening her merely by preoccupying the space she enters. In a way, he thinks it unfair that he must be regarded as the intruder—the interloper upon normalcy wherever he goes. If anything, they have each intruded on the other, though at least on his behalf, it's a hell of a task to extricate himself from her influence.

This time, she anticipates him. She's met his desires with an openness of her own, that suits the woman he met in the basement of the theater who offered him tickets to her performance as an apology he didn't need. It is only fitting that she should continue to behave so considerately. She knows very little about him that might supplant the friendly manner that he suspects she extends to everyone fortunate enough to know her.

When he parks out front of the cafe, he contemplates turning around and speeding off; social custom, as he understands, should dictate that she must allow for a change of plans, should he request it. He could feign sudden indisposition or any number of rising complications that prevent his ever walking in and seeing her sitting at that table, awaiting his arrival and the fact that an unpleasant man in a mask will be in her proximity and fill it with the sight of him. As though she were ready to drink it up as easily as a cup of coffee.

He fishes the phone out of his pocket. Consumed by doubt that roars in his ears, he forgets that the machine beneath his seat is still loud and alive and that he's forgotten to shift the gear to zero. As soon as he moves to dismount, his heel hits the accelerator and the front wheel lurches forward and rams into the back of a civic.

Fucking brilliant, he thinks, once he has managed to shut the damned thing off. He dismounts with a muffled sound of impatience, lifts the shield of his helmet, and sizes up the damage he's done to the fender. He's already made up his mind to leave a note on the window with his contact information for compensation, effectively committing a conscientious hit-and-run, when a voice shatters his resolve.

"Hej, that's my car!"

Recognition seizes him. Christine runs up to the curb, the bell of the cafe door ringing distantly. He feels his heart pound in his chest. She balks at him, an accusatory gleam in her eye, and he stands there with his mouth hanging open. Then a laugh bursts out of his chest, for the incredulity of the situation.

"Oh God," he inhales sharply, then smooths over his surprise with ill humor. "Of course this is your car."

She narrows her eyes and he reluctantly removes his helmet. The recognition is evident in her gaze, and he is recalled to the first time he knew she was looking at him, the familiar discomfort intensified by the fact that it's her. He clears his throat, then gestures to the case strapped to the back of his vehicle. "The violin is here, and I assure you, it is undamaged. Unfortunately, I'm not a mechanic—though I fully intend to see to the damages."

"You really brought an antique violin here on that?" She speaks slowly, as though she can't believe it—alas, believe it she must— then looks back at him.

"I never crash. Indeed, this is the first time I have ever so much as inflicted damage on a vehicle unintentionally."

She's silent for a moment, seeming to evaluate the situation, and then a smile that bewilders him tentatively spreads across her face. "It's finished?"

"Yes, polished and tuned. I can bring it out for you to see, but I have news that might dissuade you on that part, which I came here to discuss."

She seems worried, so he quickly assures her: "Nothing is wrong with it, by any means." It is her father's violin, after all, and he'd only needed the look in her eyes when she first presented it to him, to be impacted with unprecedented reverence regarding its keeping. His lip turns up and his eyes importune her to relax.

"Oh, alright." She nods and doesn't stop nodding for several seconds, which he gathers is unusual. Then she says, "Are you going to come inside for coffee before replacing my bumper?"

He concedes to this, abashed at his own actions yet relieved that at least he'd avoided the possibility of damaging a stranger's vehicle and having to converse with someone less receptive. A traffic court is just where he needs to be, isn't it? He slings the strap of the case over his shoulder and leaves the helmet to dangle off the handles.

"As ironic as it sounds," he ventures, before they've crossed the threshold of the cafe. "I took in my own car a few days ago for adjustments, hence the..." he trails off and gestures to his own getup, a leather jacket over his blazer and white shirt.

"You're very eccentric. Instrument repairman for hire, delivery by motorcycle."

He doesn't know whether to be gracious with her remark or insulted, so he only shrugs. She leads him to a table in the corner; he notes the inquisitive glances of customers and shoulders past several people in line as he follows, lowering his head as though he could shirk off the unwanted attention. He almost misses the helmet. If she notices his anxiety, she doesn't mention it. Perhaps he should be grateful to her on more than one account. Despite the fragments of naivety that she yet possesses, he would not consider her so ignorant as to be unaware of the effect he has on others, when she has experienced it for herself on more than one occasion.

He sits in the booth across from her and places the violin case on the table, fidgeting in his seat before speaking. "It goes without saying, that I was surprised you actually made use of the card I gave you."

"You did say that during the appraisal." To this admonishment she lends a teasing air, but he can only wallow in his own forgetfulness, as expansive as its reaches seem to be whenever he's in her presence.

"Ah. Yes, well, the unexpected has not worn off, then." He rubs the back of his neck where sweat seems to collect beneath the hairline of his wig. His other hand rests against the bolts of the case, tapping idly on the surface. "But upon further consideration, I did discover a few things about it."

He witnesses the moment he gains her interest; her face comes alive, the expression barely restrained, and he wonders what caused her to guard herself like this against the impulse of curiosity. "You did?"

They order coffee. He goes on to tell her what he's learned; that her father's violin, while nothing so grand as a Stradivarius or a Guarneri, had been crafted by a Scandinavian artisan: a luthier, he explained. These violins were notably handcrafted for the specific player in mind, custom created and each a rarity of their own, and worth considerable value. He asks her if she knew any of its history and she shakes her head. A secret her father alone possessed, she explains. He left it to her, and she treasures it, though it hasn't been played since a year prior to his death. She looks at it sometimes, but it hadn't left the case until he'd taken it out a couple weeks ago.

Her face grows wan and her eyes look overtired, as though the glimmer of memory in her eyes must be contrasted by sorrow to be apparent. This tugs at his heartstrings, plucking a chord that resonates with those most familiar to him.

He knows what it's like to be left with mixed feelings following the passing of a parent, but he doesn't mention this. It's better that she doesn't know of his poor mother; a woman among the dredges of wasted lives: forever changed by a man that left her and alienated from the sense of security she'd thought to find in him, left with his child but embittered by the roots of the seed he'd planted; he was the offspring of a delusion, of a loveless tragedy.

All of which sounded more romantic, upon reflection, than its actual result. He's tried to shed the memories of his past. New skin renews the expanse of the human body every seven years, yet his grew callous and rough in order to protect what was still tender inside. It's not something he can slip out of.

He allows her to go on, hinging on her words though she owed him none. Finally, she makes one concession: "My father was Swedish. He immigrated here and met my mother during college."

"I had suspected it before, by your accent," he says, recalling her charming interjection from minutes before. He clasps the shape of the mug in front of him though he has yet to take a sip. The heat seeps into his fingers, where gloves have been discarded.

Her eyebrows scrunch, the tilt of her nose impudent. "I don't have an accent," she insists.

He knows better, and it must show on what she can see of his face, but he resists the urge to comment further. He hasn't gone out of his way to speak to her, in public no less, only for another argument to cloud their discussions and send them both running for cover.

"Well, so do you," Christine declares, effectively breaking the ruminations he was making while studying the ripples of his coffee.

He lifts his eyes to meet hers. How easy that maddening quality comes to her. "You may try to guess, but you won't succeed in placing the origin. That, dear girl, is essentially a guarantee."

"Must you be such an ass?" She mutters, taking a sip of latte. "I'm not a girl, I'm twenty-four."

"An epithet, that is all," he stammers. His mouth has resumed that nervous tic, the one he had displayed in the alley after her performance. A night that had resulted in whatever vibrantly ridiculous scenario he's in now, as though he were playing a role in a comical interpretation of his own life. If this were a sitcom, one of them is due to have a spit-take about now. "Your lilt is subtle, and pleasant. It's evident in your singing voice—which, as I believe I mentioned before, is nothing worth diminishing."

"Your accent is more of a drawl," she muses. As her eyes move to his lips, he has cause for a peculiarly cruel sort of embarrassment.

"Yes," he responds with his patent eloquence, the twitch increasing with agitation. "You should pursue vocal instruction."

"You should—wait, what do you mean?"

He could finish for himself what she'd started to say with three words. Instead, he picks up where she left off. "What I am saying, Miss Daaé, is that I believe your talent is worth cultivating, and that with proper instruction, you'd never have to perform in an amateur production again."

"I'm a college dropout, and I happen to enjoy the productions I'm in, no matter how amateur you think them. You're gifted at what you do, and clearly you're knowledgeable...but you don't know me, Erik."

"You're right." His voice sounds softer than it is wont. He takes a deep breath. "But I never meant to imply that I don't want to."

This is a calculated risk he takes. He knew before he spoke the words, as they formed upon his tongue and he nearly rescinded them. What they could result in could make all of this go up on smoke. Rejection ceased to sting a long time ago, but he knows that this young woman could reprise its role with such aplomb that he should feel nothing else for some time.

She's considering him, he realizes, when he dares to meet her glance. Her gaze is always open, those russet eyes almost welcoming, but they're too full of what she sees for him to dare to read them. What she's discerning of him is written in a language he understands all too well. He's read the fine print of his disfigurement, and he knows that she's speculating on it now when her eyelids flutter and her glance lands lower than his.

"If you must know," he begins, thinking the better of it and speaking all the same, "I have been entertaining the idea that you might allow me to coach you. I refurbish instruments, but I was a music major, and I've been a composer for some time."

"You're a composer?" This brings him to recapture her gaze, aligning with his own instead of the parts of him he'd prefer she didn't guess at, just yet. "That isn't exactly the same as—"

He anticipates her. "As a vocalist? I do have experience in that area, as well. I have a doctorate; I know musical theory and have mastered several instruments. It is simply that…" He gestures vaguely. "Life altered its trajectory, we shall say."

It is a euphemistic approach, but he dares not press her further. She will not agree to this for herself, after all, if he appeals to her pity. Furthermore, she cannot possibly respect him if he should elicit it. From what he knows of her, he can guess that she would be no docile student and that teaching her wouldn't be a smooth process. This challenge makes it a potentially rewarding pursuit in and of itself, but it is her voice that has spurred him on and goaded the realization that he wants nothing more than to hear it matched with his own accompaniment.

"Your face," she says, and then doesn't clap a hand over her own mouth so much as lift her fingers to it, but the gesture of regret is there all the same, and it is too late to pretend he didn't hear.

"I hadn't planned on addressing that."

It's all he can do not to sneer those words. Even to his own ears, they sound lifeless. His fingers clink against his cup, as though they might release his nervous energy without trembling. A barista walks by, levels them an uncertain glance, then persists in her rounds. He notes Christine's woeful expression, the reticence that has overcome her, then sighs.

"But as you've seen fit to point it out, I might as well tell you. This mask―not even a proper prosthetic, really—evidences the limits of my career. The thing about the musical industry is that a great deal of it involves public performance. There must be an audience, and that entails the problem that exposure poses to me."

"I understand." Her posture deflates. "I shouldn't have brought it up, I know."

"Well, you did."

He regrets this more than the explanation as rises from her seat and reaches for the violin case. "You can send me the bill? I have your contact information for the damages to my car."

He bows his head, and a tide of self-loathing washes over him. He can feel his tentative handling of the situation slip through his fingers, and the apology he should give her lodges in his throat where it burns.

All it took was one cataclysmic rejection of his own to set her off. Once they've glossed over the particulars she walks away. He covers his face with his hand and lets the guilt consume him for a few minutes, before recalling where he is and making the most dignified departure he can expect. He picks up the check knowing his losses are far more infinite.

When he approaches the motorcycle, he makes a point of resisting the urge to look inside the tinted windows of her car, and succumbs to something just short of dejection, which will intensify to a keenly-felt degree of abhorrence when he is alone. Just before he moves to lift the helmet over his head, he feels a hand at his shoulder and tries not to jump out of his own body (which would have been a convenient ability.)

The last thing he wants to do is turn around, but he glances over his shoulder, and the thrill of surprise flutters in his stomach, lurches to his throat with words that come out stiltedly. "The violin refurbishment is free of charge," he tells her. "Call it a gesture of good faith, and contact me as soon as you need about the damages."

She shifts in front of him, and his feet scuff against the curb with the instinctual backward step he takes. He hopes it doesn't offend her, but having someone that close is enough to trigger the impulse. "It would be an understatement, to inform you of my regret," he says suddenly.

She extends a white slip of paper. "My number. I'd like to hear more about the lessons. I need time to consider, but if I could hear you play, you may have a better shot at convincing me. If this is what you really want."

He's stupefied.

No gesture could be so baffling as this one, when disappointment has already set in and spread its pestilence into all but the hardest to reach corners of his mind. The ones that still entertain hope, that he's sanctioned off for so long. They've rerouted themselves into channels he can no longer impede.

This is what he wants; what he's wanted for some time, from the night he first heard her voice and tried to tell himself they couldn't meet again.

"Perhaps," he says, resisting the urge to cough or clear his throat or some other damned fool thing. "At this rate, I can make it all up to you, at a distant and long-suffering point in the future."

She shakes her head. "I'm the one that startled you to begin with. I'm the one to blame. I'm the problem."

He doesn't believe it for a second. Had she not interrupted him in the basement to begin with, then he'd have something to blame her for.

"I'm not sorry you did." He can't tell what's tugging at his lips, but he hopes to God it's less unpleasant than what she'd witnessed in the cafe.

She smiles back, and he has his answer.

When he watches her go for the less than tenth but more than fifth time, he is as undone as the last and first. Only now, he has important work to do, to prepare for this momentous undertaking. It feels like a breath of fresh air, one that hurts the lungs too long deprived of it. The restoration of his passion is no small thing.

It isn't that he wants to temper her voice to his own liking, or that to acquisition it for his own aims could feel like anything more than some manner of sick conquest. It is a suspicion, rather, that this unique opportunity, born out of shared awkwardness and an intermingling sense of optimism, could inspire him to heights he'd long given up reaching. Perhaps, she could lend him a voice for the desires he can no longer hear. They've seemed to speak up again, only their words are as of yet indecipherable.

He only knows he will hear them said, and that alone is a wonder.