Chapter Text
Erik would admit it to no one but himself, but the fact of the matter was that when he looked back on it all, he felt slightly responsible. Had he not drank Christine’s birthday present, she never would have ripped a hole in the fabric of the multiverse.
But really, when he thought about it, the whole thing was Raoul’s fault, of course. If Raoul had not wanted Erik to drink the bottle of perfume he had bought for his wife, he should have found a better hiding place than tucked away in the bottom of a box in the back of his closet which such a flimsy lock on the door. Honestly, it was like he wanted Erik to find it.
Erik loved drinking perfume. It tasted heady and delicious and besides that, it made his pee smell nice for days afterward. So when he’d found a new bottle in the closet where he was searching for Raoul’s dirty socks, he could barely restrain himself, guzzling it down as soon as he could open it. It was golden and nice, the bottle sparkling in such an alluring way. He gave no more thought to it, until three days later on his beloved’s birthday.
“Did you see what Meg got me?” Christine beamed as she held up the large tomes of ancient knowledge for Raoul to see.
“They’re very… What do they do?” he asked.
She frowned.
“They are books, Raoul. Just for fun. It is always fun to do a bit of light reading before bed, don’t you think?”
Raoul looked at the titles—Advanced Quantum Mechanics and String Theory and Practical Applications for Humans. He smiled wryly. Books on women’s subjects, then. How like Meg to give her friend something so feminine.
Christine smiled at him expectantly. After a moment he realized.
“Oh! I have a gift for you, too, dearest,” he said, and her face lit up.
Raoul headed to his closet, thankful that he had Erik-proofed it, and opened it up to find the perfume bottle. It was gone. His face fell. He searched every corner and the rest of his room, but it was nowhere to be found. At last, he slunk back into the living room, ashamed.
“Christine, I’m afraid something happened to your present. I definitely had one, but now it’s gone, and I don’t know where it is.”
Her smiled faded.
“Oh,” she said.
“It was a bottle of perfume,” he said, eager for her to believe him. “I bought it especially for you. It was expensive. It definitely existed, at one point.”
She looked away.
“It’s ok, Raoul. You don’t have to convince me.”
He felt desperate.
“No, no—I bought it for you. A big bottle, too. It smelled so pretty. I’m not sure what happened! I didn’t forget your birthday, Christine,” he said, pleading. “I bought it ages ago and stashed it away. I planned ahead. I did!”
She turned a cross expression to him.
“Really, Raoul, if you bought it, where is it now?”
“I don’t know!”
“Well, that’s awfully convenient. You could have just told me you forgot, you know. I would have understood. You’ve been busy. But to forget, then to lie about it? That’s even worse.”
“I’m not lying!”
“It’s one day a year and you couldn’t even remember,” she said, eyes filling with tears. “And then you think I’m silly enough to believe the present just up and evaporated?”
Raoul looked about frantically, his eyes falling on the two glowing lights in the dark corner of the room.
“What about Erik? He didn’t get you anything for your birthday either.”
Erik sprang up from the corner and ran to Christine, tugging on her skirts to get her attention. She leaned down to see what he wanted, and he reached up and kissed her forehead. She pulled away with a smile.
“Thank you, Maestro,” she told him.
Raoul stood dumbfounded. At last, he strode forward, taking his wife’s face into his hands, and kissed her on the forehead as well.
When he pulled back, she no longer had the same sweet look on her face as she had after Erik had kissed her. Instead, she looked at him with a frosty expression.
“I see,” was all she said.
“What? It was good enough from him!”
“He thought of it first,” was all she would say.
Raoul turned his suspicious gaze to Erik once more, who merely bared his teeth at him in an expression that somehow managed to look both gloating and sympathetic at the same time.
Erik had had a bit of a fright when Raoul had said what the gift was. He’d suddenly remembered what, exactly, had become of the perfume bottle in the boy’s closet. He had, of course, taken the empty glass bottle out into the woods and added it to his secret stash.
But how was he supposed to bring this up now? They were both upset and he didn’t know how to explain that he’d ruined her special day for everyone involved.
He tried to approach Christine privately.
“I can’t believe Raoul would do that!” she cried to Erik. “It’s one day a year! If he thinks I’m going to overlook it, he has another thing coming! You’re on my side about this, I’m certain.”
“Ah,” said Erik.
He tried to approach Raoul privately.
“I can’t believe she doesn’t believe me! She knows me better than that! She called me a liar! I’ve never lied to her… You’re with me on this, right?”
“Ah,” Erik said.
He decided the best thing to say was nothing. Christine would fume for a day or two, Raoul would pout, and eventually, they’d both get over it and forget it happened, like that time Erik had accidentally eaten that bird she liked to watch on the porch.
All he had to do was lay low for a while.
That night he entered the bedroom, about to take his usual spot on the foot of the bed.
Christine sat up and patted the side below her feet.
“Come sleep right here, Angel, on my side,” she said eagerly.
Raoul glared at her. If she thought moving the gremlin to her side of the bed was some kind of punishment for him, she was sorely mistaken. Especially considering that Erik woke up in the mornings smelling like a fishing wharf. But—
“I brought an extra pair of socks for you, Erik, over here on my side,” he said pointedly.
Erik looked from Christine to Raoul and back again, jaw slack, eyes wide. He didn’t get up on the bed at all, instead laying down on the floor, where he crawled in a little circle three times before curling up to sleep.
Lay low, indeed.
They both leaned over the end of the bed to see if he had picked one side over the other, even if it was the floor, but he was perfectly in the middle of both of them. They huffed and looked away, pretending they weren’t bothered.
Raoul squirmed and sighed.
“I really did buy you a gift, Lotte,” he said softly, his back to her. “If only there was some way you could have seen me buy it and bring it home, because I did.”
She was silent, but his words lingered in her mind long after he’d fallen asleep.
Perhaps there was a way that she could see him bring the gift back.