Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I.

It began as a dream.

Small, fragmented occurrences deep within his unconscious mind, far from reach of any man or otherwise. Something nonspecific, blurred as if unfocused - not wanting or needing to be especially seen, but reminding in its very existence of its presence. Quiet, but there. Steady. Perhaps even watching, slightly hidden from view but endlessly omnipresent.

On the third night, the blur became a shadow - a stark contrast to the rest of the vision, yes, the sun bleary in its light, as if blinding itself too in its boisterous luminescence. It highlights this figure, outlining every dark edge, and eventually the person, this phantom of a being, grows so large, or perhaps close, that the light appears almost snuffed out completely. There’s a sensation, a faint but certainly discernible tickle of shocking cold, the touch smooth as material dragging along what he draws in to be the sensitive skin of the curved hollow of his throat - and what does it mean to feel such a thing in a dream? How could the subconscious create such tangible recollection? But he melts into it almost inadvertently, cannot locate the ends of his fingers or the lean length of leg. It plays as though he no longer has a physical body, but rather is a center of energy and acting without much else. A pointed and transfixed view, where there is no peripheral at all, just the center point of vision - this living figment the overbearing centerpiece, an overwhelming core of all that must be and demands to be seen. 

Each and every dizzying time, he awakens with a start, chest heaving as though overcoming waves of tumultuous ocean, spluttering and coughing and shivering. A startling and feverish sort of feeling pulling at the very pit of his stomach, demanding attention without respite from the painful swirl of fear and anxiety pooling there. But for what reason did these visions provide such anguish? Where did this buzzing apprehension root itself within him and begin to grow? Whose hands poured water in this soil of torment?

And yet, for reasons he cannot quite explain, or does not wish to, he finds himself longing for these dreams. Spending day after day on this drifting and creaking ship, staring at the sea and it’s dark churning waters. He thinks oftentimes about how long it would take from the bow of the ship to the folding ocean below, what the icy pressure would feel like against his skin, what it would do to it. If he would fight against it, or just submit to it, sinking down and down as it grew darker and darker, fading the lines between reality and relenting submission of consciousness. Would he meet the ghost of his dreams there? Perhaps this thing, this creature, is a devil in dark disguise come to drag him down to Hell himself where he knows in full bleeding faith that he deserves so to be.

Or, perhaps, an angel - and this becomes clearer and clearer night after night, just as the vision in black. The fuzzy edges are sharpened, the lens focused. It is a man, he supposes. The hands that touch him and clad in dark, worn leather are large, greater even than his own, and the line of his jaw is set particularly so. He finds he grows use of his legs and arms eventually, slowly piece by stubborn piece becoming whole, and soon he follows this creature as he darts through nonsensical landscapes, to and fro, under light of dual-sunned day and tall shadowed night. The man adorns on his person a cape of sorts, dark and drawn heavily across broad shoulders, swooping and moving around him as though it is an extension of his self, a secret fifth limb as with a feline and its flicking tail. He certainly moves enough as one, dashing skillfully, completely fluid as like the water pushing and pulling below. He finds his eyes drawn to it, wanting to reach out and touch it, grab on and stop this uncertain angel in his tracks. Why must he run as he does?

On the tenth night, the phantom sings. He cannot quite discern any specific lyric, only float on the feeling it sends through his unconscious body. Something new, entirely, something incomparably warm and calm. Once the freezing sea, now a hot bath drawn to steam and fill the lungs upon relaxing inhale. A lullaby, smooth and deep in complete and compellingly soothing countenance.

Certainly an angel, then. And despite the black of his clothing, the white of smooth porcelain sits across the right side of his face, as if maybe portraying and shielding the inconceivable light within from his frail human mind. Perhaps if he were to move it, see what was concealed beneath, he would understand in full the truth of the world and the life that cyclically burgeons and yields within it. Like the steady beat of a heart, each chamber carefully working to move its literal life’s blood all throughout. 

But he can never quite get close enough, and the angel never ceases. He caresses him as if to stir and rouse him, and then begins to move before he can even begin to react. And though the man sings, he scurries relentlessly away, a thing so beautiful it must only ever be viewed or heard and not too closely touched or examined if not to ruin or destroy it forever. 

And on the twelfth night, he is gone. 

He awakens the next morning with a different feeling than that of before, one of palpable longing, of loss, and anger most of all. A volatile cocktail swirling through him when the ship finally docks, and his feet land stumbling on solid ground of cobblestone and earth. And as he is greeted, he nods more than smiles, looks around as though maybe this angel, his angel, will somehow apparate somewhere along the bank of Le Havre and carry him away on a wave of veracious wind. 

But he does not appear then, nor does he appear on the train south or the landscape beside, and the rocking of the car is unsettlingly different than that of the ship cut through the bellowing sea. There is no push and no pull, and his mind is seemingly relentlessly searching. If he closes his eyes, head drawn back, unsteady as the vehicle continues onward along shaky and jilting track, he can begin to feel the pressure build up evenly along his throat, hear the faint whisper of a voice he longs more than life itself to experience just once more. The unfathomably deep cadence of it simply enough to spark tears in the eyes of those beholden to it, coating the listener in a spell of safety and comfort, intrigue as an incantation. 

But the very notion or thought of it is enough to bring back that piercing yearning feeling within him, something both completely desirable and undesirable, stirring up a deep pulse needed not by him nor anyone like him, dizzying and warm like a good drug. More than a temptation, an indulgence as a liability needed to be avoided at all certain costs. 

When he reopens his eyes, there is Paris, and the sky above expands a darling portrait of lilac and snow, the sun near to set in its own position to the west. 

Buildings of Haussmann and French Gothic tower above the harsh light of the arc lamps, casting heady shadows along the street until softening to gaslight, a more familiar endeavor entirely, and as these flicker by, he finds himself grow sleepy once more, his head falling against the window of the cab as if compelled by invisible force, and although it is not the most comfortable of positions, he finds himself drifting off irregardless. 

And as he sleeps, he dreams once more and for the first time in several long and dreamless nights that he can see his angel once more, back to him. And as he looks around, he realizes that they two are on a stage, light illuminating the man so that a strange power can be seen surrounding him, glistening and sparkling as though made of glass. He steps forward, and the shape of him turns, the mask of porcelain catching the luminescence in a way that is almost seductive to the senses, and he finds himself drawn as a moth to a flame. 

And the angel lifts an arm, reaching toward him, eyes meeting eyes for the very first time, and it is absolutely suffocating in its entirety. The phantom does not move, and yet he draws closer and closer, and suddenly he is looking up at him as though he is now on his knees - but how did he get there? 

Dreams are needlessly convoluted, jumping around without explanation or conclusion, but he does not even care, simply staring at the face of pale light, the only darkness the crescents of his eyes staring down, digging into him and reaching for something he may just find - something he himself does not know or understand.

It is a strange feeling when all you want is to be with someone. The vision pulls at him like a magnet, and he wants more than life to breathe the angel before him in, to drown against him and through him, to know him and only him. Is that what angels do? Could he perhaps be dying, and this Holy being has come to slowly collect and prepare him for the subsequent afterlife?

And yet once again he awakens. He awakens not to light but to darkness, and the voice calling him is not one of silk and honey, but high-pitched protrusion.

“Je suis vraiment désolé, Monsieur, mais vous ne pouvez pas dormir ici.” The man, rather, the boy, flushes as he glares at him, although he had not intended to do so - he still felt as though he were halfway in the dream, drowsy and very nearly if not entirely cranky at the outcome. The boy opens his mouth for a moment, before correcting in broken English, as though he thought that perhaps he had not been heard nor understood. “The cab, Monsieur. You must leave. You cannot sleep here, you see?”

He rubs hastily at his eyes, scrubbing them for a moment before shifting upward, then blinking. “Je m'excuse. Ah, here,” and he digs blindly in his coat pocket, procuring a two franc coin, tossing it absentmindedly at the boy, who startles, just barely managing to catch it as it dances swiftly from hand to hand through the air. Satisfied, the boy moves aside, outstretching an arm, presenting what lies ahead. “Votre destination, Monsieur. Your destination.”

As he steps out, he notices immediately the sure ache throbbing behind his neck and seeping down into his shoulders. And as he stretches it out, he finds himself staring upward, the sky now a dark blanket of blue, but hidden mostly by the place before him. 

Ah - the Chagny estate was the same as it had always been. Perhaps a little overly pompous in its design and architecture, and certainly not helped by Philippe’s residence and thus forth influence, but home nonetheless. And as of now, it is all he can do but to fall asleep right there on his feet in the middle of the street, and so he goes, but not through the door of front, no, but rather finds himself trailing along the perimeter of this great estate, around trimmed bush and sculpted column, until the familiar window is well within sight. 

It is on the second story, however, behind a throng of thickly grown weeds, tangled together in loose knots, where there in lies an old trellis against the brick, sturdy enough still in its age to hold his weight as he braces his tired arms almost mechanically and pulls himself up, boots slipping into old footholds where memory serves kindly, and eventually he reaches the windowsill. He draws up a hand, pushing lightly against the glass as he catches his breath, and the thing gives, still unlocked from how he had left it last.

Before he climbs inside, he cranes his neck back up toward the sky, and as he does, he can almost swear that he sees a shooting star.

“Merci, mon ange noir, my dark angel,” and the whisper is like that of a prayer, sealing it with the flutter of eyelashes and deep exhale, before pushing open the window and climbing inside.

It was the smallest bedroom in the estate. He had taken it after the death of their parents, no longer being able to bear the constant reminder of their loss in the memories within the room of his childhood’s walls, seeped into the paints of oil and scuffed marks upon the floorboards from years of clumsy adolescent overuse. 

The bed here takes up the most space of the room, soft sheets a rich burgundy in color, carefully decorated pillows stacked neatly and untouched before an ornate mahogany headboard. The room, completely encased in shadow, has what seems to be an almost palpable energy, encasing itself in time - as though it is more than just a room, and as he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror laden thinly with dust, perhaps he does see, for a simple fraction of a moment, a dark figure behind, a reflection not of himself in this hidden portal.

And yet there is no fear, no panic. And he finds himself drawn to the bed, completely focused and yet not at all, as if being lured on a string to bait. Boots still on, coat thrown over his shoulders, he collapses unthinkingly into the mattress, spread out leisurely, sighing and sinking down into it like a heavy foot to snow. And as his eyes flutter seamlessly shut, muscles relaxing to liquid, something else awakens around him.

When he finally stirs the next morning, having surprisingly dreamt of nothing or no one at all, he finds himself staring into that same mirror as before, only this time, the feeling has completely dissipated, vanished just as the cravat he had worn there on his throat before. His jacket is now folded neatly upon the tall dresser, unwrinkled and proper as though done by polished hand. His waistcoat too, completely gone and stripped from his person, and upon swift glance downward, his boots too had been unlaced and sat primly before the foot of the bed. 

And on the nightstand, a card of thick cream paper - surely, a note. Then rested dutifully atop of it, sits a small bouquet of flowers. Golden and pale yellow daffodils with the most rich of green leaves, paired with the delicate forms of pearl white carnations, all tied together neatly in the most royal of purple ribbon.

When he lifts them in a careful hand, drawing them instinctively up to his face to inhale the sweet fragrance, the softest of petals tickling his nose, his eyes catch on the light-handed swirl of scarlet lettering against the thick card stock still sat there atop the table, a highlight against the dark mahogany wood beneath. And as he lifts this too to get a better look, it reads in fanciful script:

‘Au Vicomte de Chagny Estate - bienvenue à la maison.

I look forward to at long last meeting the flesh of you. Do enjoy the bouquet - perhaps they will bring you darkness in this dreary hour of light. Consider them a gift of welcome.

I will visit with you sooner than you may expect.

Regards,

C.P.’

The end of the note is rather abrupt, he thinks, but Raoul de Chagny knows one thing for sure - he had indeed missed France.

Chapter Text

II.

“…and a brilliant and resolute idea that is! Yes, indeed. Vicomte, you are new here, what is it that you think, hm?”

Raoul startles, eyes blinking heavily still into the direction of the voice that had spoken. He has never been quite so good at names, but he feels that the awaiting man in question is a Monsieur Gilles André, staring across the table expectantly as the other manager looks on beneath a bit more skeptical brow.

“I believe,” Raoul begins, mind clearing of its fog, subtly straightening his posture, “that in attempting to truly appeal to different market segments, our efforts must be tailored. I have bore direct witness to the other operas in Florence and London, those who do not mind being a tad heavy-handed to the economic degree - so what truly holds this theatre back so? I have viewed the statements - the very touch of them felt improper by the sheer richness of it all. Whatever then is the problem here, Monsieur?”

André’s eyes flicker to Firmin, the other manager, something indiscernible passing between them, such as a secret language only they two could understand. It is Firmin who speaks, voice quieting, “well, you see, Vicomte, and do not become a-fright when I bestow this information upon you, however…”

André cuts back in, leaning closer, eyes shifting around the room suspiciously, as though he is searching for something not at all there. His line of sight trails upward, disappearing into the ceiling. “There is someone here who would not be very pleased with us if we were to take from his pay, Monsieur.”

Raoul’s eyes trail to follow both André and Firmin’s respective gazes where they more presently lie behind him, upon a desk lit only by light of candle. The wax there melts cleanly into its gleaming golden dish, and beside it, there is a mussed pile of paper - card stock really, and when Raoul walks slowly over to examine more carefully, floorboards creaking almost eerily beneath his feet, he can immediately make out the familiar red ink scrawled immaculately across their faces, both sharp and smooth, taking up proud and almost eager space. Unnerved, he takes the topmost card, feeling it against his fingers, flipping it over and reading the words written there. 

Each is the same - suggestions for music, complaints of actors, demands for money - and all are marked by a same signature, reading -

“ - O.G. D’you know what it stands for, Vicomte?” Firmin has strutted over, leaning against the desk lackadaisically and picking up a note himself, tapping his fingers against it almost impatiently, but with less importance than that of Raoul himself. He simply shakes his head in response, unsure of how to answer.

“Opera Ghost. What do you think of that, then, Monsieur? What would you suggest we do for a phantom to stop giving us such egregious demands? This is why we have not the same money nor economic standing as these other so-called operas,” he taps the paper once more, flicking his wrist simply so that the corner touches and greets the licking of flame, and the thing starts to turn brown to black, already eaten half away before Firmin brings it up to his mouth, blowing a small gust of breath to put out the hungry young flame. He offers it to Raoul, expression dour, but not completely unsympathetic. 

Raoul takes the burnt scrap, the ink now bleeding at the ruined and ragged edge, crimson staining ash. It is a pitiful sight to behold, truly.

“So unless you can make friends with a false creature, a demon in hell, I suggest you leave matters of finance, to us. Now, I do believe rehearsals have begun. Would you care to join us in our private box?”

Raoul barely registers the words, eyes still fixated completely on the mangled note in his hands. How could it be? The paper the exact same, the ink and all-too familiar cursive lettering. But the signature different - that was to be sure.

His eyes eventually find their way back up where they were meant to be, meeting the curious gazes of the managers before him. “Ah, yes, I do believe that I will. I would enjoy that immensely.”

He pockets the note, and as he follows the two through the darkened halls of the theatre, he finds his gaze drawn almost instinctively upward toward the rafters. And why is there such a chill in the air here? André and Firmin do not seem at all bothered to any degree, and yet, as Raoul trails behind, he cannot help but feel as though someone somewhere has their gaze set upon the line of his shoulders.

By the time Madame Carlotta Giudicelli has rang out her final nasally note, Firmin and André have risen to their feet to clap, and Raoul feels sick.

Not due to the singing, no, not at all - he could hardly even hear it. What he could not place was a voice seemingly droning on in the background - and from where, he could not in any way discern. He turned around, over his shoulder, and peered down to the stage to see who the hushed and feeble whisper could belong to, but Carlotta was the only person here or otherwise with their mouth agape, the ballet girls dancing and bounding about in their weightless way without a single peep or protest.

There were other boxes, of course - but each was more than clearly empty. The voice, if anything, was coming from somewhere behind. Close, and yet perhaps also far. By God, was he completely losing his mind?

“I’m afraid you will have to excuse me. I believe I have begun to have fallen ill beside you both,” and Raoul abruptly stands to leave, eyes still searching relentlessly. André continues to clap, and Firmin turns only slightly, brow furrowing. “Are you sure you are quite alright, Vicomte? I should see you out, the opera is quite large - “

“ - I believe I will be quite alright, yes, Monsieur. I can find my own way well enough, you needn’t bother. I will be on my way, thank you.”

Firmin does not protest, turning back almost immediately, and in that moment, Raoul is once again alone. But for whatever reason, his head has begun to pound, and the voice is growing louder, more clear as he stumbles out of the box and back into the hall. He grasps blindly onto the decorated walls, squints through candlelight and shadow, and the world is almost completely spinning around him.

“Hello? Is someone there?” His voice cuts sharply into the silence, louder than he had really meant, echoing back at him a moment or two, until finally fading away fully. For a few heavy breaths, the silence remains, drawn out and palpable, and Raoul can hear only the dripping of water somewhere in the rafters above, a little heartbeat to the old building stood tall around him.

Then, the voice reappears, entirely clear as crystal.

“Someone is always here, petit oiseau. Has anyone ever told you not to walk off on your lonesome?”

It is entirely nonsensical to respond to this voice rattling around in his head, and yet he finds he cannot be bound to silence, his voice compelled out of him as if pulled by coercement of string. “And yet it was you who lured me out here, was it not? Show yourself, at once!” 

He’s still pressed against the wall, the curved molding digging uncomfortably into his back. If there is no one behind him, then he is perfectly safe, is he not? He was just aboard a ship on the ocean as a Naval officer, for God’s sake - he can more than defend himself.

“You make the most amusing of demands - Vicomte de Chagny, no? And where have you been hiding all this time?”

The voice lilts, bemused, almost appearing even to draw closer, biting against his eardrum, and he flinches, whipping around, now back to the middle of the hall. He turns in a full circle now, rubbing his hand in an almost distraught manner over his face and up through his hair. “I will not answer such questions from a man who refuses to even be seen himself!”

“And how do you presume me to be a man, Monsieur?” Comes the response to call, now echoing from his leftmost side. “What other assumptions would you make of me?”

“Perhaps that you are very rude for frightening people in this way!” Raoul knows damned well that responding is not the smart decision to make, and certainly not in this way, and yet he cannot find the will within himself to stop. It is like a spout with no lever, and he is slipping down into the drain to darkness.

The voice, and by God, the voice is deep, flowing through his ears just as did the ocean during the long nights at sea - it laughs, a tumbling tintinnabulation of sensual song, bells chiming as if the opera were really a church, this hall the very alter. Whoever would hide with a voice such as this? 

“An assumption indeed. Whoever would claim you not to be the first?”

And the words stick, a strange syrup drawing a long pause that slows the time ticking on around him, and Raoul narrows his eyes, looking around still, yet now more cynically. “Then why me?”

The laugh sounds again, this time all the more mighty, reverberating from its source in a long winded fashion down to Raoul’s awaiting ears. “Why me?” He demands again, stepping forward into nothing at all, whipping around again, now once more desperate to locate its phantom source. “Christ, where are you?”

“Where I have always been, mon doux rêveur. Look again. Wherever you shall turn, there I will be.”

“What? I - “ Raoul very nearly whines, voice choking and cutting off as he walks practically in complete circles, but he gains no response thereafter. The tightness he had not registered before in his chest relaxes its grip on his lungs, and a wave of calm settles over him as though a drug struck through a rather plump vein, a warm blanket over top of one’s shivering shoulders.

And when he walks now down the hall, he does not turn back around, nor does the voice return. The only sound now is the heady rush of blood in between his very ears, and the rhythmic tapping of shoes against hollow stone.

The door he finds himself at is very clearly not one of exit. It is wooden, and rather small, and when Raoul raps a swift and tentative fist against it, a muffled and light voice can be heard hidden and tucked from behind. “One moment, s’il-vous-plaît!”

Raoul steps back, and just as he turns his head to, for the very first time, glance behind, the door whips open, a gust of wind producing itself in its own wake. And when he looks down at the woman standing there, he finds himself completely and utterly surprised.

“By God, Christine? Is it really you?”

She looks up at him with the same shock he presumes must also be written upon his own face, and oh, does she look the most beautiful a lady could be. She has a dressing gown laid over top of some colorful ballet number beneath, but her chestnut curls cascade atop and over her shoulders, so that it is positively all one could think to look at. Her eyes the same brown, if perhaps not a shade darker, look up at him wide and round, like that of an owl. Her expression breaks into a smile too wide for her small canvas of face. But her pink mouth stretches up to reach her eyes, and she speaks, “yes, Raoul, I do believe it is.”

And without any need of further prompting or forethought, Christine has wrapped herself around his middle, her face tucked delicate against his chest beneath chin, and after a moment, he too draws his arms around her form, squeezing gently. “Of all the doors to knock on - a gentleman could hardly ever be so lucky.”

She laughs wetly against him, and he only realizes then that she must be crying. When she pulls back, her cheeks are rosy and damp, her eyes glistening up at him. Blinking, she swipes a hand across her face, and turns, as if suddenly coming to. “Oh, I’m afraid I wasn’t prepared for guests by any means, but do come in, wouldn’t you?”

The room is quite small indeed, riddled with various bits of surely important clutter and various degrees of melted candle wax and lit flames dancing each to their own melody, shadows cast against the milky warm glow they produce, wavering over all they so adorn. Christine offers him her chair, brushing what appear to be bands of hair ribbon and a comb over on the vanity before sitting there upon it herself. Her feet dangle a mere inch above the ground, and he can see the reflection of her on the tall mirror behind.

“How long has it been? Since we have seen one another last,” she begins, tilting her head, “ah, it must have been during Perros, no? By gosh, I can still recall when you went out and rescued my poor scarf from that horrible tide! What exactly was it that you said to me upon returning it? It was - “

“ - ‘that’ll be fifty francs, Madame!’” Raoul interrupts, and her eyes light up instantly, her posture straightening. She points a thin finger at him, laughing softly, “yes, that was it! What a thing to say. You were such a little scoundrel back then. Whatever happened to you after? However did you end up here, in my dressing room of all God-given places?”

He contemplates for a moment, sighing. “The heroic retrieval of your dear scarf was hardly the last time I went into the sea. I joined La Royale - the Navy. I was an officer, well, technically speaking, I am still an officer. But that hardly matters now - I decided it was finally time to come home - to which I come to find out that my very own brother has taken over our late parents’ estate and is now a very important patron of this very theatre of which we sit in now. As for how I ended up in this room specifically, well…that is perhaps a bit more complicated, isn’t it?”

He isn’t sure whether to offer up the full, unbridled and abhorrent truth of it all, or to rather make up that perhaps he had simply found himself lost - he had, had he not? It would hardly be a lie, no, but despite everything, despite the number of years apart, he finds that he trusts Christine in a simple way that he has never trusted any soul else in his twenty some years of living. 

And maybe, he just wants so badly to tell someone; anyone, that he will be weak over anything else.

“Christine…” he begins, voice softening evenly to match the private atmosphere surrounding them now, “well, if I told you, could you swear above all else that you would not think of me completely mad?”

Her brow furrows, and she leans forward, reaching down and picking up his hands from where they sat fidgeting in his lap. Her’s are noticeably much smaller, and softer, too - but they are warm, and she wraps them around his own, not breaking eye contact for a single moment. Her expression is serious when she too whispers, “of course I swear, dear old friend. Please, tell of me what troubles you so. It is okay, Raoul - I would not divulge your secrets to any man, woman, or otherwise.”

She offers him a moment to collect his thoughts, and he suddenly recalls the note still stuffed into his pocket. He takes a hand back from where Christine still held onto them, and procures the wilted piece of paper, offering it to her.

“It’s this.”

“I don’t understand. Is it the phantom you are afraid of?” She holds the note carefully, as if it is only precious because he had deemed it so. Both her unfazed expression and her question suggested the simple fact of her recognizing the thing upon first glance, and when she looks back up to him, her eyes hold within them a certain subtle curiosity.

Raoul stumbles over his words a bit, scratching the back of his neck and then leaning back into the chair beneath him. He notices then that his leg has been shaking against the floor, creaking the boards a little there, and he decidedly stops it, but it feels rather unnatural to do so. He looks back up at Christine, who awaits him patiently - she had always been so kind - too polite for her own good. She deserved better than all of them put together.

“I suppose so - I mean, I have been - well, I have been having these odd sort of dreams. Not even dreams, more like…recollections. As if they were memories, or - or visions. But so completely vivid, as though I could just reach out and touch - and, well, I became almost addicted to them, is the thing. You must understand, I was afraid, at first, but then…oh, I desired them more than the air that I so breathed. And that is just simply the most sad of things, is it not? I spent each and every day waiting for the night. And I have not had such a single dream since the cab ride back to the estate.” He pauses, then continues, “the very peculiar thing is that when I returned back home - well, I do not remember much on account of the pure exhaustion of which I had been experiencing at that time - however, I can swear to you on all accounts that I fell asleep with all of my clothing still on, down to the boots laced on my feet. When I awoke this very morning, not only were my clothes removed, but they were folded, tidy, those same boots placed deliberately at the foot of my bed. And a bouquet on my bedside table and, the most important part, a note! A note written on the same paper, the same crimson ink as the one in your hands now. The acronyms are not the same, but it simply has to be the same author, what other explanation could there even be?”

Christine’s gaze softens as she patiently takes in all that Raoul has to say, candlelight flickering in her eyes as if understanding pools of honey. Once he finishes, she asks, “and do you happen to have this other note with you now?”

“Ah, no, I left it back in my room, I am afraid. At first, I thought it might have simply been an overzealous maid, but they all denied involvement - stated that they had not even been informed of my arrival in the first place. To be fair, I did sneak in through the window, but - “ and his face flushes a little, embarrassed, ducking his head, but Christine just smiles down at him in a fond and personal manner. “The note, Christine. It was far too personal. And the funny thing is - whoever it was, folded my clothes, but lost my cravat. Well, it isn’t there, anyway - perhaps they stole it. Strange, no? To bring someone a bouquet of flowers and then steal from them in the very same act?”

“They gave you flowers?” Raoul simply nods, face grim, but when he looks up at Christine, there is a mischievous glint in her eye, “Do not take this the wrong way, my dear Raoul - but I believe you may very well have found yourself a suitor.”

He flounders for a moment, opening his mouth before then closing it, eyes darting around the room. “What?”

Christine jumps down from the vanity, and a faint clanging of bells can be heard sounding beneath her dressing gown. She paces about the room, thinking, pearl satin catching the air and billowing out around her like an angel’s cape. “Your dreams may simply be a matter of your time at sea, as I have heard stories of soldiers coming back home unwell, mentally speaking, but…the letters matching is what is to me quite strange - an unlikely coincidence, in truth. And I do not know who would sneak into your room in the dead of night to deliver such gifts to you. But it is a thrilling possibility either way, no?”

“Whatever is thrilling about being unconsciously stripped of one’s clothes?” Christine raises an eyebrow at him, and he quickly realizes the risqué quality of what he has said, and flushes once more, glancing away. “Well, there is one more thing. The reason I am here, in part, is because I was afraid to turn back around. You see, there was a voice. It started during the rehearsal, but really, I had just thought it to be a part of the show. Only, it grew louder and louder, closer and further all in one, so much so that I had to excuse myself from the sickness it brought to me. When I became alone in the hall…the voice was there. Clear, deep. But it’s location ever moving, never revealing itself to me. But, Christ, Christine, I held a full conversation with this - this thing.”

Her expression has grown more serious now, her brow drawn, and she stops fluttering about so, crossing her arms over the gentle swell of her chest. “…whatever did it say?”

“At first, nothing of dire importance or consequence, it seemed. In fact, he - it, had quite the attitude about him - I apologize, I still do not fully know how to refer to this thing. But it’s voice…oh, so very familiar,” and Raoul closes his eyes, touches fingers to temple, “And I have just come to the realization that I have very well heard this voice before. Not in speech, no, but in song. My dreams, Christine - that is the voice. Practically seducing me into wanting it. And if they are the same, then so must be the intruder of my room, and perhaps even this so-called ‘Opera Ghost.’ And if this being lingers in my consciousness, across the sea where I would have no knowledge of its being…well, then it truly must be a ghost. A phantom, or a devil. I must admit, I thought perhaps, at first, an angel…but I know differently now. This creature is playing tricks on me in my sleep. It targets me in my most vulnerable of moments, you see? And why ever would an angel of God do such a thing?”

When the silence comes, Raoul’s ears are, for the first time since entering this room, drawn to the strictly ticking hands of a clock sat on the shelf behind him. It is as golden as the candlelight beside it, detailed in a way that only a true artist could have crafted, by their own hand.

“It was my father’s,” Christine’s voice says softly, catching his gaze. “He gave it to me - before he passed.”

“Oh, Christine,” and suddenly he feels awfully selfish, and he stands, drawing close to her, touching her face with a gentle brush of hand, tucking a stray curl of hair behind her ear. “I’m so sorry. He was an incredible man, truly. I only wish I had grown to have known his kindness and his prose a moment longer.”

And she smiles up at him, melancholy and small, emotion pushed back behind the gleam of her round eyes. “That’s okay, Raoul. Life often takes just as readily as it gives, if not more so. We learn to continue on, do we not?”

He dips his head, nodding gently, acknowledging her words. “At the very least know that he gave you a part of himself forever. In both this beautiful antique, and with the very essence of life within you - that of which is particularly plentiful.” He moves his hand to rest just above her heart, hovering respectfully above contact. “I believe that the secrets he taught you in life and the lessons he left behind will always be with you. You’ll carry the parts of him that grow within you even if they remain unseen to either you or the rest of the world.”

“Raoul, you speak so lyrically, tears are brought to my eyes. Have you never considered a career in the arts, too?” He laughs, looking away, but Christine catches his gaze within her own, drawing him back inward. “No, I mean it - and with a face such as yours, well, I am sure you would have not a problem getting your way.” And she touches his face this time, like they are simply one, and that is a perfectly fine thing to do. 

He grabs her soft hand in his, squeezing lightly. “You think much too highly of me, dear Christine. I could never perform upon a stage as you do. You were born with music in your blood - I am no more talented than Madame Giry herself.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that the Giry’s are a very talented people,” she quips, hiding a smile.

“Oh, of that I am sure - “

“ - Christine!”

The voice intercepting their conversation is high-pitched but saccharine, and the door has been knocked forcefully open to reveal a lady in fanciful color, bells ringing with each motion and every sway. Her hair is a gentle golden blonde, fair ringlets falling a halo around her head and face, drawn half back in a neat swathe of white ribbon. She sees Raoul, and her face falls, growing a warm shade of pink. “Oh, I am so sorry, Monsieur, I did not know - “

“ - it is quite alright, Meg - he is but a friend.” Raoul catches the slight way her voice alters itself upon sight of this girl, this Meg, how her eyes grow impossibly soft. There’s a steady fondness that appears in the air between them, and the young ballerina smiles lightly, dipping into a halfhearted curtsy, but does not fully move to enter the dressing room. Her eyes skip over Raoul such as a stone on water, and fully to Christine, for whom she apparently has news. 

“Oh, mon cher ami, you will never believe it. Carlotta finally stormed out! But before anyone could react, a letter fell again from the rafters, you see, attached to a cut sandbag! Oh, it nearly fell right atop poor la Sorelli, but she managed to duck away just before it could knock her straight off her feet. And, here - read the note for yourself, c’est tout simplement insondable, I simply had to snatch it away for you to see for yourself!”

Christine rushes forward, carefully but swiftly taking the small paper from Meg’s outstretched hand, and Raoul, still sitting, watches with bated breath as Christine’s eyes dart squinting over the extravagant cursive swirled in definite red ink across its face. She finishes, and looks up at Meg, her expression unyielding, before turning to look at Raoul. Now, her face has grown to display complete stunned clarity.

“Raoul - par Dieu - it’s for you. The Opera Ghost - he wants you.”

Chapter Text

III.

“I am terribly sorry, but there must be some kind of a mistake. I am absolutely not whomever this - this phantom believes me to be! How am I to perform as a lead tenor when I have yet to have sung a single note in my whole entire life? It is incomprehensible!”

Raoul’s face is burning hot, a flush overcoming him as he yells, hand balled into a tight fist around the note in question. He tosses it underhanded onto the desk, and it teeters around for a few moments before settling, crumpled and partially torn. André is sat in the chair there, his elbow holding up his head where he leans tired against his palm. Firmin paces the room, and Christine stands timid a length away, hands crossed at her lap. There’s a faint ringing in his ears, and as he looks behind at her, he feels the pang of regret burning a hole like a bullet through his stomach, and he turns back around, his voice purposefully lowering.

It cracks a bit as he gestures, desperate for explanation, for something other than lengths of long pregnant silence, hanging between them all like steam in a sheltered room. “You must tell this - this thing that I will not do it. That I cannot, should not, and that that is determinedly final!”

André breathes in deeply, sitting up to lean over the desk of it’s still crumpled paper and dripping wax. “Vicomte, how do you expect us to refuse? I understand your predicament - truly, I do - but you read the letter! Par Dieu, he plans to burn down the entire theatre should we not obey to his every order! This is far past the concern of a mere 20,000 francs, Monsieur - this may as well be life or death as we so know it!”

“But think of it - how on God’s blasphemous earth am I to stand upon that stage of yours and sing as they do? Even if I were to try - without the proper years of training, am I to simply embarrass myself completely? And at that, then drive the crowd away entirely? No, I could not do it, Directeur, you simply must find someone else. Christine can do it, God knows she deserves and has worked diligently for it, but this wicked plan should have no involvement in me, factitious blackmail or otherwise.”

His words hang heavily in the air, suspended as though a prop to thick wire, no reply immediately forthcoming. After a few beats, Christine moves toward him, placing her hands delicately over his forearm, looking up to him with almost pleading eyes. “Oh, Raoul - Vicomte,” she adds, eyes darting from the directors looking on for a single second and then back up to him, “please - I know that this situation may manifest itself a tragedy unto you, however…you do not appear to take this threat of a smoking opera house to heart. The phantom, they - they have killed before. A stagehand, found hung by rope up in the rafters only a few short moons before your arrival. They say - God, Raoul, they say his body was even mangled - completely unrecognizable.” She turns, opening the managers into the conversation now, but still addressing him personally, her hands dropping only slightly to cup beneath and around his elbow. 

“Now, I could not confirm to you the truth of these rumors - I only know of what I myself have been told. And you told me yourself just before that you have spoken to this ghost, personally. That he broke into your home, that he steals your clothes and brings confusion to your mind at rest. Do not tell me you do not fear him too, because I would never not know the truth underlying those very words. So tell me, Vicomte. Tell me you will not sing when you have an entire opera to teach you. Tell me you will stand and watch it all burn to the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

The room falls completely silent, Christine’s eyes pleading but determined - never frail. Raoul goes to speak, but finds he cannot find much else to say - for however could he refuse? Firmin walks over, clasping him firmly over the shoulder, as men tend to do, patting with a heavy hand - and he, nor André, address the news of Christine’s most recent revelations. “We put our faith in you and you alone, Vicomte de Chagny. If the phantom desires to hear you sing, then you shall whistle like a bird on the wind. But - oh, God help us all if you haven’t the wings.”

“No, no, Monsieur! Like this!” Maestro Reyer pounds the key as though it were somehow broken, in complete exasperation and disbelief, brow drawn up and practically disappearing up into his hairline. “It is like this - “ he vocalizes, voice both even and smooth, perfectly in-key as his eyes level with Raoul’s. “Do you see now?”

“Mon dieu, you’re worse than me!” Ulbado Piangi guffaws, snickering as he turns to Carlotta sat indignantly beside him. She simply sniffles in response, turning her chin away, and her lover clears his throat, mood affectively altered, and tentatively pats her leg beneath periwinkle gown. “I apologize, ma chère.”

Reyer taps the key again, a little less intense than before, perhaps as a last-ditch attempt at any form of hope whatsoever, and Raoul clears his throat, staring ahead, attempting to ignore the chittering around him. His whole body feels stiff, and the eyes feasting on him nip a chill around his tense shoulders. However is he to sing upon a stage if he is bound to fright only amongst a few of recollection?

The note, once again, comes out as though a child’s first word - indiscernible, and a little bit squeaky. Reyer slams his hands down on all the keys at once, creating a loud cacophony of noise that causes the whole room to audibly groan.

“I am truly sorry, Monsieur’s, but I cannot work with - with this. Well, I am very sorry for this circumstance indeed.” He is turned towards Firmin and André, one leaning against a chair and the other the wall, and they do not protest when Reyer grabs his folder and turns to leave. Carlotta cracks her first smirk of the entire day since the note arrived basically kicking her off the stage, and Christine, however, stands from her chair, rushing after him, her gown flowing a cape behind her. “Monsieur! Wait, he has only just begun! You cannot just throw a rooster out a window with a flock of Dunnocks and expect him to fly!”

Reyer stops, turning around and nearly knocking right into the soprano. She does not glare, but her expression is rather stern as she looks up at him, and he sighs, straightening his posture so as to be even taller - perhaps to appear more threatening in a way of which he most certainly was naturally not. “And something tells me that a chicken was never meant to fly in the first place.”

He leaves, and Christine scoffs, looking over the managers and to Raoul, standing awkwardly by the piano. “Well, if that stubborn man won’t teach you, then I certainly will! Any old fool would be able to tap a few keys, no?” And her heels clack against stone as she shuffles cholerically over to the bench, bundling up her skirts as she sits upon it, hands flying up to the board, fingers resting gracefully upon a number of used and tattered keys. The instrument obediently sings a chord after a few adjustments of her lithe fingers, and she smiles, satisfied. “I suppose we can make a vocalist of you yet, Vicomte.”

Raoul is practically dead on his feet by time of his arrival back home. Christine had, to her credit, gotten him through a couple of scales, and had been far more gentle with him when he made his many mistakes than the grueling maestro had.

He still has yet to see or even hear from the older de Chagny, Phillipe constantly being ‘out on important business,’ or so he is told. Raoul does not think business involves staying away through the entirety of each night, but he does not have the capacity to very much care, and as he closes his door behind him, his eyes are immediately drawn over to the tall window sat curtained in the wall before his bed.

The air of the room is slightly chilled, and for clear reason - the window is cracked open, moonlight spilling over and illuminating the space around - and had it not been closed this very morning? He walks over, boots still clad on his feet, and slowly pushes the window back into place with a gentle click. He turns the lock, just to be sure, and when he turns around, his eyes catch on the display of color sat upon champagne sheets - to his surprise, there lies yet another bouquet.

Raoul walks over to his bed, grasps the flowers up into his hands, and touches the soft petals of violet and iris, little aster and warm yellow goldenrods spilling over onto his fingers, tickling. Beneath the bouquet, yet another note, and beside it a cream colored box with blush ribbon tying it shut in two round, polished loops, drawn over the sides like the velveteen ears of a rabbit.

The note has, of course, scarlet lettering inked across its face, and Raoul reads it, rather begrudgingly, beneath furrowed brow:

‘À mon oiseau sans ailes,

Do not fret over the bouquets - I have located some lovely ornate vases that would surely bring this drab little room of yours to life, and I will bring them along upon my next visit.

I have also provided you with adequate material for my most recent of requests of the opera. Do go over and provide them to those dull-witted managers of yours, n’est-ce pas? I entrust you will obey my instructions.

After you do so, arrive promptly at box five. I will await your arrival with much anticipation.

Sleep well, colombe agitée,

C.P.’

Raoul drops the note, cursing as the sailor he is. He tosses the bouquet onto the dresser, where it lies half crushing the other still sat there drooping from the previous visit. He stares at the box for a long moment, before dropping down onto the bed himself, where it dips subtly beneath his weight. He grasps almost angrily at the gift, pulling it into his lap and yanking at the ribbon, tossing it aside without thought, where it floats swiftly to the carpeted ground.

He manages to shake and shimmy off the lid after a bit of a struggle (and of course the damned thing would put up a fight), and now in his lap lies an open box of what he perceives to be sheet music. And upon closer inspection, the very notes down to the dynamics are entirely written as though drawn out by hand, each uniquely inked, yet hardly a smudge on any page. Raoul flips through them, and there are footnotes on quite a few, if not most, specific demands and most certainly not suggestions. His name is written a couple of times, as though purely a reminder of who is meant to be leading each ballad or scene. He very nearly laughs.

He rifles through the papers for only a small while thereafter, before suddenly growing quite overwhelmed at the sheer volume of content spilling out within them, the notes high and those low, all the work he from now on has yet to do. And Raoul tosses the box and the note onto the bedside table and beneath the candle flickering that he himself had certainly not lit, and, before he allows himself to fall into the perilous arms of sleep, he makes absolutely sure he personally unties the boots upon his feet.

The dream comes softly, his vision like the tide. There is water all around him, lapping incongruously at his thighs, all whilst slowly rising like a filling glass of chardonnay. But it is not the water doing so itself, no, but rather the shifting sand beneath his feet, sinking and swallowing him down into it, pulling him in gently but without remorse - the glass dropped into the barrel. The water reaches his chest, and it is neither warm, nor cold, and yet he can feel the pulsing throb of his heart racing beneath skin and bone, the panic that claws it’s way hungrily from the pit of his stomach and up his throat to his mouth, filling him up and devouring him inside and out, wanting to leave, begging to stay.

He cannot move, and as he opens his mouth, attempts to scream, to yell out or cry for help, not a sound can be heard - completely mute. And the water is splashing now upon his collarbone, hitting his lips with a taste that is supposed to be of salt but is rather like chemical, and he finds himself thrashing around, waving his arms. But they move slowly, weighed down by the rules and regulations that such visions only allow, and now, he is sinking beneath the wavering surface, the pressure building up all around him, everything overwhelmingly dark and strange and heavy. 

There’s a few moments where he does not recognize this as a dream at all, where he truly believes that he is in fact drowning, that he will never feel the air against his skin again, or take a deep inhalant breath of it. That he will never touch, or be touched, that he will never speak or hear with ears his own.

But the voice comes, and it is like liquid gold filling up his entire being, replacing water and darkness with space and light, pulling him out and onto a white sanded shore, soft but firm in a way that will not indeed swallow you whole, but rather carry you like on a dove-clouded sail. The distinct and oddly familiar sensation of cool leather dragging down his face to the dip of his jaw to neck, down his chest bare and lower. A gentle breeze of a breath against his ear, and he still cannot truly see - though perhaps he is blind, perhaps his eyes just do not have the will to open and see. But his arms appear to work still, although heavy and damp, and he feels the face, the smooth, cool porcelain and warm, no, hot skin of lightly stubbled jaw and soft, parted lips. There is breath there, and it tickles so very real against his palm. His fingers dip very slightly inside, feels the teeth, smooth as the mask had been, but more glossy as dampened by the eternal mark of saliva. His hands dip further inside, dragging under lifted lip, and the pain that shocks him as he strikes a peculiar sharpness is more real than anything before or thereafter. And despite this, all he finds he wants or needs or can do in this fit of sensation and blind desire is to become one with this being, to drag them down and down until they eventually become one, until there is no true or verifiable difference or distinction between skin to pulse, tied together vein by vein, chamber to chamber.

But just as soon as that feeling really begins, his eyes finally peel open, and he finds himself laid in a dark and shadowed room. There is no person leaning above him, nor is there sand shifting between fingers as he grasps at the sheets below him. And as sure as death, he moves to have back against goose feathered pillows, and he realizes then that his nightshirt is on, partially buttoned and ridden up to expose unshielded skin against the soft of cool fabric, and his legs move bare beneath the dark stain of the duvet. And his skin, riddled with goosebumps at the chill biting the air, and moonlight leading a pathway from the start of his body to the length of the window, once again, despite all precaution - completely, and undeniably open.

Raoul throws off the covers, practically leaping out of the bed, and stomps petulantly over to the window as he rapidly blinks sleep out of his eyes. His pulse still races like a spooked horse, his skin slightly slick with sweat, amongst other things he will certainly very well not address nor think about.

Gripping the sides of velvet drapes with shivering hands, Raoul de Chagny sticks his head out of the window, and yells.

“Goddamn you, fantôme débauché!”

And thus, the curtains on this opera are drawn forcefully closed.

Chapter Text

IV.

By his arrival back at the Opera Populaire the next fog ridden morning, thick stack of sheet music tucked precariously beneath one arm, Raoul is squinting against the stage lights. After the vision of the previous night, he had fought sleep stubbornly as a mule, tossing and turning and groaning into pillows as he tried desperately not to feel what the dream had brought to him, the buzzing pulse beneath his nightshirt and behind tightly screwed shut eyes. He must have drifted off at some point or another, but for however long, it was most certainly not long enough.

When Christine catches sight of him, chatting downstage with Meg, her face immediately draws down into a frown, brow furrowed with a particular concern, and her friend nods as she leans down and whispers something to her, before maneuvering around various stretching ballet girls over to meet Raoul in the middle.

Now stood before him, she reaches up, taking his face into her hands, her round eyes searching, taking note of the dark circles beneath his eyes, the strands of hair falling out of place and into his face. “My God, Raoul, didn’t you sleep at all last night?”

He laughs mournfully, looking away and around the partially crowded stage, eyes not falling upon anyone in particular, but eventually summoned up into the shadowed space of the rafters above. “Only long enough to drown, I’m afraid,” and his eyes drop back down into her own.

Christine’s gaze follows his upward, and she tsk’s, dropping her hands down to fidget in front of her stomach, before noticing the music nearly slipping out of Raoul’s uncertain grasp. She grabs at it as one of the pages begins to slip, bundling them up in her own arms, looking them over. “Is this from him, then? The phantom?”

“If that is what we are referring to him as, then yes. He delivered them to my room at some point whilst I was out yesterday. Couldn’t even have the decency to close the window on his way out - twice, mind you.” He watches, arms crossed defensively over his chest, as Christine scans her eyes over the music, line down to drawn-out line, and her face suddenly turns, breaking out into a grin she most definitely attempts to bite down on.

“What? What, whatever is so funny?” Raoul goes to lean over her shoulder to look, but she’s already reshuffled the sheets into order, and has the back of her hand up to rest before her lips, as though she is muffling laughter. She turns back to look at Raoul, who is very much not amused, thank you very much, and she finally laughs openly, a bright youthful sound, shaking her head. “Well, it appears that this phantom of yours has made us two…lovers.”

“Christ, you cannot be serious!” He grabs the papers back, Christine allowing, and he scans his eyes hurriedly over the lines, shoving a stray strand of dirty blond hair back over top of his head. 

“What, did you seriously not even read it?” Christine asks, amusement tying her voice together neatly, and she tilts her head as she patiently watches his state of disarray.

“Yes! I mean - sort of - well, I just got a bit overwhelmed, is all! Hey, how is this funny? Look!” Raoul shoves a forceful finger against the paper, and it crinkles slightly as he flips the sheets to face her, sticking them out so that they very nearly smack her in the face. She squints, reading, and nods. “Ah, yes. A kiss! Whatever shall we do?”

“Something! Anything? My dear Christine, do you not see? You are like a younger sister to me! A little Lotte, don’t you remember? How can I pretend in front of everyone to - to wish to ravish you? It’s unthinkable!”

She stares at him for a long moment, and he breathes heavily from the exertion of his ramble, shoulders dropping. A stagehand walks in between them, followed by a couple of ensemble members carrying a bench, and by the time they two are once again left unperturbed, Christine has seen that he has once again collected himself. “My dear, my darling Raoul - man of all men, God bless you - you can do this. The directions only so much as call for a single kiss. Just - don’t think about it in the way that you do. Us actors, well - we kiss people all of the time! Honestly, if I were to tell the truth, I can probably say without a doubt that I have kissed a number of my female companions on this very here stage. It is fine, Raoul - trust me.”

He knows she means to calm him, but perhaps it is not even the stage directions that bother him so - but rather, the author of such demands. Who is he to force them all to do as he so commands? What sort of writer does he believe himself to be, hidden in the shadows like some kind of horrible reptile?

A snake, perhaps - a constrictor, slithering into his bed at night and tying itself a silent noose around his throat, squeezing and squeezing until only relenting upon his own awareness. 

A truly horrible, horrific ordeal, really. He should have this man, this opera ghost, hunted down and forced to stand upon this very stage himself. He can sing well enough, can’t he? Whispering into Raoul’s ears in the dead of the night, reverberating thick vocal chords throughout his body, chilling down his spine in what could only possibly be fear - and most certainly nothing else, nor more - no, certainty not.

As though a pin dropped in the echo of a silent corridor, Carlotta’s high-strung voice is suddenly piercing like a hawkish cry through the air, and she sashays almost very nearly right into Christine, sticking her neck out to look very obviously into the music still clutched tightly in Raoul’s hands. “My, my - and what would we have here, Monsieur Vicomte?” Her accent thickly punctuates every word, and the poodle held limp in her arm at her wide and bejeweled hip for a moment wiggles, whining pathetically, tongue lolling.

“Ah, Mademoiselle Giudicelli - “ Raoul begins, but she’s already grabbed the sheets from his hands, and they’ve presently become slightly severely wrinkled from being passed so readily from hand to eager hand, and he and Christine watch wearily as Carlotta’s face goes from its usual state of self satisfaction to falling slowly like a feather dropped from a peacock’s noisy backside, and she exclaims, her poodle leaping out of her arm and scurrying away like a rat as she presses the hand there to her scarlet mouth.

Raoul cringes as she takes the music and physically crumples the sheets, before throwing them up into the air in an entirely dramatized notion, where they float and flutter like ash or snow, and Carlotta, in usual fashion, storms away, heels clicking noisily, fading with her exit. And just as suddenly, her little black poodle starts on a spree of high-pitched barking only achievable by none other than Carlotta herself, growls like the revving of a little engine, and the lights on the stage go down all at once, encasing everyone there in near complete darkness and under cover of shadow.

Gasps come from every direction like a gust of sudden wind, ballet girls squealing in fright, and Raoul finds himself reaching absently out for Christine, taking her by the shoulder and pulling her in close. There’s shuffling, panicked yells to turn the lights back on, and the indistinct sound of props being either dropped, or simply ran into.

And through the midst of this chaos, there is a sudden crack like that of lightning, to his perception to be from the center of the stage, and a spotlight burns on so sudden that Raoul draws up an arm to shield his eyes, squinting against the sheer and sudden strength of its bright glow, perhaps a hundred times that of the full moon.

And there, bathed in that very light, stands a tall figure, clad complete in stark black, illuminated more like a shadow of a man than of one himself, but as he turns, Raoul can see the white reflecting a dreadful, searing flame upon this very stage, and a sense of dread begins to settle at the bottom of his stomach, pooling and filling up higher and higher, all-consuming in a way that anchors one to the ground beneath. He pulls Christine even closer, if at all possible, shifting to stand slightly in front of her small form as her hands grasp at his arm, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever she could require such protection from. And his blood rushes a river through his ears as the man, eerily all-too-familiar, begins to speak.

His voice booms in a way that no man could every possibly deem realistic or true - as if this voice is coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, bouncing from each and every corner like a child’s ball, never settling, never to be caught. It echos through Raoul’s body, shocks chills into his spine and forces itself beneath his hair-raised skin, taking root within him.

“It seems that none of you truly grasp the…brevity, of this situation,” the voice begins, and before his next booming utterance, the light is snuffed, and there is yet another loud crack, sparks exploding orange and red into the air like a birth of fireflies, fluttering around before dissipating completely into the stage, swallowed by blankets of young shadow.

Once more, the spotlight is drawn up, yet this time, Raoul must turn to look, and, of course - it is box number five now alight in scarlet and gold, and the man stands there almost more in focus than when he had stood so much nearer, impossibly so. The phantom speaks once again, deep voice filling the air with electricity, gesticulating with great arcs of grandeur, his cape lifting and sweeping along with him as though the equivalent of two powerful, extensive wings - and who is really to say?

The silence around Raoul now rings strange - it is as though no one is brave enough to even so much as breathe, much less speak out - or, perhaps, this phantom has somehow muted the rest of the world with whatever preternatural power that he holds within him, and suddenly, Raoul can no longer hear the angry words spitting fires of warning, nor the chastising glare of bared porcelain teeth, and it as though he is standing directly before him, could simply reach out and touch his face, slip his fingers beneath the hard mask, unveil all that exists in that hidden world of angelic righteousness and secrecy, anticipatorily concealed luxury. A forbidden fruit, ripe for the plucking, so smooth beneath the gentle brush of his fingers, so rotund and filled with sweet, leaking liquid -

The speaking halts, those narrow eyes flitting over to burn like fragmented shards of shattered glass, an allusive and alluring mirror into Raoul’s own, and the ice of blue that they hold within them dig knives intrusively inside of him as would a frozen gust of winter wind, as though they are actually the sharpest of claws, and can read each and every truth, every lie, every feeling burrowed within him deep, pinning him back by his arms like an insect devoid of all life or cognitive will or being. Examining, looking - and then he smiles, wide and alarming, and Raoul’s pulse is like a rabbit hunted by the predatorial wolf, leaping and kicking with breaths small but quick, and the teeth gleaming are tiny blades, and Raoul’s hand where it had reached out like a child to a shiny new toy is grasped tightly at the wrist, blowing and gripping a force that sends spots of black into his vision, a relaying message with broken signal, clouding and dizzying, and he can feel himself floating to the ground like a feather plucked straight from the root, before the spotlight once again, snuffs out.

“Raoul! My God, Raoul, wake up!”

His head pounds as he blinks open his eyes, and the first thing he notices is the light - shining down on him like a corpse ready for the pump, or perhaps if he squints he too can reach up to it, a moth to the flickering flame, but he really isn’t reaching at all - someone has his hand, someone is touching it to their mouth -

“Je le jure, Raoul - never frighten me like that again!” It’s Christine, of course it is, cupping his pale hand to the soft of her cheek, their fingers intertwined - or, rather, her grasping at his, where they have yet to react in turn. There’s a line of worry worked and etched into her skin above the brow, and he moves his hand from her gentle grasp to lightly touch there, as if to smooth it out with a simple brush. She leans away from his touch, scoffing, and when Raoul moves to sit upright, he finds that he gasps at the searing of newfound pain focused in the wrist of his right hand, pulsing and throbbing in an almost violent manner, a flush of heat concentrated around, as if it is still being squeezed beneath another’s tight grasp. And when he instinctively draws it up close to his chest, cradling it, there is but one distinctive feature - bruising in the shape of a particularly large hand, imprinted and bleeding out beneath layers of newly damaged skin.

Christine’s eyes widen when she catches sight of it, and she suddenly stands, yelling, but the pain is clouding Raoul’s mind so that all he can do is slightly rock back and forth, groaning, eyes screwed shut. There are ensemble members and crew milling loudly about, and Meg races through them with Madame Giry on her tail, André and Firmin too following now closely behind, having just entered the theatre themselves after learning of the previous incident.

Meg gasps a little at the sight of Raoul’s gruesome injury, instinctively turning away so that her face is partially tucked and hidden against Christine’s shoulder in her curls of chestnut, covering her mouth with a delicate hand. Her friend wraps an arm around her, and Madame Giry kneels down beside him, that same stern expression masking her face as it always appears to be, with a hint of endlessly unceasing concern flushed throughout. She offers her hands, clearly looking to examine his wrist, and he hesitates - the pain had begun from his stirring to be completely numb, and continued to grow with a pain thus forth that made his whole hand and forearm tremble with every movement and even slight exertion of the muscle.

The older woman’s face softens a bit at his pained expression and hesitation, and she allows Raoul to stay tucked in on himself, moving in closer to look over him as is, delicately taking his healthy hand from where it holds the injured, and he has to bite back a yelp as she, as gently as possible, pulls his mangled wrist into the light. She pushes and prods, whilst Meg continues to duck her face, and Christine reaches out, lightly massaging his shoulder with a look of utmost concern overbearing her soft features. 

André and Firmin stand over them, the latter of which looks down under furrowed brow, almost in disbelief, whilst André’s jaw drops to reveal an open mouth, scrubbing at the hair on his chin. “However did this happen?”

“Most certainly broken, Monsieur,” Madame Giry states lowly, still feeling over it, ignoring the two managers leaning over her. When she does at long last offer them any sense of attention, it is only to offer annoyed chastisement. “Oh, shoo, you two - you’re blocking out all of the light!”

“Ah, apologies Madame, it is only that - “

“ - that this boy requires immediate medical assistance. I want a stagehand to help me bring the Vicomte to my dressing area at once. I will deal with the injury there. Meg, see to the ballet girls - heaven believe they have gotten quite the fright - Christine, you may come along if you wish. That will be all, Monsieur’s.”

She looks coldly at the two, André faltering beneath her hard and stern stare, and he stutters for a moment, eyes darting around in nervous gesture, “y-yes! Right away, Madame Giry, right away!”

Firmin simply looks around the mess of the stage, before shaking his head and performing the sign of the cross before following his friend away. 

By the time they arrive at Madame Giry’s personal dressing quarters, Raoul can barely stand. The pain is utterly intrusive, radiating down his arm and preventing use of his fingers below. The older woman sits him down upon her bench, and the violet cushion is a soft comfort beneath him. He blinks through the spots attempting to rearrange themselves in his line of vision, and sees Madame Giry pouring something of syrupy color, brown and slightly see-through, and she passes the glass to Christine, giving her an order he himself cannot quite hear. His ears feel as though they have been stuffed with cotton, and he very nearly has the mind to check.

Christine kneels before him, pearl dress pillowing out on the ground around her, and gestures the glass of sloshing liquid toward him. “For the pain, mon cher ami. Doctor’s orders, now,” she whispers gently, over-enunciating as though she somehow understands his current state of struggle, and she brings the cool glass to his lips as he nods slowly, swallowing down the liquid swiftly, and - ah, it would be whisky, would it not?

Its warmth begins almost instantaneously to spread through his body and down through the branches of his veins, almost as though perhaps there was a little something more there mixed into it, and suddenly, he can feel the throbbing begin to lessen, his vision becoming clearer with each blink as a tide sweeping the beach. They continue to grow in and out of focus, and he simply stares ahead, looking at the brilliant, colorfully sewn costumes, the burnt out candles dripping with cooled and molded wax, the golden chests locked or popped open and spilling out with gleaming jewelry. Christine rubs at his knee, and his wrist only feels numb again as Madame Giry securely wraps soft white bandages around the bruising, and then across to his shoulder and down his back to tighten his forearm to his chest, keeping his wrist from any further movement or injury.

Immediately, it feels claustrophobic - instinctually, he goes to move his arm, but it remains held taut in its place, hugged against him without relent or space for release. Madame Giry stands, offering the roll of cloth to him. “You will require assistance, Monsieur. Do not hesitate to ask,” and she says it like she already knows that he wouldn’t, one brow just slightly raised, her stern face severely shadowed, but there is actual concern buried in there somewhere, deep inside and just barely shining through the cracks - something, distinctly, maternal.

Raoul does not return to box five later that morning, nor by the evening, or the afternoon. Christine stays attached to his side like an addled puppy, fussing over how he moves, and whatever plans he makes for even the future in far. The managers did, in fact, end up receiving another pristine folder of inked sheets of music, along with an indulgent red note strung together of many witty insults and pungent curses - truly worthy of a sailor such as himself, and not at all of a supposed phantom of the rafters above - but what would he know?

“I will be but a moment - what, is a gentleman not allowed to relieve himself on his lonesome anymore?”

It is not just Christine who hesitates when Raoul begins to excuse himself to freshen up, but rather the managers, too - even Carlotta and Piangi appear to his perception slightly jittery - but Madame Giry, most of all, well - she has no expression at all. Rather, she speaks to his defense, hanging off the edge of a bit of a sigh, “oh, let the Vicomte go - there is no reason for all of this.”

“No reason?” André stares at her with bewilderment in his eyes, and he leans across the desk, expressing with open gesticulation. “The man almost lost a hand, and you dismiss the question of whether or not the very Opéra we stand in is unsafe?”

Raoul lifts a tentative finger of his non-lame hand, faintly quiet in his address of the candlelit room, “ - well, I wouldn’t say lost, per se - “

Piangi cuts in, making a noise through his open mouth so as to speak, but flounders as his lover stands abruptly beside him, her ornate fan brushing feathers into his face. “I have to agree with Monsieur André, Madame Giry. How is one to ever possibly feel safe in an environment such as this? Bags of sand falling from the ceiling to crush anyone beneath like a common roach,” she grasps fiercely, fingers scooping at the air, fist clenching, “the lights being distorted and forcing us into a sudden likeness of night! And what is more, is the dozens of unconscionable demands - taking valuable profit from our productions and using it for - for what exactly? More magic tricks and entirely undefendable violence? My, c’est tout simplement absurde!”

Carlotta’s face is scarlet as a ripe tomato, and she sniffles, rapidly beating her fan through the air at her neck as she hums uneasily. Madame Giry, too, stands up, facing the woman with wobbling lip, and actually scoffs. “You do not see the real problem here, do you, Mademoiselle? The phantom has provided this Opéra its most extravagant of profits for years now. The productions that you parade your sparkling tail feathers around in were composed entirely by he himself - and your little - let us say outburst, is precisely the cause of what angers him so. If you would simply learn your place, Prima Donna, then there would not be the problems you complain about now to begin with.”

Carlotta gasps theatrically, throwing the fan down open onto André’s desk, where it knocks the top sheet of music to the ground, fluttering slowly in its descent. She begins to say something in retort, voice obnoxious in its sharp cadence, but Raoul cannot make it out - and he feels the dread creeping up around his shoulders from behind like swiftly growing roots pulling him into the ground, and as Christine leaves his side to retrieve the fallen paper, he stumbles to his feet, pushed up by a single hand, and races through to the threshold of the office, out into the cool and hollow air of the shadowed corridor there beyond.

The old door swings shut behind him, and the silence is, comparatively speaking, deafening. The hair on his neck stands tall on-end, and he can physically feel the kickstart of a rabbiting pulse, the sensation of his actual heart growing too heavy to remain in its place situated behind his ribs, plummeting instead to the center of his chest, and he finds that he cannot breathe. His mind has gone completely haywire, as though every individual nerve and sense throughout is focused singularly on the weight there and has lost all ability to regulate or even remember that anything else simply exists at all - and where did this all transpire, where did it begin? Somewhere lost and found within all of the yelling, the chaos?

Or perhaps, the voice tickling at his ears now, chasing after his footsteps with its own, so soft it can barely be perceived - growing and ringing out like some kind of strange, sinful prayer, and he smacks his side into the cold stone of the wall, collapses there more than slides down, the ache in his wrist returning familiar but not welcome - or maybe, in fact, it was. The pain was real, so physical, it hardly scared him at all. But that voice, singing in his mind, lodged in between his ears and impossible to reach, creates a pulse in and of itself, filtering in and out as if in a battle revoking and accepting permission again and over again. And Raoul cannot think, cannot breathe, cannot exist in such a state.

He tucks into his own body like a child unborn, actually beginning to cry in between fits of strangled coughing - shoulders shuddering against the brick beside him, knocking into it hard but unnoticed in his state of complete and utter lack of conscious thought and control. It is as though he is being plucked away from his own body, his soul slipping out between his shoulder blades and into clear air, floating away and uncertain, lost of any and all direction. 

But just as swiftly, he is pulled back, shoved forcefully into his body, and there’s a strange weight pressed against one shoulder, before the other, and he blinks through blurred vision until that too is gone, and he cannot determine the exact cause - has he truly drifted away completely, or are his eyes still open? Is this the end of everything, or the beginning of nothing?

But however could he be dead, if those same two weights slipped now from his shoulders and grabbed behind and under the crook of his legs? Was the sensation of being lifted into the air one of reality, or hallucination? Where in the sands of existence are the lines cutting between figmentation and actuality? Do they even live at all, or do they simply bleed and run like red-inked script?

The thing against him, holding him, is so very warm, that Raoul finds himself pushing his face into it, nuzzling as would a sleeping child, weightless and body slack as he allows himself to be taken away to God only knows where. There is a buzz in the thing against him, a deep purr of blurry voice that reverberates through one body and into the next, and if Raoul could see absolutely nothing, he could certainly still see the heat behind his eyes, red and orange and sinking into his mind concealed, filling him up like a pail of syrup, completely malleable and naturally so warm that it replaces all things else.

Time passes in a way that Raoul cannot categorize, cannot sense through the vertigo of the creature who holds him so, and perhaps he had even fallen into the forgiveness of sleep - perhaps it had been hours, days, months - a decade to a century - and would it even matter? For if this how a child must feel still warm and happy in its mother’s womb, why should he long for anything else at all? The air outside is so very cold, a frigid mess of scent and wandering, so unsafe and amoral in creatures selfish and cruel - whatever would the point of living be?

The weight eventually shifts, and he is deposited gently onto something soft, cushion and distinct velvet, and he drags his fingers through it, body shivering from the sudden change in touch - deprived of that warmth, nothing left to tether him back to reality. His heart races once more, but there is a strange disconnect, a fatal dissociation, and now all that he can see again is black, black, black. 

But the weight returns, pressing gentle down into his chest, feeling over him, and - oh, a hand, there are fingers to this thing, dragging up to the bare of his throat, a gentle and deliberate stroke upon his chin.

“Do not be afraid, petit oiseau.”

The voice sounds as though it speaks beneath the surface of pressured water, deep and smooth, and Raoul cannot even recognize it in this moment of stupor, simply breathe it in as air touches the skin of his eyelids, and again there is light, as though on the very first day - a rebirth into a whole new world, one completely unconceivable to his feeble human mind, and he is afraid to open them, to at long last stare at this thing up close, to make sense of what had not for so very long.

And when he does, it is not by free will of choice - and the fingers, discernibly gloved, brush from the bridge of his nose, opening over his eyes to his hair, as if compelling by spiritual force, a sensual and unyielding power that cannot by any means be resisted or denied, smoothing over his consciousness and awakening him again to the world and light around him.

Raoul sees him - and he is no divine creature, no being of Hell or sinful indulgences - he is a man, made of hot flesh and pumping blood, looking at him as though he were some kind of scientific discovery, a hypothesis proven before his very eyes, but one is in shadow, masked by a thing of snow-lain porcelain, and the feeling of familiarity opens up to Raoul like a flood, fueling him in his response, which is to push himself up on one hand, sliding on what he can now see is some kind of curtained bed, scrambling back into the plush of pillows behind, and he knows that he should be frightened, but the man, God, the phantom of this very Opéra, has eyes like ice and a cape of coal, and the fire burning between is his body, stood tall over him, threatening and yet not at all, and - mon Dieu, is Raoul confused.

The phantom, though seemingly intrigued, moves slowly, approaching as though Raoul is some kind of spooked animal he must yield to, sitting down to dip upon the mattress, the black of his clothing a stark contrast to the warm champagne of the sheets underneath, pooling around him as it had surely done before. He has shed his cloak, draped it over Raoul’s lap as a blanket, and despite everything - it is soft as the down of a newborn duckling, and it smells of melted candle wax and freshly grown blooms yet to be plucked from the rich soil feeding them beneath. This is when Raoul recognizes the object of what had taken his vision from him - his very own stolen cravat, folded neatly at the foot of the bed.

“You tremble,” the man begins, eyes narrowed to emotional crescents, shining like tiny moons in the soft whispering glow of lamplight spilling through the sheerness of the drapes. “You shiver as though I am some horrible thing - “

He reaches half into the air, and Raoul cowers back further into the pillows, a useless and almost primitive display. He does not even really intend to do it - it is simply instinct, such as the mouse ducking away from the mewling cat. And, recognizing this, the phantom grabs at the air instead, his clenched fist of gleaming leather shaking slightly there for a moment before then abruptly dropping, a plucked feather, a cut line. “I have made you fear me.”

There is something very sincere in the thickness of his voice, the cadence of its slight and unsure wobble, the dark furrow of his brow. And another piece of Raoul wishes to reach out, to touch him like he knows now he had before but only in dream, in vision, but he simply cannot move from his place on this bed, cannot hardly think to breathe.

The man’s eyes drift down to Raoul’s bandaged wrist, his strange sorrow growing more and more palpable from second to heavy second, and his gaze flickers back up to his own. “I have hurt you - I did not intend - well, I am very sorry to have done it.” Despite the ease at which his voice flows from his throat, the words do not come quite as easily, teetering as though threatened to the fall, uncertain. He looks once again down at Raoul’s arm, takes a breath through the mouth, and lifts his hands, though not yet moving them in any particular direction. “May I?”

Raoul is not sure to what he is referring to precisely, and his mind is screaming at him to get up, to run, to find something sharp or heavy or pliable, to save himself before he is lost to this world completely - but if he is only a man, then why is he so afraid? But a man who harms, a man who lives somewhere dark and confined - and is he entrapped here, is he imprisoned? And however could he have appeared as he did in Raoul’s dreams, snuck in through his window, drawn him in and singled him out like a sniper fixed to kill if he were simply a man? 

There was no reason for any of it - and so he says, “yes.”

The phantom, the man - whatever he may be - inches in closer, and slowly he removes his gloves, finger by finger. And truthfully - it is quite the seductive procedure, the way that he drags each one up, discarding them beside Raoul where he sits, looking up into his eyes every so often, those enticing frozen pits of sleet and sky. 

And once the phantom finishes, his hands now bare, Raoul can see that those same fingers are long, strong and lithe like a musician’s - the mark of a true composer, but still lightly scarred, the hint or perhaps even promise of another man, and that of his right is rumpled almost as though melted wax itself, twisting up from the wrist hidden by dark cuff up to the tip of pinkie, and he notices that Raoul notices, and in a particular way of subtly arranges it so that he can no longer view that part, hiding it as he reaches, using oddly manicured nails to peel up the cloth, twisting it and unraveling it, and when he reaches around his back to shoulder, Raoul can feel that breath against his skin, and he bites down on his tongue, fighting back every reaction or terrible urge, twisting shut his eyes and swallowing hard, until his arm at long last falls from the loosened noose it had been tied up in.

The man slowly slides off the last piece of bandage, slipping it down with delicate movement of his hands, gliding over Raoul’s arm, fingers just barely tickling his skin there, and as the cloth falls, the phantom instantly frowns, taking his wrist into his large palms, and his touch is warm, seeping in through the numb skin beneath, shielding the constellation of bruise and broken vein spread a mural across its breadth.

“Oh - ma beauté innocente, whatever have I done to you?” 

The words hardly register, and Raoul finds it difficult to disguise the pain and sensitivity of the area, and his eyes once again flutter shut, the phantom’s glowering voice the only sense of recognition or expression in this moment of shadow. “If you were to only ask for it, un délicat, I happen to know of a medicinal property both truer and greater than that of any healer or…woman, in this plane of existence and time. Petit Vicomte, I can bring to you more than simple relief…but pleasure, as well.”

The voice now rings in his ears, fumbles around for a bit before reaching his brain, fluttering around like the wings of an entrapped and frantic bird, beating like the sure rush of his pulse now.

“…pleasure?” He whispers, voice broken and small, barely even recognizable to his own ears. But the phantom hears, as he always does, and he hums in instant response, taking a finger and slowly snaking it down Raoul’s arm from the crook of his elbow downward to the sensitive stretch of wrist, and he inhales sharply in an audible breath, hesitating before nodding, a small thing until suddenly he knows that he is doing far too much, far too desperate and most certainly embarrassing himself in the process.

The phantom’s eyes change, in that moment - as if rolling clouds of thunder could appear within the skies of one’s eyes, unforgiving and fit to starve, and Raoul almost again feels the need to cry out - but a need is faraway from a want, and he does not have the strength nor courage to search for it.

“Then simply allow yourself to have it. Open up your mind, provide to me your permission to give this gift to you, ma colombe, and you will feel and live as you never have before.” He slowly lifts Raoul’s limp wrist toward his face, eyes still locked in, focused, staring. “Have no fear, Vicomte de Chagny - I will hurt you no further.”

And with that, his teeth are tearing through flesh.

There is no possible way to even begin to describe the pain that circulates through him in this moment, the shock that slams into him harder than brick, fiercer than electricity. It comes in a flash, piercing through his body piece by agonizing piece, and he has no choice but to cry out, a sound leaving his throat not even recognizable as one of human source, choking and gasping, and his body shakes, but he cannot move, completely paralyzed, his wrist locked completely into place as though by powerful vice. There is crimson blood streaming down his forearm and onto his palm, swiftly filling in the cracks and spilling over more, dripping down to disappear into a red the very shade of velvet and silken sheets beneath.

But just as sudden, it is as though the clouds have parted, and the sun shines through in a light so bright it cannot be replicated by mankind’s pallet of colored inks or dyes, nor in any capacity at all. And whilst the pain had struck down like lightning, the ecstasy now was just as smooth as the ocean, ebbing and flowing through his body in waves of dizzying pleasure, and every piece of him is warm, and when he cries out now, it is because there is simply too much to contain within him. 

The phantom laps at his wrist like an animal, completely transfixed with pupils blown wide, and Raoul can see through fluttering lashes the way his face warms in color, how the flush of rose spills ink onto his exposed cheek, how he grows more confident, stronger with each and every gulping swallow, and Raoul’s throwing back his head before it falls back down and onto this creature’s broad shoulder, gasping and panting hot breath into his neck, clinging with his free hand to the phantom’s dark jacket like a child to its blanket, afraid to let go, afraid to do anything and yet still completely lost to the sinful way each blood pumping part of him throbs and aches, shivers and convulses, and he says something in French, but he does not even recognize what at all, his vision coming and going in flashes of black and white.

Raoul’s pushing his full self against the phantom, body heavy and exhausted but still entirely desperate, dependent upon this high until it plummets with the release, this creature pulling away, his own head thrown back as he darts out his stained tongue to lick Raoul’s blood from his lips, dripping from them and down his chin, and when Raoul moves to gain back that wrist, he once again becomes dizzy, because - well, the bruise, the pain - it is all gone. 

All that is left upon his skin now is the slick of his own blood and saliva, without a hint of the thing that had produced either thing. And Raoul finds he cannot even care, and he cannot help but begin to weep - the emotion, the fear, the confusion, the exhaustion - they draw over him sudden and intense, and the phantom draws him in closer, holds him, strokes his hair as though it had been done many a time before. And he whispers, his voice small but full, echoing in the damp stone encasing them in this little tomb, this coffin of strange eternity, undisturbed by the burdens of time nor society. 

“Do not weep, my little angel, chose au goût sucré - you will never know loneliness again. I will guard you, I will teach you. Your very own angel of music, your phantom of mind and spirit and soul. Do not fret your pretty little head over a thing - it is I who will give to you everything, and nothing, and you will never again have to search in your sleep that which you so desperately crave. Petite souris, tu m'appartiens. You belong, to me.”

Chapter Text

V.

Raoul is not sure how he ended up back in his bed the next morning. 

The sky is dark - he does not even recognize it as day until his eyes blink heavily onto the clock stood upon his dresser, and he immediately begins to sense that familiar pool of panic, the swirl of anxiety settling into his stomach as he shifts off the bed and pads barefoot to the window, which is, once again - cracked ajar. He startles with the sure crack of thunder, the clouds moving onward angry and noticeable, rousing themselves gray to their positions with great and powerful urgency. The air lilting into the room is strangely warm, clung to by an alarming humidity, settling against the bare skin of his hands, face, and neck.

And as though this very sensation is the key to the lock inside his mind, it all comes rushing back in, a swarming and unavoidable flood - the voice, the mask, the pain - the blood which upon nerve-filled glance has been cleaned, scrubbed of his arm completely - and there is no bruising, no ache, nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And it as though he feels a pang of disappointment at the sight - a strange sense of longing tied a rope around his core, pulling toward an unseen presence - for the feeling, but also for the very memory itself - it was all a fog, bits and pieces like fragments of shattered glass only to reveal themselves shone by reflection at specific, particular and stubborn angles. 

And if there had been a mark, something, anything - then it would be completely and undeniably real - and had it been? Had he somehow hallucinated each day since he returned to his country from creaking ship to sturdy land? Had he taken ill, was this in fact the truth of a dizzying, eternally fatal afterlife?

Suddenly, there is a sturdy knock at his door, and Raoul turns, closing the window and flipping the lock behind him with a muted click, eyes searching around in panic for something more to slip on and cover the state he has found himself in.

He moves over to his drawers, frantically opening each with eager hands until he eventually discovers a wrinkled pair of trousers, hopping into them one leg at a time, guarding his wrist instinctively despite knowing the newly healed state of it. He half-tucks in his shirt, buttoning it up further so as to emulate at least some portion of decency, and, now slightly breathless, opens the door by sculpted golden knob.

“Brother! I was - oh, are you quite alright?”

It is Philippe, stood perfectly groomed before him, his brow drawn as he takes in Raoul’s messy appearance, the hair that slips into his face, his shoeless feet. 
Raoul stutters, completely surprised. 

“Sorry - I just - it was - …long night,” he decidedly settles on, and he knows that he himself too must look confused by his own words, but he has not seen his eldest brother in just over two years, and now he is stood an apparition in his doorway.

Philippe nods slowly as though he does not fully believe him, humming as he not-so-subtly peers over Raoul’s head and into the bedroom behind. He attempts to block him, but the Comte is a few inches taller than he is, and easily shoulders past him into his private quarters.

“My, my - well, this certainly is a surprise.”

Philippe is stood beside his bedside table, hands to his hips, smiling mischievously. Raoul turns, expression stern, but his words reveal themselves to be only half-hearted, “I don’t recall inviting you in.”

“It is my house. You never told me you were courting.” He is referring to the flower sat tied with red silk ribbon upon the mahogany furniture, the petals the very same, a deep, soft scarlet. Beneath, a note, and Philippe moves to snatch it up before Raoul can even think himself to move, laughing in a vexatious manner, holding it high above his head so that it is perfectly out of reach, and Raoul can feel his face burning hot, his heart beginning to pound harder in his chest, but he knows better than to continue to protest, simply turning around, hands braced to his hips as he bows his head and closes his eyes - awaiting impact.

A beat, then -

“Now this - this is just raunchy.”

His brother is chuckling more privately now, and Raoul squints open one eye, peering over his own shoulder. “What? Whatever is it?”

“You tell me, brother - looks like I am not the only one being…well, taken in by a certain theatre nowadays.”

Raoul furrows his brow, uncertain, and turns to grasp the note held out by Philippe, and he cannot help the feeling of anticipation racing beneath his skin, the warmth that so embarrassingly spreads through him as he begins to read.

‘Ma nourriture avide,

I hope you do not mind that I kept your cravat within my possession - the singular sight of you was simply not enough, I am afraid - and the late eve most certainly rose to prove that very fact. Do you know how sweet you taste, petit oiseau? Do you know how you feel pumping inside of my veins, filling me fit to burst? You are so pretty when you cry out, Monsieur. And your song will prove just as much - of that I am sure.

This time, I hope for no further interruptions from the crowd of little mundanity - come visit me where I lay in shadow of my private box - you do, in fact, know the very one.

P.S. - This petite fleur reminded me of you - do not allow it to wilt this time, wouldn’t you?

Faithfully,

C.P.’

“I did stop reading after the words ‘sweet’ and ‘taste,’ by the way - there are some things that I do not, in fact, wish to know of.” He huffs a little, faintly amused, but his voice quiets, faltering. “You have yourself caught up in quite the little affair here, don’t you, cher frère?”

Between his brother, and the note, Raoul does not quite understand how to react, or how to move forward. But Philippe at long last excuses himself by the squeak of appearing servant, and Raoul falls back onto the bed as soon as the door is shut sure, scrubbing his hands across his face and up into his hair, tugging at the loose strands, groaning into the air hung empty around him, and another rumble bursts and crackles through the sky, bringing swift light to the window before just as suddenly falling back to familiar shadow - and he remembers everything - the large hands, the piercing teeth, the soft, panting mouth. 

It had struck through him like lightning, shocking him at his very core, righteous in strength, entangling him into sharp wire, bare feet stood upon scalding stone. But then the light had disappeared, simmered away, and left only was the aftershock of warmth and the tumbling waves of calm, the very eye of the hurricane, nothing but beating heart and quiet, humming pleasure.

Raoul can almost indulge in that feeling again, now - centering itself low in his body, pumping the blood through his veins in relentless desperation as though it searches only for release, the hidden trapdoor of tiny knives and holy slick, and he closes his eyes, head back, mouth open, trails his own fingers along from his taut-skinned jaw and beneath the collar of mussed shirt, to his collarbone rising and falling against his touch like the eternally pulsing ocean. And he imagines that mouth closing over him, can truly feel it, the hot flash of the teeth sinking deep inside, the warmth of his life pooling and trailing down, rivers sculpted by divine hand alone, can feel the smooth leather grabbing rough, possessive at his cheek, tugging sharp and unrelenting at his hair -

Another knock. 

Raoul lays there for a second, his ears ringing to mute all sound around him, staring up to the sculpted ceiling above. The chandelier hung there is so insignificant in contrast to the one hung a burning star above the Opéra, but it still gleams, still hangs definably above him. He imagines what would happen if it were to fall - would he even feel it? Or would his body cave in beneath the shard of each and every pinprick, struck through like a dart board, stuck forever like an entrapped mouse against this bed where he knows he has felt sinful pleasure beyond any reasonable or plausible measure? For a moment, he wants to feel it. And he deserves this punishment above all else, but -

The knock once again, more urgent now than before. Raoul pushes himself up, closes his eyes and breathes deeply in and out to clear the rest of the stirrings left running amuck through his body, and stands, not even bothering now to prepare himself at all. Once again, he is stood swinging open his bedroom door, leaning against the frame dutifully.

“Monsieur!” And she stumbles over her words for a moment as she looks up at him in his state of undress, swallowing visibly. “Oh, there is a postage for you, le Vicomte de Chagny - I was told it was of supreme urgency.”

The woman is not even that - a young girl perhaps not reached yet to maturity, features small and still rounded and flushed from youth, her eyes wide and obeying. She hands the envelope to Raoul with delicate hands, and toys with the apron of her skirts nervously as he runs his fingers across it - the material is thick, textured but smooth - certainly expensive. Could it be?

He notices her once more in his periphery, and clears his throat, very nearly having the mind to be embarrassed, “oh, my apologies - you are dismissed - merci, beaucoup.” He gives her a gentle smile, along with a curt nod of encouragement, and she bows, face flushing, before scurrying hurriedly away as though there was something at all to run from - or, perhaps - to.

Raoul slowly closes the door behind him, leaning against it with a soft click, staring down thoughtlessly to the letter in his hands now. On the back, there is a wax seal the identical crimson as the rose, ink, and ribbon, and it is quite dramatically large, pressed to the shape of a human skull, staring up at him with eyes of soulless socket, pits of empty shadow and perhaps a warning Raoul does not himself care to heed.

He tears the envelope open, and he realizes only then that his hands are trembling - they struggle to pull the letter from the card, and once his fingers are upon it, the envelope flutters carelessly to the floor, a reflection of his pulsing heart, beating with prominence against his ribs. He reads the red cursive with hungry eyes, starving for their meaning.

‘Bonjour encore, 
mon succulent Vicomte -

I will not bother to indulge in lustrous pleasantries. My request is as follows - I wish for you to be in attendance of my grande masquerade ball, set to engage this very evening - but do not fret, as I understand well that you will, as I have prepared and provided you with adequate uniform. You are a sailor after all, no? 

Your dressing cabinet is quite empty - would it be crude for me to suggest you add a tad more red to your wardrobe? It looks quite delectable upon the silk of your white skin, Monsieur. Quite indeed.

So as to not cause any trouble, I will inform you now that I will in fact be presenting both you and that bon ami of yours, Christine Daaé, to the very best in Paris - together as my new ingénue and rising stars and pupils of the Opera Populaire. 

I provide my own refrain - do not fret - you still have yet a ways to remain of my teaching - and thus you shall not yet share your hidden talents to the waiting world.

À très bientôt, yours,

C.P.’

Raoul’s eyes immediately flit over to his wardrobe - and had he not indeed received this letter, he would never have come to have known of the frankly flamboyant detail tucked inside. 

It was certainly clear that the phantom was not only a composer of musical indulgence, but of all sorts of creative medium - including that of fashion. The form hanging before him is of silk and velvet, certainly royal in its lace and jeweled embroidered embellishments, not a crease nor tear across its breadth. It is comprised of mostly deep crimson and a touch of rich, brilliant blue, but there is a vivid, vibrant and sheening gold lace along the shoulders and lined across the chest, the mask itself hung the very same - certainly not meant to hide him amongst the crowd at all in means of showiness, and, in fact - he could very well and easily would show up the prima donna herself with an ensemble such as this.

Really, he finds himself more than flattered - truly embarrassed, but most of all - confused. Of this entire situation, of the things he once could never have fathomed or even considered being at all close to true - how teeth sharp as daggers could pierce the flesh and feel so good, of how the powerful hands of unknown creature could sew and create, the lips breathing to produce such ethereal song that both numbs and heightens every and all sensation capable or simply understood of man, how he could perhaps stir such feeling as a supposed man at all.

It was all suddenly and overwhelmingly too much - and yet with every breath he finds himself craving it once more, as though it were an addictive and dangerous substance, something his body needed more than food or air - and he does not care about the masquerade, nor the singing, nor the expectations weighing heavily now upon his shoulders - he simply wants again to be taken and used.

It is not long at all after he returns to the Opéra that noon that he is once again being dutifully fretted over - and Raoul truly finds it to be completely suffocating. 

“Could it truly be? The Vicomte has returned! I will tell the others immediately!” One boy races away before he can even really see him, and once Christine first again sets her eyes upon him, her face falls as though seeing something truly disparaging, emotive without flaw, and she rushes into his arms, holding him tight as though he may float once again away.

“Oh, Raoul - we had believed you had been taken from us - that he had - “

He draws up a quiet hand, pats her head of chestnut ringlets softly, assuredly. “I promise that I am fine, little Lotte - “

“ - you caused quite the stir this past evening, Vicomte.”

It is Firmin, standing behind Christine, who pulls away, wiping at her face and clearing her throat, now playing mindlessly with her fingers at her lap. André too is stood there, a nervous sort of fidget to his eyes, and he, ever inquisitive, asks, “where ever did you run off to anyhow? My God, you should have seen the fright we all went into.”

Raoul feels his face flush hot, the eyes upon him waiting and staring, and he clears his own throat - and whatever would he even say? That he had indeed been taken, had lain in the bed of this composing, demanding phantom and had reveled at the satisfaction pulled from his very teeth pierced through his pulsing veins?

Attempting something, anything remotely probable, he replies, “I simply fell ill, I am afraid. I did not wish to cause any concern, so I took the opportunity during all of the disarray to return back to the estate. I do apologize for not saying anything - it is just - well, my head was pounding - I could hardly even hear all of the fuss, and I suppose the whole gravity of the situation and thus forth matters of the day had taken its toll upon me.”

Christine’s face very slightly contorts in a way only he would ever perceive, her brow furrowing in its gentle uncreasing way, but she does not respond, staying silent as the managers accept his apology in full - perhaps it seemed that they too had not wanted any more trouble or concern brushed their direction, and so they do not ask of him any more questions. But of course, Carlotta appears as though the very harbinger of discombobulation, the saint of misfortune itself, scoffing at him under echoing click of heels.

She glares, grasping Raoul’s wrist, holding it up to the light of the day, stood abrupt before the grande staircase, unyielding in her defiance, nor her grip. “And yet, your wrist, Vicomte - it does not appear to me to be broken at all. So where were you really, Monsieur? Whose bed is it have you lain in to assure you and that greedy choir girl’s positions in my opera house?”

Raoul yanks his hand away, shaking out his wrist as André laughs out breathy and uncomfortable, “I do say, Madame - “

“Do you?” Carlotta parrots, looking around beneath heavily winged eyes, “because it appears quite clear to me indeed that not a single one of you pathétique excuses of managers can get rid of this - this problem!”

Firmin cuts in, stepping tentatively forward, his hands out before him as though comforting a frightened animal. “Mademoiselle, it is more than just your average problem. We only require a bit more time - perhaps we could initiate some kind of negotiation! Please, do not worry yourself - you will find your rightful position back upon the stage in no time at all.”

Carlotta, seemingly pleased with this response, sighs, rouged lips pursed, and the two managers follow her down the hall, comforting the woman whose face is always sparkling, whose corsets are always feathered. 

As soon as they vanish from sight, Christine looks up to him once more, worried, lightly grabbing with small hands atop his forearm. “Raoul…what have you done?”

He does not register the meaning of her words, shaking his head, “what, did you seriously believe that Prima Donna’s frivolous little tale about me?”

“No,” she replies immediately, sternly. “But I do not believe you.”

He blinks - “What?”

“Raoul - be truthful to me now as you always have. What truly happened last night? You know I would never tell another soul, dead or alive. Please,” and her eyes are indeed pleading as they look up to him.

Raoul contemplates for a long moment, bottom lip taken in by teeth, considering. He looks up to the ceiling, the strokes of golds and blues and the oil cherubs with little angel wings, the uncountable lamps of burning wax, soft scarlet rug and shining marble floor. And he meets Christine’s eyes, those big, shining eyes, and he finds that he could never even consider fighting back against the truth looking down into them now, or ever.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” She does not ask it even moderately as a question - she knows, and she knows that he knows - that there is no other thing, no other possibility.

And so he nods, and she sighs, and her hands move to his hands, and she squeezes gently, as though making sure that he is even real and before her now, and her fingers graze that skin of his wrist, examining them through touch alone. When she speaks once more, her voice is small, whispered and wavering. “Please - I beg - be careful, wouldn’t you?”

“He has chosen us both, Christine - “

“And yet it is only to you which he calls.” She responds simply, and he knows completely that it is true, but she does not appear herself much to care - not of herself, anyways - and she blinks, looking around and then returning back up to him. “I am sincerely grateful to be given what I have - I have worked for years dreaming that it only would come true - that my father’s promises of an angel of music visiting me someday would come to fruition, and I would finally know the shine of that spotlight upon my face. But Raoul - this angel has chosen you, and he is no angel at all.”

Christine draws ever closer - and perhaps to another, it may appear intensely intimate, but he feels nothing but comfort and peace beside her, and she knows him more than anyone whose blood runs through his veins now. “Raoul - I am frightened for you, not because this creature gives - but because he takes. What does he want from us? From you? I cannot see into your mind and understand what he does give to you, the songs that he sings. But if I were you, I would stay vigilant - do not sacrifice for yourself, and certainly not for me - because I know well that you would. Do you understand? Do you hear my words, Raoul?”

He had, and yet - there was the voice - far off and so close, reeling him in and demanding his feet to move, and Christine’s hands fall to her sides, and he stands away from her now, facing the shadowed corridors, the large and curtained archways, the beams and ropes beyond. And he hears her voice once more, silencing the other, breaking through. 

“Please - just still be Raoul.”

The box is empty upon his arrival - he leans over the edge, elbows cushioned into expensive fabric, eyes locked upon the stage where every so often a ballet girl or stagehand will flit across, working ants small enough from this point to fit just into the palm of his hand, to wipe off the board completely.

“A rather…delightful view, wouldn’t you say?”

Raoul cannot breathe. The voice is directly behind him, hot against his ear, flowing inside like a nesting dove, singing a song both the same and entirely different, building its home inside of his mind. He does not turn, keeps looking down now to the orchestra pit, the sheets of abandoned music and stringed instrument, the red seats beyond. 

A sure weight settles upon his right shoulder, and Raoul can see the blur of dark leather in his peripheral, the long fingers that blanket over his entire shoulder, resting but not taking. “Ah, are we shy today, petit oiseau?”

The voice reverberates through his chest, catches the intake of breath in his throat, sends a ripple of shivering sensation across his skin - and Raoul finally closes his eyes, leaning back, head coming to rest against the firm, tall body standing there behind. “Ah,” it sings, smooth, tickling breath, “there we are.”

The cool touch of leather dragging up along his jaw to his face, mapping him out, categorizing each and every curve and detail to dip, holding him up with stroking motion of thumb. Raoul feels his head being inclined to the left, the air dancing cool across the exposed tendon of his neck, and his mouth is ajar, his jaw slack and body completely loose to the light brush of lips there, the sharp graze of teeth a gentle and whispered pain. 

When his mind’s clouds begin to let through a little glimpse of light, the sensation stirring him more, he finds himself almost pushing into the mouth near his throat, needing it, wanting it. But the phantom slips away, and Raoul stumbles, the air that had before been unnoticeable previously now chilling the bones, and he blinks drowsily, a whine slipping impulsively from his mouth, his face flushing warm and feverish, filling like color of his blood flowing beneath.

“Not here, un enthousiaste - come,” the voice coaxes gently, and Raoul turns, nearly tripping over his own feet, the white of porcelain peaking a crescent moon from across the shadowed night, the leather glove beckoning out to him from extended, cloaked arm, shining and pretty, and Raoul is compelled to it like a fluttering moth to the licking flame, unthinking and dizzy as he reaches up and grabs at it, perhaps a bit too roughly. But the man does not falter - instead, he smiles, feline and unnerving, staring down at him as he struggles to use his feet upon the ground of this so-called theatre box, which seems more and more so like a ship balanced against the tumultuous and tumbling waves of the ocean, throwing him from one wall to the next. He has been tossed overboard, and as he reaches toward that blurred light above, or perhaps below, his breath is stolen, his heart stuttering as it leers for oxygen to pump throughout, to keep the darkness from closing in on him.

He grabs this phantom’s hand, and he can breathe again.

It is a very dark place inside the walls of the Opera Populaire. 

The phantom leading him by gloved hand now seems to know of every step below, each twist or turn or break in the path of which he carries Raoul across, never dropping his hand, constantly glancing backward as though fearful of some ancient prophecy, and he himself cannot draw his eyes away.

His cape billows out around him as he moves, as though it is an extension of his entire being, a bat or a dragon or a bird, something powerful and ancient and sharp, just as each one of his senses in these darkened catacombs.

There is a river beneath the theatre, the water shallow but pitched a murky color, and the phantom leads Raoul into a boat, a small thing large enough just for two. He does not remember sitting down inside its wood, but he remembers vividly the cloaked figure standing tall and strong above him, guiding the boat along the water with churning arm, gaze focused yet completely unfazed, and when they arrive to this very lair beneath, the phantom dismounts the thing gracefully before once again offering not one but both hands to the disoriented Vicomte, lifting him up, placing him onto shore of damp stone and flickering candlelight.

“Oh, pauvre chose pitoyable, how are you to sing in such a disillusioned state? Do tell me, ma colombe, what ever should I do to help you return yourself unto me?” 

His voice is so much fuller down here amongst the depths of the Opera, where the walls are caved and the stone is tall, the water dripping a rhythm all its own, the echo extending into shadow. Raoul steps forward, and he knows that he should be afraid, and perhaps he is - but he cannot deny the innate and carnal hunger churning now within him, his eyes upon this phantom’s mouth like a target he longs to murderously shoot down. And the man laughs, a resonant sound tumbling out from his throat and into the air, a coat of thick honey in his ears.

“Ah, mon talentueux, you must use that pretty little mouth of yours to form words if you wish for me to truly understand your meaning. Come here, to me - do not be afraid. I promised not to harm you, did I not? Hm?”

His hands are extended once more, as though Raoul does not speak the verbal language, in need of special signals to grasp his own words, but he remains obedient, stepping forward more and more, closer and closer until there is hardly room to breathe, but his chest inhales in a motion that is indeed heavy, filling the space between them with warm, tickling air, and the phantom smiles, amorous and inviting. Raoul finds himself looking back up towards the rest of his face - at the dark, slicked back hair, the strong jaw and blue eyes sharp as winter, to the porcelain mask he now finds himself unwillingly glaring at, as though it will disappear under his judgmental gaze if only he tries hard enough. He does not move to swipe it away, however, simply stands and glowers, and the phantom watches closely with the utmost amusement, awaiting his next move both patient and eager.

Raoul opens his mouth, stuttering and unsure, trying and failing to pull away, to think of anything else, but -

“I - I need you.” Raoul’s voice is hoarse, desperate, and he trembles as the words tumble carelessly from his tongue, and the phantom laughs like he himself has been possessed, the sound startling and preternatural, and Raoul stares, and suddenly the sound is gone, and his vision goes completely white as though struck in the eyes with a spotlight, and the pain is beneath his jaw, then his throat, and finally finds hold in the flesh of the crook of both neck and shoulder, sinking and relentless, the fountain uncapped, flowing without resolve.

The sound of his pulse is like that of a large drum, ringing echoed music through his ears, deafening and raw, and he can feel every inch of it, the gentle to unbearable throb pounding beneath the wet mouth, in his temple and rabbiting through his chest, shaking. The leather finds itself wrapped and gripping into Raoul’s hair, tugging him back with gentle but sturdy force, as though purposefully dulled, and the porcelain is cool where it brushes the skin beneath shirt now torn open by the seam, smooth and impersonal, but then there is the stern press of his face against neck, growing steadily warmer as it swiftly fills up with Raoul’s life, a steady pressure.

He can feel the blood dripping and dribbling around the shoulder, staining the already ruined white shirt, slipping down beneath and soaking into skin, as though trying futilely to return back to him. The phantom sinks his teeth in slightly further, burrowing, and Raoul’s entire body trembles, a small convulsion, his mouth gasping as his hands fly up instinctively to grasp at him, somewhere, anywhere at all - he needs an anchor, something to keep him from falling and sinking deeper and deeper until he can no longer drag himself back up to the light of the surface. 

Raoul is not sure how or when he landed upon a sofa, but it so very soft, plum velvet against his limp palms, fingernails digging in drowsily, and the weight is fully atop of him now, pressing down steady from his throat downward, a dark, heavy blanket. Leather has left his hair, now trailing across his other shoulder down to his chest, tracing like carving a pattern or a map fit to memorize, but Raoul is so overstimulated that he hardly feels a thing anymore, his body numb and drunk and buzzing, and he notes the air revealed now to his throat, the weight shifting, and he blinks to see the phantom sitting there, pupils blown wide as waxing moon, panting softly as Raoul’s blood runs crimson from his parted lips, and there is, in fact, some stained upon the edge of the mask, as though a deer shot in the frozen forest of winter, depositing banks of vibrant color as it drags itself upon weak legs, the last which it will ever witness.

And then the weight begins to shake, and the phantom is laughing through the ringing in his ears, head thrown back careless and wild - he looks a painting of oil and wax, something ancient and beautiful, something to never be touched or changed, only to be seen and never able to be forgotten. 

“What…what ever is so - so funny?” Raoul manages between heaving breaths, and his words slur together like notes of mumbled song, the phantom atop of him now the very composer. 

“I am afraid I simply get carried away when I taste you beneath my tongue, petit Vicomte - it is my own fault entirely.” The phantom smoothly removes a single glove, dropping it disinterestedly upon Raoul’s chest where the skin is still exposed, and the feeling very slightly jolts him, but before he can even react, the man is slicing his palm fluidly with a manicured fingernail, a thin line of red pushing its swift way to the surface, and he lays down that hand without single thought or hesitation upon Raoul’s shoulder to neck, bare thumb lightly caressing the skin underneath. “I should really begin your lessons now, lest we forget ourselves - you are indeed feeling better now, no?”

Raoul finds that he has no voice at all, much less one for singing, but he nods anyway, and when the phantom lifts his hand, he already knows that the wound is healed, but all the ravishment remains. And suddenly, the weight is gone, and the phantom is finally shedding his cloak, his other glove, and it feels strangely intimate to see him like this - despite their closeness, the things that they had even just then shared, stood adorning the mask still stained of his very own blood - it is so simply entrancingly, and bizarrely - human. 

He sits down at the piano bench a length away, dozens of candles melting around him, an amount surely not necessary for anyone or no one at all, and he beckons to Raoul from the stained and bloodied sofa with the bare, faraway hands of man, wax and flame more even his instruments than the keys of polished and long-lived ivory behind, growing with intensity as he lifts his arms, a trick or illusion. Raoul watches, sitting up, staring.

“Come - or shall I take care to bite you once more?”

And - without contemplation, nor care - he does.

Chapter Text

VI.

“How do you do it?”

“Do what, mon inattentif?”

The phantom’s lithe fingers lift weightlessly from the ivory keys, and he looks patiently up to Raoul, who stands out of place by the grande piano, his face aglow and shadowed by flickering candlelight, posture tall and uncomfortably straight. His brow is furrowed, and he stares ahead, before looking back down at the masked man.

“Everything - creep inside of my mind, find me in my room without disturbance…how you take my blood from my body, and how - how does it…why does it feel so - “

“ - tantalising? Pleasurable? Erotic? Thrilling? All of these things that you feel - “ And the phantom suddenly stands, approaching Raoul in slow, deliberate strides, watching his own feet attentively as though perfectly conscious of the length of each step, the pressure of every individual footfall. And he leans back against the piano with a faint, calculated smile, eyes relaxed, one shadowed as always by the porcelain surround. “ - are not simply from my…illusions. I must and will admit that I play my own fair share of tricks, that I have my fun - but the things of which you feel, petit Vicomte - these are very much real.”

The phantom straightens back up, steps forward, leaning into his space, and Raoul stays completely still, stiff as a marble statue, utterly afraid to break the moment. He can hear nothing above the exaggerated inhale just atop the skin of his throat, the light brush of his opposite cheek with a delicate draw of sharp-nailed finger, before the sensation of being thrown into a bath of ice splashes over him, a cool, damp blanket draped across his shoulders as the phantom slips suddenly back away, leaning once again into the piano, rolling up his white sleeves - nonchalant, entirely unconcerned - and it drives Raoul absolutely mad. “As you can very well see, mon étourneau…I do not have to even so much as touch you, nor speak to you in that labyrinthine little mind of yours to stir up feeling inside of you. You simply want to be near me - and is that such a crime?”

Raoul’s breath hitches a little in his chest, and there is a strange sort of guilt, a disconnect, the one for feeling the way that he does now, prying its way back into his stomach, crawling up and regurgitating words through his mind to mouth. And he cannot help it, cannot fight through the wall constructing itself brick by brick around him, burying him alive, kicking and fighting and screaming. And so, he promptly retorts - “yes.”

He really does not mean to say it, but the word leaves his mouth upon its own volition, unstoppable and determined, loud and simple. And for the first time, he can see the faint hint of hurt crossing over the phantom’s half-features, the way his mouth frowns, his crescent eye blinks. And now, it is as though the wall has stretched out to lay between them both, invisible but strong, unavoidable and omnipresent.

And Raoul feels exhausted, and frustrated, and so, so very confused. He wants to apologize, to make it somehow right, but the phantom’s face has hardened like it is made from the same porcelain as the crimson stained mask, and he turns abruptly, no longer facing him, looking down toward the damp stone, the droll colors beneath his shining black boots.

“I think that will be enough for today.”

And, okay - Raoul has definitely messed this all up, and he feels even sicker now to his stomach, this deep and unfamiliar sense of urgency to comfort the phantom with the wilted confidence, to take him into his arms, to say or do anything. But all he can think is a -

“I don’t know how to leave.”

He recognizes the double entendre - and the phantom’s masked side faces him first, hard and concealing and angry in its permanent mold, before the light gives way to his face, his true face, and his downturned mouth is shown slightly parted - Raoul can make out the glint of a long canine inside his mouth, and the thought, the very fact of it once inside of his skin makes him both anxious and deprived, as though they, beyond anything else, actually belong there - but do they? And his face looks less like a creature now, and more like a boy, aged by experience and not years, someone exhausted beyond all human comprehension or understanding, worn and soft and real.

The phantom returns to him - moves as though floating off the ground, strange and alluring and archaic, and he looks at Raoul with such enervation, such sorrow and hidden, contemplative wonder that he feels again like he’s been backed into that stone wall, the real one of slow pour and long-dried cemented brick. And the piano digs slightly into his spine as he stumbles tentatively backward, but the man in front of him is looking down at his mouth now, as though Raoul is the one with the sharp nails and sharper teeth, as if he has possessed himself the way that he did him. And this phantom is small, and wounded, and so alone - Raoul can feel it without even needing the words to be told - the emotion is so true, so raw that it fills the air like humidity after a storm, filters through one torn up soul and into the next, connecting them wholly and completely, chamber by chamber, beating heart to beating heart - and they are one.

But the phantom will not move closer - and Raoul can tell that he is not prying, that he has kept himself purposefully locked away from his mind because the truth can only really be expressed through physical action - if only in this truth, and none other. 

“I…” Raoul’s voice is whispered broken, the only sound alive down in these shadowed catacombs for however long they run, the only one between them in this hollow state of lucid and pulsating fear. And he cannot stop himself from self-destructing, cannot figure out what is what and why, and he is fighting a battle that he knows he truly cannot win. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

And it is like the glass of a mirror suddenly shattered, the phantom’s face twisting and contorting a distorted reflection as he turns away, cut by the ricocheting shards - and he laughs - but it is not hearty nor light, rather crackling with a breathy discomfort, the sound a certain genre of tragic and fatal beauty, the kind you should not want to hear, and yet resolve yourself to anyway. And he steps back, and Raoul simply stands there, still as the hunted prey, unsure of what to do, and certainly not of what to say. All he can find to manage is a soft and pitiful, “I am so sorry.”

The face turns only slightly - only revealing that which is covered to him, the part which underneath shall not be seen. And he appears to Raoul genuinely frustrated, disappointed and yet not in the slightest of glimpses surprised. “Why do you apologize for simply being the same? All of them - you do not think me used to it by now? I am a recluse for a reason, garçon stupide, do you not see? I am not wanted - if not for my compositions, my music, my work - and even that they tear note by feeble note apart!” His voice has risen, biting with venom as he takes the sheets of inked music from the piano and gestures and waves them up through the air, fist closed strong and wild, wrinkling and overtly possessive. “I have lived this unlife by myself for years upon years - oh, mon Dieu, you cannot even begin to imagine! The things I have done, that to which I have borne insufferable witness. You will never know true agony unless you have seen this ugly, futile world through my horrible eyes. And oh, if you could only see - if you saw me, the whole me - “ he grasps angrily at his mask, but does not remove it, “ - then even you would never return. Not for the blood, not for the pleasure - for there would be none at all. Rien. Nothing!”

Raoul moves to walk toward him, and for the first time, he is trembling from fear - but he strides forward anyway, because he simply cannot help it, cannot look away or cry or run. And he reaches out, fingers so close to touch, just above the shaking, sensitive skin of man - but the phantom grabs his arm in midair, aggressive and impulsive, stopping him short, the skin whitening swiftly beneath, aching. He cries out, and Raoul can almost make out a flicker of regret passing through the man’s features, something very nearly completely imperceptible. The phantom holds him, and he appears to be shivering too, his hand shaking around its vice grip, eyes of bisque doll glass, and Raoul tilts his head involuntary, grimacing against the pain. “Please…” he whispers, breathless - and then there is darkness once more.

Raoul should really compile a list of all the times he has awakened someplace he had not remembered even closing his eyes in to begin with.

And he does not recognize this room, at first - his squinting eyes firstly blink heavy as his vision clears, wandering then about the small room, the dripping wax and tall mirrors, the unmoving rack of colorful costumes, the pin cushion stuck through like a porcupine. Then, finally, upon the thin woman clad in black dress, turned partially away and sewing something - sat upon that plush bench as he once had, although this time, a mask in hand.

“You have gotten yourself into quite a bit a trouble then, haven’t you, Vicomte?” 

Her voice says, and it pierces the air slightly strained as it always tends to do, aged but strong. She does not look up, and awaits Raoul’s response patiently, tying off a little silver knot, clipping the end with the soft snip of a pair of glinting scissors. His chest stutters slightly at the sight of them, and he can almost again feel the pain in his neck - he swallows, pushing himself up where he is laid out upon a sofa too small for his tall frame, feet kicking out restrained into the armrest.

“I am really quite sorry, Madame Giry - the truth is, I do not know of how I came to be in your dressing room in the first place.”

“Oh, but I do. Do not hide yourself to me, Monsieur de Chagny. He told to me everything.”

Raoul is rubbing his head, attempting futilely to wipe away the full throb of his temple, and the anxiety returns like a clingy pet, dragging him down and around, overstimulated. “What? He…as in - “

“ - the phantom, the ghost, the devil - however you would prefer - yes, that would indeed be the one.” She states matter-of-factly, placing the silver-sewn mask upon the brown vanity, needle, supplies and all. And she looks up at Raoul for the first time, and he knows instantly that he truly cannot hide a thing from her perceptive gaze - that she can practically see directly though him, like a clouded windowpane, or sheer fabric - and he falters.

“…what did he say?” He pauses, then, slightly squinting, “wait, he spoke to you?”

“Child, you have much still to learn - and I do not speak of musicality, either.” Madame Giry stands, moving for a moment toward him, before steering in the path of an entirely new destination, eyes set. Raoul watches as she procures a white cloth from a wooden cupboard and dunks it down into a small bucket of water, wringing it out, droplets falling back down to resubmerge themselves with the semblance of little bells. She does not speak more, simply fulfilling her duty, before returning to Raoul, offering him the dampened fabric. “Please, you are going to get that positively everywhere, Monsieur.”

Raoul accepts the cloth, slightly heavy from its intake of water, cool against the skin of his hands. He looks down and toward his shoulder, instantly registering the dried blood caked across his neck to chest, dripped down under and beneath his shirt, staining it from white to a deep rouge. His free hand flutters involuntarily to the area, scanning over his skin to attempt to find the damage - but there is none at all.

“Do you know what he is, Vicomte de Chagny?” Madame Giry says, sitting once more onto her cushioned bench, hands clasped together atop of her lap, neat and proper. “Has he revealed this truth to you yet?”

“I thought that he had told you everything,” Raoul responds simply, scrubbing slow the red from his skin, grimacing and distracted, listening for the woman’s response like a fish to bait. He cannot deny the slight humiliation that creeps over his shoulders at the state of himself now, how Madame Giry looks upon him as though he were some petulant child, his shirt ravaged and torn guilty, slipping from his shoulder - but she does not acknowledge it any further, simply continues on with her speech.

“Only what he deemed himself to be important - and you see, he and I do not always tend to see…eye to eye, on most matters.”

“So you two…you are close?” Raoul asks, looking up briefly from his work, “he does not seem to - well, to trust easily.”

“I provided him shelter,” she states, sighing lightly, looking over his shoulder. There is an old portrait hung there, flush against the patterned wallpaper, slightly dust-covered to the side lit by flame just above his head. The woman sat in focus within this picture holds an intense likeness to Meg Giry - the light hair, that recognizably soft, round face - eyes set exactly the same, lifted and light. “You see, I was much more…charitable, easily influenced as a young lady. More - naive - and still strong-willed, yes, however - it was more to a fault than not. I saw things, and I felt that I had the power to fix them. Well, you know how children are,” she provides, and Raoul nods, cloth now stained with crimson, and he sets it down, lays it across the back of a chair to his left, hanging heavy and limp - a symbol of guilt, bleeding aftermath.

Madame Giry continues, “to put matters much more simply, I once found myself at a sort of…cirque d'excentricités. A circus, a presentation of that which was considered at the time to be odd, freakish, or unnatural. Of course, this was always a means of exploitation for those who had no where else to go. But I found myself at this one cage in particular…these rusted bars filled of soiled dirt and emptiness and dark light, and a small, malnourished little boy huddled in the corner being struck again and over again, with a sack pulled and tied over top of his head. But the boy, you see - “ her eyes light up for the first time at this, gleaming in the dim light, “ - he fought back. Kicked, and screamed - and he had these nails sharp as daggers, yes, this strength that no one child should ever have. And so he took down this built, grown man, a chest bigger than his whole body, still shackled to the chains digging raw into his wrists and ankles. And there I was, the only one stood there left to watch by the time his little, emaciated frame shook with the sheer exertion of it all. Everyone else had by choice fled, had grown fearful, but I - oh, how could I have left him? And thus being the hero that I believed myself to be, I freed him - dug out the key from the pocket of the asphyxiated man laid out face down in the dirt, and for the first time, this boy could move around freely, could feel the blades of grass beneath his scarred and barren feet. But the authorities were coming - I could hear the sounds of their pounding footsteps, the booming voices beyond, the echoing barks of the hounds - and so could he, oh, very well.”

She adjusts her skirt a little, leaning backward, a flickering candle casting one side of her face into deep shadow - as though projecting upon her cheek a mask itself. “I must tell you, I was not fully comprehensive of why he had been locked up as he had been to begin with, at that time - the sack had indeed been forcefully yanked from his head, yes, but he turned his face away faster than the blink of an eye, grew so, so angry, so volatile and deeply dejected. Betrayed by both society and circumstance. And so perhaps it was partly his face, yes - but it was more than that. There was something, no, many things different and peculiar about him, about his abilities - but I did not think, simply acted impulsive and foolish, and I lead him to the one place I knew no one would ever think to look - the basements beneath the Opera Populaire.”

There is then a small stretch of silence between them, only the barely audible hush of flame intercepting the warm air strung along there, a gentle reminder of life outside of this quiet and shadowed room. And Raoul knows that she is awaiting his response, watching him with patient eyes, mouth a thin line, but not entirely unkind. He finally settles on, “so you did save him - but what then? He simply grew up in the dark, alone all of this time?”

“That is how he preferred it, I am afraid - I attempted to be amiable with him, at first - but he never quite took to the social aptitude. Never once seeking me out, never speaking of the outside world. He was always happiest on his lonesome, learning and creating, observing. It is how he came to know a deep affection for the theatre, the dramatic arts, however intense it grew to be - and I almost wonder now if he was not as he was, as he still is, if perhaps it would not even truly matter - that he would choose the shadows either way. But his face is not all he hides, and that is something I am quite more than sure you are aware of.”

Madame Giry’s eyes flicker pointedly down to his neck, the shoulder now clean of blood but still bare, the shirt torn and hanging half-folded over, just above the elbow. He feels his face heat slightly up, but he pushes through the small lick of shame, instead taking the moment to truly ask the question he longs to know the answer for, the one specifically for which he has been most curious. “What is he exactly, Madame Giry? Is he even like us at all? Is he human?”

“In all truth, I haven’t the word for it, Vicomte. We - meaning he and I - know that he cannot live off of the food that you and I consume, that he has an unnatural strength and the ability to walk through one’s subconscious mind. He can make himself completely silent, or heard by all - has abnormally long and sharp canines and nails that cannot be manicured nor changed. It is as though he is permanently entrapped in this one state of being - has not even appeared to have aged past maturity. He and I are close in age, did you know? Would you have ever even guessed? And yet here am I, growing old and frail, and he remains quietly youthful and handsome. And is that not an entirely peculiar thing?”

Raoul does not respond, simply looks down at his lap, brow knit together in deep and contemplative thought - she continues, her words leading his gaze back upward - “you must understand, Vicomte - “

“ - Raoul.” He intercepts, suddenly looking back up in full, attentive, back straight. She blinks for a moment, but corrects herself - more for him than anything else. 

“Raoul,” she emphasizes, obliging, staring him down, “he, to my knowledge, has never drank from a human - not since…not since the incident. You see, it is very hard to control oneself, when you are as he is, when you indulge in the blood of another. The corpse of a rat or a mutt can be easily explained away - a human, however, very much cannot.”

Madame Giry suddenly stands, moving forward in the dark, her face coming full into light as she places a hand upon his covered shoulder. “He trusts you - and even more importantly, he trusts himself to be around you. And that is a very extraordinary thing indeed. However,” and her hand slips from his shoulder, turning around - the mirror on the vanity there shows the two of them together, his shoulders behind wider than her frame, merely a shadow to unwrinkled black cloth. She speaks, and despite her back to him, he watches as her face grows impossibly more solemn, her eyes holding within them the weight of old worn wisdom - the greatest burden of all. “You cannot let yourself fall too far - be his comfort, be his muse, his ingénue - but do not lose yourself to him, nor to the temptation, or the passion. I say this not only for yourself, Vicomte - Raoul - but because should anything happen to you - well, I fear that such a thing would become the end of him.”

“The incident? Madame Giry, what incident?” He finds himself lost to a dizzying plea, his mind locked upon the off-handed comment and blurring out the rest, subconsciously inconsequential. He slips up from the sofa and stands now towering tall above her - and the dynamic would very nearly shift in this climax, if not for her stern, unyielding stone expression, feline eyes revealing nothing much of anything at all. She is not in slightest appearance fazed by his demand, rather in fact expecting it, and she simply sighs, eyes narrowing small, pressing. “Perhaps he will tell you himself when he is ready. For now - I believe you have a masquerade to prepare for, Vicomte de Chagny.”

And then she just leaves - no goodbye, no notion of what, where, or when - simply abandoning Raoul standing in the shadow of her dressing room, her younger eyes of oil and dust boring unceasingly down upon him - always watching, never blinking, and -

“Oh, je suis foutu.”

Chapter Text

VII.

Raoul had gone back to the estate promptly after the events of Madame Giry’s dressing room, discarding the torn shirt mournfully upon his dresser next to the flowers of wilted, crackling petals. 

The phantom never had delivered those vases such that he had promised - although Raoul supposes one can only carry with them so much - that is also presuming he scales the trellis, thus making such matters eternally more difficult.

It is only that this man, this something, does not seem to bide by the same principles of human existence that he himself would come to expect - so what does he know? And really, does he even care anymore?

Yet - he knows well that he does. With every shift of thought, every notion of before, each sensation a phantom of old occurrence - these are the things that make his blood pump swifter, his breath catch, the string of need tug hungrily from its mounted loop around his core, leading him back to the Opera Populaire, over step to marble step, through the vaulted ceiling leering above his head encased in suggestive shadow, all the way to the door he had knocked upon before, and now would once more.

There is no voice muffled this time to greet him. The door swings open almost as soon as his hand drops limply to his side, flexing involuntarily in nervous gesture, and there stands Christine, whose gaze immediately softens upon the sight of him as it always seems to do, although more significantly now. Her eyes dart quickly around him, and she offers him an assuring smile before taking him gently by the arm and pulling him inside, clicking the door shut behind them. 

The room is the same as it had been previous, and Raoul notices the vibrant, cool colors peaking out from beneath the sheer fabric of her dressing gown, Christine’s hair half pinned back in a constellation of stars drawn delicately over prim coils of chestnut and hidden streaks of auburn caught only by lucky glimmer of flame. Her lips are a pretty sheen of light plum, two soft petals placed delicate upon her smooth skin, her eyes shadowed and cheeks blushed - Raoul finds that he cannot look away.

“Did he give this to you?” 

Her voice startles him lightly, and he blinks, vision clearing as he meets her expectant gaze. She is looking down at the glitzy ensemble folded lopsided in his arms, and he feels his face flush. “Well - yes, I suppose he did. He made it, actually - by hand, in fact. I don’t know why.”

Christine’s eyes flit up to his, and she studies him for a moment, inhaling and speaking on the exhale. “I think that you do.”

And he does - rather, he believes that he does. And really, it makes not an ounce of actual conceivable sense - that anyone, a man, a creature for that matter or any, would do such a thing for him at all. Truly, what makes him so much more special or adequate than the rest? What makes this clock tick as the one still resting behind Christine now, sure as the flames twisting and bending low heat a dance to dripping and melting wax?

“Here, let me help you, dear friend. I doubt you’ve ever worn something so, well - complicated, in your entire life.” Christine speaks with a light tone, her voice breathy but full, as though a song in and of itself. It is rather difficult to imagine, perhaps, that one’s speaking chords could match or even triumph that cadence of a song - but so be it - Christine Daaé beat them all.

Raoul allows her to take the ensemble from his arms, hangs them upon her golden rack that behind is matched with gowns of all color and nature, bells and lace and gemstoned, and she smooths her dainty fingers delicate along them. And she turns to him, smiles with her hands now to her hips, and firmly declares, “take off your clothes.”

By the time Raoul is dressed, he already wants to change.

The jacket is made of heavy, probably expensive material, the colors loud and rather queer, the mask matching of feathers and sparkling as a diamond, fierce and, in fact, despite his own conscience, rather beautiful - however, as Raoul stares uncomfortably into the mirror, Christine biting her lip in a nervous smile behind him, he cannot help but think that he will absolutely never be unrecognizable again.

“Whatever he is, he is certainly a genius in all matters, wouldn’t you agree?” Christine sighs, hands clasped in front of her, and Raoul simply swallows, nodding in response, craning his neck and scratching it where the fabric had been rubbing. And it occurs to him now, that Raoul had no idea how the phantom had even gotten his measurements at all.

“Oh, I’ve never been to a real Masquerade before, Raoul - do you believe everyone will have dressed as extravagantly as you and I? Oh, though I doubt entirely, as who would have such a costume as yours, crafted by the phantom of this very opera itself - “

“Christine,” he cuts her off, though gently, looking over at her now, and she exhales, tucking a stray curl behind one ear, the jewelry hanging there swaying gently from the motion, caught a glimmer in the candlelight. “Sorry,” she replies, voice calmer, more level, “I am only nervous that, well - I have wanted this for so very long, you see? To be…introduced to the world. To be the one on the stage that everyone else wishes to be - not even that, no - simply to sing. To be heard. And is that not a beautiful thing? That we have been given this opportunity? I know that I have been harsh on you, about - well, everything, really. But even so, I will take this moment as it is - a step closer to what I have been dreaming of my entire life.”

She’s a tad breathless after that, and now she is the one staring at the mirror, or perhaps even through it. Raoul rests a gentle, warm hand upon her shoulder, a comfort, “Christine, I…I will not let him harm you. Alright? I will do everything in my power to ensure this dream of yours does not fall short, or - or God forbid, early.”

Her eyes flicker up to his, two little universes, two little lives. Holding both memory and concurrent though and consciousness, hope and fear and love. And Raoul knows then that there is no world in which he could ever break this vow - else he does not even exist.

The grande staircase is a clutter of people and creatures alike - masks of bird and feline and the moon, gowns and costumes of dizzying embellishment, the less considerable chandelier above than of the theatre catching significant light upon each and every sparkle and shimmer moving past, remarkable flits of flower and feather and vine. The orchestra is settled down below, nestled neatly between both sets of stairs, strings being plucked and pulled and brushed in nearly drowned out noise of the indistinct chatter droning on all around.

Christine’s arm is tucked soundly around his own, and Raoul leads her through the crowd - and as they walk, the attendees part en masse, naturally as though Moses and the sea, a wave of hushed silence falling upon them as though cast a spell, the eyes behind mask and makeup catching and staring, holding, seeing. Raoul can feel the flush creeping up warm over his cheeks, behind his neck - and if Christine holds onto him a bit tighter, neither could say.

“My, my - well, I do not believe my weary eyes! Could it be the Vicomte and the lovely little soprano standing magnificently before me now?”

It is André, speaking heartily from behind a mask of his own, at the bottom of the marbled steps - and more than likely of his own creation, as visible by its sloppy and very understated and downright indistinct nature.

“Monsieur André - it is indeed a pleasure, and your costume, it is - well, it’s - “ Raoul stutters a little, André smiling wide as he awaits the Vicomte’s response, “it is a - a horse?”

André’s smile falters, and he coughs, looking away and then back, voice careening, a little dejected, “it was meant to be a panther,” he sniffles, and an awkward silence passes over them for but a moment before Christine pipes up from beside him, patting Raoul’s arm with her free hand, “it is a lovely costume, Monsieur André. Lovely, truly.”

And there’s a genuine quality to her words, the kindness of her eyes and cadence of her voice, smooth as honey, soft as though made a pillow of clouds and cotton. He smiles to her, and then appears Firmin, standing taller behind André, his mask the same shambolic tone, appearing a bit like cattle, but more than likely of a more wolffish variety.

Just as he opens his mouth to speak, a viola screeches to a halt - it almost appears that Firmin himself is somehow the instrument in question, stood gawking there, mouth agape, and the crowd groans aloud, a cacophony of muddled sound, but the player simply pays no mind to the attention he has drawn, simply stares up and ahead, pale as a ghost ever seen.

“Ph - phantom! Seigneur, aide-nous tous, c'est lui! It is him!” The man points a trembling finger, and the gazes of all man and woman are commanded to the arches above, and true as a breath, there he is - the phantom indeed, dressed for the first time of all in rich color, a red deep as the blood he drinks, his mask anew a skull as though the skin upon his face pulled back completely, a curtain drawn and fixed, and perhaps the shade below is of true significance, as though that wound is leaking across his smooth skin, bade a warning, or a threat - neither to be foretold, nor to be forgotten.

Raoul stands there, and he stares upward, jaw tensed, mouth set slightly ajar - and he can swear that the phantom’s eyes marked by black shadow flicker over to him now, meet his as though a single dark kiss, securing him and pinning him to the spot, singling him out for just a blink of a moment - and then it is gone, and Raoul’s blood is pumping and rushing through his ears again, throbbing as though craving for release, needing as though death itself lingers someplace nearby, as though the piercing of flesh into a new form is the only salvation.

And then, through this blurry haze, André and Firmin are ushering both Raoul and Christine forward, into the center of the floor, into a spotlight unfound, and Raoul blinks - the phantom’s canines glinting as he smiles all cattish and goading, staring down at the two as though a predator to prey, an owl’s round omniscient eyes glowering into Raoul’s, as though he has yet to catch him, yet to touch. 

But it is not true - he is just a man, and he knows pleasure and disappointment, loneliness and fear, and Raoul has borne witness to it all, has been so very close, has felt that touch and heard the sounds of rapture from a breathing, gasping throat. So close to human, so very close. And yet as his gaze bores down upon him now, in this moment, it is as though there could truly be nothing further.

“Bienvenue à tous, à la mascarade of my own creation - just as the music of which passes through your feeble chords, it belongs to me, and to me alone. These walls, the floors and basements beneath, the flame which dances upon every stick of melting wax - ah, comme toi, ils sont, so very close at each and every moment to snuffing out - mortal suffocation,” and he closes his eyes, holes of black charcoal, empty sockets staring depths into an impure void of soul, and he grasps a gloved hand through the air, tightens a fist, holding, smiling through it all as though simply amused, a cat with its scurry-hearted plaything. 

He continues, voice deep and thick like gravel - and it is truly the exact opposite of Christine’s in every way. “See before you now, my red-blooded guests, the two which I have deemed worthy by my mind alone and above all others - oh, and what an entirely simple thing to do,” his voice echos, the hint of laughter teetering at the edge of those words, cruel and yet so very compelling. “They two will represent this Opéra, and there will be no question - for there is and has never been such talent which comes even close to near.”

There’s a choking of high-pitched laughter from somewhere to the left, and every eye in this tiny existence snaps to attention, all drawn to a feather clad Carlotta, her mask a beak as sharp as her voice, and she makes a noise of dismay, coughs, and laughs nervously - the phantom watches, eyes narrow, and, to Raoul’s surprise -

He, too, laughs - and it is different than Raoul had heard before, after the phantom had been flushed with the warm color of his blood - no, this time, it is maniacal, calculated - truly and undeniably horrible. And the crowd is frozen, silent as statues of marble or stone, all except Carlotta, who, completely unawares and terribly nervous, laughs back. She laughs, or more so giggles, flapping her fan through the air as though her costume were that of a hummingbird, fluttering its minuscule little wings much too fast for its rotund, exhausted body, dropping lower and lower still.

And in not even a blink, the phantom is standing there in the crowd as though a person just like them, facing Carlotta head on, towering over her as she jumps, squeaking, her fan spilling over her fingers and fluttering to the floor. Piangi does not even bother to collect it for her, backing up with eyes large as moons into the crowd, disappearing into a parade of sparkling masks. And the phantom just stands there, and just stares - the silence is truly horrible, eating away at Carlotta like some sort of ravishing decay as she makes herself smaller and smaller until -

“Perfect - just as you should be, petit poulet qui claque - small, quiet enough to simply…” and he reaches downward, slow as to prolong the moment as the entire room stands still and without breath, and he suddenly darts his hand downward, and then, as though by nothing but will of mind, there is a sliver of crimson blooming just above Carlotta’s bosom heaving with frantic breath, dripping a line down and into her dress, effectively staining it, and he finishes, admiring his work, teeth glinting from a single corner of his teetering lips, “ - to squash like a little, insignificant insect. Hm, if only you were truly that inconsequential, Mademoiselle, then you would not stand before me now wasting each and every breath, no?”

Carlotta squeaks behind closed mouth, her lips wobbling like autumn leaves to the thinning branch, and she stumbles backward - the phantom does not move to take her, simply stands as though watching a fumbling child, as though simply curious toward her behavior, the hint of a smirk graced upon his own lips, as though nothing more than vaguely amused. “What? Être soumis à la douleur ne vous plaît-il pas? Would you prefer I cut out that tongue of yours or have you simply choke on it, Mademoiselle? Please, whatever you would prefer, voter Majesté. It is truly your decision, no?”

His voice is smooth as violins, and he tilts his head as though feigning genuity, furrowing his brow in mechanical, deliberate fashion - and it truly appears as though he does not actually understand human nature or language at all, that he is simply mimicking that which he has seen or written on stage - every step, every word - it is truly the most brilliant of all acts, perfectly rehearsed, a primly choreographed deception.

“Well? Parle-t-il! How now is it suddenly an issue that you should subject us all to your ear-splitting aria? Is it only now that you fully comprehend the damage you have done to not only all of Parisian ear but to of music as a whole, the most delicate forms of art? Do you see now that I have shown the most gratuitous mercy not to have sewn that awful mouth shut sooner? Dis que c'est comme ça, abominable petit corbeau! Say it!”

If there was silence before, it had not a thing to the one strung heavy like a damp blanket around them all now, punctuated only by the sound of Carlotta actually beginning to cry, a choked, wet little sound, and Raoul finds that he can no longer stand there and simply watch, a statue amongst all the rest - and he knows him, does he not? Has he not stood before him and pleaded, been bundled like a child in those arms of soft silk, shed tears of salt and fear and want, broken at the alter of all things so fatally right?

And thus, Raoul walks forward, the steps of his shoes padding against the shining floor the only sound like the gentle beating of a drum to Carlotta’s cries a broken song, and Raoul can physically see the tensing of the phantom’s shoulders from behind as he senses his approach.

And just as he stands close enough for his breath to brush tickling air against that crimson nape, he hears himself whisper, “stop.”

The phantom turns, and in the moment where Raoul had felt that perhaps there was simply a man, there are those eyes again, circled by jarring tunnels deep enough to fall into, growing larger only by trick of mind or matter, a tiny hypnosis - and the phantom smiles - not with his eyes, no - simply the lifting of those pink-lipped corners revealing slivers of white teeth like crescent moons, twinkling in the light like stars - his whole face, his entire expression a dark night sky. Impossible to know, difficult to imagine. So, so far away, and yet…close enough to touch.

“I said…stop - please,” Raoul swallows the last word, dropping off so that only he could hear, and the phantom actually, truly appears surprised at his efforts, that he would have the nerve to do such a thing at all, and suddenly it is as though Carlotta had never even been a thing at all to begin with, the sounds of her gasping cries now a ringing in Raoul’s ears as the phantom simply stares with that same dead smile, head tilting slightly, eyes passing straight through him and to his very core.

Raoul cannot hear a thing, see a thing, feel a thing - and maybe he hears Christine somewhere behind him, but it is as though he is trapped beneath the claws of some undiscovered predator, and the throbbing returns, and the phantom knows, oh, of course he does - his smile growing larger in response, much too big for his face, fit perfectly to the skeletal mask splayed dutifully upon the right, merging until there is half bone and only left a quarter, a foil of shrinking humanity - and then, a gloved thumb brushes cool leather over Raoul’s cheek, and his eyes follow, down to the other hand that reaches forward and grasps at Raoul’s own, enveloping it, swallowing it whole. And it is either remarkably soft, gentle, or perhaps his whole body has just gone simply numb beneath the stare, that preternatural aura permeating from one body to another, sinking in like waves of the ocean, but warm instead, and there is no panic, simply calm washing through his being like nothing else could ever be. Seeping into his bones like old age and time; inevitable, entirely too fast until every last touch blurs into a haze of memory and a poignant, burning ache.

And Raoul cannot recount the events that followed, cannot pinpoint whether or not the phantom spoke further, whether he had introduced he and Christine as he had vowed, nor when the orchestra abandoned their relationship with fear for strings and drowning melodies.

But those large, powerful and dangerous hands are upon him, guiding him, leading him with firm reassurance - and Raoul watches the phantom watch him as the world spins into that blur around them, locked in a never ending dance of breaths took and unnoticed, and he is a doll wound up in a child’s jewelry box, a chest with innocence as the only treasure, broken nostalgia the rusted key.

“I know that you fear me, petit oiseau,” the phantom says, voice deep as though dripping with syrup or tar, but his mouth does not move or shift, the words sounding and echoing within his mind as though Raoul’s very own, “and yet you want me, do you not? Did you even realize even after my own telling that you are not under some sort of magic spell, that I do not place influence upon you - that you simply cannot control the power of your pulse, mon petit toxicomane, because your body craves my touch more than even the air of which it pumps and flows?”

And Raoul can feel it now, surfacing as before, a gentle yet insistent tug beneath the infinite coast of his skin, only noticeable upon jolted remembrance, as like that of breathing or blinking. His whole entire body feels lost to time and the air surrounding, numbed from head to toe, and yet, incomprehensibly, so very warm. The phantom’s hands ignite him like two little burning furnaces, the smoke the haze of his mind, clouding and dizzying and slow.

And how could Raoul ever possibly disagree? All that he can think of now, in this room of everyone and no one, is him - the proximity, the distance so far between; the white glint of sharp teeth, the mouth twisting and pink, eyes an ever-changing feline glow, the rest of the room falling to negative space and shadow until all there is are two little dancing flames, twin stars hung parallel and cognizant of all things life and death and anything both conceivable and not beyond. Digging into Raoul like daggers or swords, sharper than words, deeper than even feeling can tell. There is simply no explanation or cause for any of it - and yet, it is.

“Yes…yes, you are right,” Raoul’s voice is distant, droning on far away from his own ears like the buzzing of some nocturnal insect, and he makes no point of even saying it at all, his mouth speaking unbeknownst to even his own minds cognition. The words and their meanings are simple truths that cannot now be untold or unforeseen. And how could he ever lie under this impenetrable gaze?

“Am I?” The phantom replies, but his cadence erupts gentle and steady, lilting with encouraging amusement, guiding Raoul as with the steps they still glide to take, and he nods, swallowing - the phantom’s eyes dart downward, as though attached to him by string, following the movement without change of expression, nor meaning.

“You ask me this…why? What is…what is the meaning? What do you want of me?” Raoul has to clear his throat to speak now, as though this very act has become difficult to perform at this spotlit stage, the eyes following him without respite, nor moral - not even human, this gaze of pure, unyielding hunger and prying depth, peering straight through without even need for verbalized consent - for there is no need for what is already and unfailingly known.

The phantom chides, laughing deep and reverberating in echoes not through the room but Raoul himself, bouncing off of invisible walls, sinking straight through skin to blood to bone, “oh, hush now, petite colombe. As I have said…it is not what I want of you, but of what you want of me - is it not? Am I not correct in presuming such things, jolie petite chose? It is me that you want for, is it not?” 

And the phantom glides a gloved hand to touch at the bottom of Raoul’s chin, tipping it up ever so slightly, just enough to warrant an incline of motion, the leather cool and tickling, smooth. Raoul is completely under his command - there is no other option, no other choice. “I made a vow never to harm you again - do you not believe me that it will hold true? Tell me, petit vicomte - are you frightened of me still?”

It is a difficult thing to answer, it is true - and wherever is that line between fear and want? An unconfronted desire, burning and nauseating and sinking, taking hold at Raoul’s very core, refusing to let go, disobeying any plead of relent. The phantom’s hand falls, and finds him again at the small of his back, reaching around as though perfectly natural, fitting with ease, and Raoul is being guided away from the centre of the floor, blurs of figures parting without fuss or stutter. “Come, mon hébété un - and I will show you the very opposition of fear.”

The noise is muffled in the deeply shadowed corridor, as is the light - but the phantom’s eyes do not dull in the slightest, not a single inclination, as though reflective of something unseen. It is animal at its very core, and the phantom’s gloves are surrounding Raoul’s wrists like vices, pushing lightly into the brick behind, lifted as to be level with his head, and the creature himself is so close that Raoul can feel his gentle breaths - and it is so compellingly human, that for a moment, he himself begins to feel a stumble of uncertain doubt - a creeping and confused sensation, and Raoul opens his mouth for a moment to speak, but then the glove is held braced above his lips, the fingers lithe and curling along his cheek, and the skull mask no longer appears real to him at all. It is all an act, in the end, is it not?

Raoul tentatively moves a hand through the air, his left - glides slowly as almost disobeying where the phantom himself had left them - and he touches the mask. And the most peculiar thing, is that the creature, this man - he lets him. 

Raoul’s fingertips smooth over the surface, feels the dips and curves and hollowed little incline near the blackened eye - and the phantom isn’t smiling like before, neither haunting nor mocking, simply stood blank as though awaiting something, anything, stock still as a deer facing the shotgun, the final breaths before the tunnel of suffocating darkness.

“You…why do you hide? You say…you say that I am who is frightened, and yet…” Raoul’s voice is hardly a whisper, and his tongue dips out for a moment, wetting his lips - eyes meet eyes, and, “you shelter yourself even to me.”

Raoul flattens his palm over the mask, as though perhaps doing so will aid to portray his meaning in full, that it will bring with it all the words he cannot speak. “I want to see it - please, let me see you…and then there will be no fear; not for either of us.”

The phantom’s facade crumbles a little at these words, a line between his newly furrowed brow breaking the smooth perfection of his immortal skin. And he brings up that gloved hand, lays it over top of Raoul’s upon the mask, fits his fingers in between where they sit as though designed to lay there, made two as one. And he speaks, his voice low but waveringly small, “…I cannot - I wish…I wish that I could - but there is no certain future of me without this mask upon my face. Please understand, gentil garçon - I long every day that I had no reason to adorn it so upon my aching flesh.”

“Then why, phantom…why have you brought me here, where eyes do not see?” Raoul is practically pleading now, standing up taller against the wall so that the man before him has too to readjust. “Why have you taken me - chosen me - why…me?”

And the phantom’s eyes soften from their hardened position in his real skull, the brow lifting ever so slightly, head tilting in a manner hardly noticeable - but Raoul follows each and every inclination.

“Because…” the phantom’s voice is softest of all now, mellow and dripping at the edges with sharpened affliction, “…i see you.”

And the phantom carefully, ruefully sheds his gloves, drops them like nothing at all to the ground, and, with hands of simple warm flesh, reaches out and lifts Raoul’s mask above his face, pulled from locks of dirty blond hair to now fall strands into his eyes, and the phantom drops that mask, too, a faraway and indistinct pile of shining, vibrant color and the void that takes. And he looks at Raoul once more, his hands settled and pushing heat into Raoul’s cheeks, and he declares once more -

“I see you.”

Chapter Text

VIII.

It is like floating - as though in a dream, your mind only partly conscientious of what it is doing, and your limbs are like that of lead, the wires of your muscles weakened impossibly so, loosened to the point of stuttering disconnect. And it is part warm, part nothing, the only sensation the diluted emotion left adrift through your body numb, head to toe, if such a thing even still exists at all.

That is how Raoul feels, in this moment - the teeth biting and nipping graciously at his lips, teasing to sink in but nevertheless unrelenting, covering him, body to body, breath to breath. 

Every inch is like an electric pulse racing through him, pooling feverish heat through his face beneath eyes held tautly closed, and Raoul’s fingers are trembling as they grip helplessly to the soft fabric of the phantom’s costume, the crimson pigment like blood from his fingernails, digging in until they break numb and shaking. 

When their lips part, the phantom’s mouth is damp, hung ajar, glistening in the dips of shadow, his pupils blown wide and overtaking the shining spectacle of glowing iris around. He pants lightly, eyes locked not to Raoul’s own, but rather now to his throat - and he can see how pronounced those fangs are now, protruding down and hanging over to press into his lower lip, glinting like a threat or even a promise, as though his hunger has manifested directly into the physical, and there is no will or direction trained to suppress it.

And Raoul leans back full against the brick behind, cranes his neck to one side, chin in the air, and demands breathlessly, “take it - have me. Tear me apart, God, j’ai besoin de toi - I do. Do not hold back. Je dis oui, oui, oui...”

And the phantom listens - he steps forward, their bodies fit to be nothing but perfectly flush - and there is so much thick fabric between them, that Raoul almost finds he feels as though he may faint from the heat of it all, only made worse, punctuated by the phantom’s sharply manicured nails digging into his hair, pulling, forcing Raoul’s head further to the side to gain more access, control. He makes a small noise, a betrayal of the throat, and the phantom is already on it - but he does not immediately sink in, instead pressing lingering, controlled kisses along the line of his bobbing throat, his awaiting skin.

His mouth tickles along each sensitive stretch, breathes hot air over the newly extended and aching tendon, along the relaxed muscle of shoulder where the other hand tugs roughly at the costume he himself had slaved over creating - clearing way as though nothing at all, not a mind to the poignant noise of tear, nothing but rigorous focus, dizzying intent.

And he’s nipping at Raoul’s flesh now, tasting it with thorough lap of tongue, the fangs not even touching - almost human, and then, when the area is at it’s most tender - 

“Putain, mon Dieu, aide-moi!”

Raoul’s eyes flutter shut as the white-hot flash staggers in tempestuous waves through his body, and his weakening knees begin to buckle, body being pushed up into the wall behind in instant uncommunicated response as though now completely weightless, like the phantom is more god than monster or man, so divinely and effortlessly strong, and the only thing Raoul can do is keep his hands up in surrender, back in that firstly commanded position, as if drawn there by some sort of ancient force, abandoning everything he has ever believed in, bowing down to this alter of all things both right and wrong, knees struck splintering boards of wood, palms pinned and the world borne witness to the blood spilled crates of expensive wine.

Raoul can feel the pooling of blood warm around the mouth, eager to be used, needing to be taken as though a piece of some natural, instinctual mechanism, like it is the only option, and, in fact, there aren’t any else at all. 

It is truly a peculiar thing to be used and taken in such a manner - for blood to run and stain because someone is a particularly messy eater - to watch as that someone extracts their teeth from your thumping flesh, that rushing vein, and for them to have crimson painted an abstract portrait along their lips, their chin, a touch diluted along the tip of their nose. And for a moment, it is oddly endearing - the phantom with pupils dilated wide like a satiated kitten’s, face stained without the slightest hint of acknowledgment - it all lays in a strange dimension of archaic innocence, something so deeply rare, a strand of pitch black hair fallen a loose charcoal curl from its usual neat and slicked back appearance, simply hung there stretching to the space between his wide eyes, once again left unseen to his own perception - undone.

And Raoul does not say a word, because it is, quite frankly - the most beautiful thing to which he has ever borne witness to.

“Your taste,” the phantom begins through extraneous breaths, voice thickened with both newly discovered strength and satisfaction, “oh, merde - how could I ever say it enough? You are a granted prayer, little dove - mon festin implacable - and I would have no one else.”

The words themselves are enough to bring Raoul down to his knees, and his body still feels a little wobbly - and though he is indeed a naval officer, to date, he never could quite get the hang of an ever-shifting ground beneath his feet.

The phantom notices this, and he smiles faintly, as though the sight pleases him immensely. And he says, “come with me - down to the catacombs again, my home. Where you can rest unbothered by society, where I can teach you still. Come with me.”

He’s still disheveled - and it is still an odd sight, one that Raoul is unsure in each moment of how to comprehend, how it makes him feel both nauseous and excited, small and yet as though he could do anything which he pleases. And the phantom is a small length away now, just a step, or perhaps two, and he reaches out a hand between them - an offering, his skin there still bare - one of the only pieces allowed in this moment to be.

And part of Raoul wants to take that hand in his own - to follow this ghost, this god, this man wherever he may lead, to leave society and expectations and every single thing behind, to simply exist in a place of give and take, music and rapture and undefined religion.

But then there’s that sick feeling, familiar as the winter cold. The teasing unease, the gnawing fear at every corner of his body and mind, one in particular that will not let go. And he thinks of Christine, and he even thinks of his brother, and of Madame Giry’s words, brimming and boiling over with stern, compelling warning - and he simply cannot.

The phantom sees that doubt instantaneously - as though he has exclusive access to Raoul’s thoughts and fears before even himself, if such a power should even exist, and his hand drops as though cut from pulled string. And the eyes of this ghost are saddened, disappointed - but not in the slightest of inclinations surprised. He speaks before Raoul can even so much as open his mouth.

“Oh, I understand - even if I wish terribly that I did not,” and Raoul is not certain whether such a phrase is meant for himself or the former. And the phantom almost stutters, changes his mind before saying something completely anew, his mind composing every word as though each holds its own handcrafted significance, “ - if you only call, I will be there. I will always be there. Watch your eyes through your mirror and they will meet my own - je me consacre à toi - whether you do the same, or do not. Even a single fleeting thought - I will hear every lasting syllable.”

It is late, sometime in the earliest hours of the morning darkness when Raoul lays awake upon his bed, the sheets clung twisted and sticking uncomfortably around his legs, staring blank eyes up at the meticulously carved and coffered ceiling, tracing with wandering pupils the intricate little designs as though perhaps they hold within them the very answer to the mystery swarming behind.

The truth of it is, he can feel it, still - hadn’t even cleaned the blood dried along his throat, simply threw the heavy costume to the floor, shed like the shear of a coat, collapsing onto the mattress with heavy-leaded exhaustion that can only ever be cured by the fading buzz left to simmer out of one’s aching bones.

And it is not even the same as before - he does not pay mind to the lingering sensation of the wound along his throat, nor to the faint throb of pulse beneath, tightening around that bruised flesh, constantly reminding, spreading hot as it settles like dust unhidden, biding time just beneath the surface.

No, it is simply the lips of man that haunt a true ghost within Raoul’s mind now - and his own mouth is set numb, his fingertips tracing along them as if an object of indistinct, foreign nature - certainly not his own, no - and perhaps his hand shakes as he does so, dragging down a claw over his jaw, scrubbing up over his eyes as though to shield them from the pulse picking up speed inside, grasping at his own hair only for it to yield a flash, a memory of before, those large, lithe hands of soft, vaguely calloused flesh, and for a moment there is a blinding sort of pleasure before the discomfort settles in once more, a fatal and disturbing revelation striking and sinking in like the unforgiving hand of God.

And that is how, now, Raoul has found himself perched upon aching knees, pooled in the bathing of gentle moonlight as it washes in through the open window, splashes of cool-toned light over the uncreaking, polished and smooth floorboards. His head is tilted downward, bowed and facing his lap, his hands that fiddle and jolt before him in harsh shadow flushed red and raw where he rubs at them mindlessly, whispering from quiet mouth small bouts of mangled prayer and plea - ramblings intertwining between that of a madman, and one of faith.

“Please, God - I will never feel again if it is all in sin. I will never leave this room, I will never dare to dream or to - to think. To think of - of - oh, mon Dieu…” his voice teeters and breaks, fizzling out as if it were a firework fluttering swiftly to the ground, dissipating entirely upon impact, ending as if there had not even been a beginning at all.

And Raoul peers open one eye, and then the next - there is no sound in this silent room besides the hush of his open-mouthed exhales, and he looks around, eyes darting as though operating on the undeniable and innate belief that there is danger truly somewhere near, hiding, lurking. 

And perhaps he had expected something, someone - anyone to appear before him now, either lead him by hand to salvation or down into a purge of fiery fate. But his eyes settle instead upon the mirror to the right, hung straight and shining gold upon the wall, gazing unceasingly back at him - and those words, those unshakably devout promises - they burn a scarred image in his mind.

Raoul is staring down a man in ruins - hair a frantic mess upon his head, collar stained as though splashed by a deep red wine, eyes a similar warm color, strained and skin of furrowed lines and pale pigmentation. And there is nothing or no one to distract from the one thought piercing through his mind unwarranted now - that the mirror was perhaps a portal, and it may be the judgement boring down upon him now - and, possibly worst of all - there is a golden cross encrusted into the arch above.

Raoul is scrambling to his feet, then, heaving out shivering breaths as though returning from some extraneous journey, his muscles sore and stretching as he grasps blindly and frantic at the thick cover upon his bed - he does not dare glance away, does not even provide the need or inkling to blink in competition with this staring reflection, simply the fear jarring his movements foreign and reactionary, jolting and quick.

The blanket lays heavy and wrinkled over the mirror now, and Raoul stumbles backward until his legs hit the bed hard - yielding no reaction, he allows it to take him, fallen and consumed as though a child upon pile of glistening white snow, sinking and shivering, but nevertheless wanting, needing. But despite his anguished prayers, despite the mirror blinded, the phantom will simply not go away.

The thoughts are entirely intrusive, jabbing and goading, and they go further even than memory. The mouth panting hot breath lower than throat, teeth piercing beneath even chest or stomach, sharpened fingernails digging and cutting and scratching. In his hair, tight around his throat, gliding lower and lower, skin to barren skin, and then -

“No, no, no…” Raoul’s voice is so very thick now, wobbling and shivering, escaping his lips as a broken whine, dripping with fear true and desperation unheard by anyone but the silence of the moon and black sky - and he grabs at his skin, tugs at himself, watches through blurred vision as it grows a harsh red, marked white and then filling in like oil to canvas - and he is nothing if not the mad artist, his blood the only medium, vibrant and beautiful and awful and stinging.

He turns, pushing his face into the sheets like they will somehow hold within them the ability to scrub those thoughts clean, purify him heart, body, and soul - but the darkness leaves wider space to be filled in, and suddenly the fear turns to nothing, and through this haze he grasps low on himself without thought, nor preposition at all - and all that he can see, feel, or think now is feverish color and the swirl of dizzying light, vertigo behind his eyelids, flashes of white-hot pleasure so poignant that it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and there is nothing and then there is everything.

The voice rings out in his ears clear as anything ever lived or known by man, nor god, or devil - and as the grip upon himself finally relents, his body loosening entirely limp, nothing but a puppet, a doll possessed without eyes to blink or fingers to touch, it whispers, deep and soft as silk,

“Tu es à moi - et je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime.”

And Raoul begins to weep.

He is not sure when exactly he had fallen asleep - and for a prolonged moment, Raoul truly believes himself awake. But then his actions are only halfway able to be controlled, slow and churning through air thick like molasses, and there is no reflection in the mirror he stands facing now.

He turns around - another mirror, still without yield to his own image, and to the left another, and to the right - and then, above his head, and beneath his feet. Mirrors of the other, infinity into little infinity and there is nothing else, empty space filled by empty space.

He turns in place for what may either be seconds or years, and through the circling haze of multiplied frames, emerges the indistinct shape of an apparent dark figure - not at long last a reflection of himself, no - but something rather achingly familiar.

The shadow turns into a refraction of many as it edges slowly toward Raoul, details drawn out and revealed, a little and then all at once - and it is reaching out for him, arm extended to identical black - and there is no face at all, more darkness in place of what should be eyes, a mouth, a nose. And Raoul cannot think in the distant perception of this vision, his limbs moving as though they understand the needs of his own body without admittance of direction, his own soul, and the hand wraps indistinct around his own, pulling gentle and steady.

And through the mirror is light - so much light that it blinds even within the dream, and Raoul wants to look away, cannot manage it, but then there is a stretch of black fabric clouding across his vision, covering, protecting. 

“What a funny little head of yours, mon vicomte. Do you often relish in the pleasure of one’s own vanity, or is it simply a nighttime rendez-vous?”

The voice is jolting, to be certain - and perhaps Raoul had known all along, perhaps he had even allowed it, submit himself purposely to it - but still, the confirmation is nothing if not chilling, and he cannot even dare to relax at the phantom’s self-amused chuckle that rings echoing throughout the liminal space around.

And when the phantom pulls the veil of black shadow back over his head, the right of his face is, in a particular, resounding respect - maskless - yet, somehow, still entirely unapparent. A blank canvas, indistinct features smoothed out and vaguely blurry, giving and yet still so far away from any true concept of knowing.

“You…how? I didn’t - “

“ - you did not have to, mon tremblement,” the voice cuts in, and the phantom is indeed closer now - something Raoul had yet to even register at all, had not witnessed the steps in which it would have taken in the first place. And he is smiling vaguely, in a particularly unreadable manner, as though he knows of something he does not divulge, nor wish to advertently volunteer, “a simple thought, no? And, well…”

He steps in even closer - Raoul can see it this time, but even then, his dream eyes fail him, half heavy as though dragged down by invisible strings of exhaustion, and then a simple blur twisting in and out of focus without the conscious longing or willingness to do so. But the phantom steadies him as though a master of the arts of subconscious comprehension, thought and being, and the hands are wide over Raoul’s shoulders, pinning but soft, barely a touch. And he says, even quieter this time, “you called for me…did you not? So very loud, mm, yes - and how could I have ever ignored the desperation expelled like smoke from your pretty little throat? But, oh…”

The hands slip from his shoulders - he stumbles, somehow, and the phantom is pacing slow around him, watching him, through him - there is nothing else. And for whatever strange purpose, Raoul cannot find he holds the power to turn to follow. “…how I felt the pain, the fear - and I could taste it before, doux comme le nectar, as strong as the blood could be…igniting a flame within my own body, one of which I only knew that you felt too, and your hand is mine - when you reach down, si douloureux, si nécessaire - touching yourself…”

The phantom’s voice has fallen like thick clouds of snow, floating to his ear as a blanket of white upon the ground, and for the very first time, the feeling is real as anything could ever deem itself to be, in dream or death or otherwise. The breath tickles the warmth of summertime along his skin, and the lips brush ever so gentle, like the petals plucked fresh from the rose, and the mouth - it kisses him there, pressed to linger - inked permanence upon his barren skin, to remember and never else forget. And then, “it is I who shall make you cry out the song of the angels. N'oubliez pas, you are mine, et le mien c'est toi.”

And the hands snake around Raoul’s body, dancing over his shoulders and then sliding gracefully and intently down his sides - and he cannot incline his chin to see, cannot even attempt the motion - but the fingertips clad in cool leather are more certain than anything else that could ever be, his skin certainly lain barren there, his body jolting a little, shivering and muscles contracting and then lower, and lower, and -

Raoul has never awakened with such a start as this, thrust into the morning rise of sun with as much urgency and lack of mercy as a newborn child into life, his mouth notably and distinctly dry as he pants - and as his eyes dart downward, there are two particular things that are most certainly clear - the raw scratches along his arms and hands, blood still stained upon his collar, and the frankly sinful sight lower of the undoings of a man lost to the throes of both madness and pleasure.

And the shame sinks in, after a moment. It is like when you awaken from a dreamless slumber, and for a few seconds, perhaps even only one - there is nothing. No feeling, no fear, no discomfort or even desires to cloud one’s heart or mind - simply silence, in every human sense, a comfortable numb. And this shame is the feeling flooding back inside of you, swift and hungry, consuming each and every corner as though sent by hand of an irascible god.

But he doesn’t get up, finds himself almost numb to the rush, simply stares forward toward the window, and - had he not left it open? 

Nevertheless, it is closed now - and Raoul cannot find that he can bring himself to care, to contemplate, to take it in at all, to even begin to process all of the implications that such a thing would draw forth. And he feels nauseous, and weak, and more exhausted even than when he had firstly fallen into that deep void of sleep, as if the dream, that vision had truly kept his mind awakened through it all.

Raoul lays there, and a chill rushes through that same closed window - somehow, miraculously, now open - as though fixed by a universe parallel in truth alone.

And in carried upon the gentle lilt of breeze, flutters a small card of red and white, and he has to finally arise to alleviate it’s presence upon the ground, a stain against polished floorboard. And when Raoul lifts it to the dreary sun of day, though not tawdry enough to be seen through, it reads -

‘Mon reflet florissant - 

Oh, ma petite fleur, what a mess you have made. I do not mind, of course, je ne pouvais pas, however it would seem an apparent shame if you could never wear again such a dazzling costume such as the one you threw so arduously to the floor. I took the initiative to hang them back in that wardrobe of yours, lisse comme la chair qu'il ornait, so you need not worry yourself. 

And did you intend to throw your cover upon the mirror? Perhaps the exhaustion of the day had soiled your mind - a simple fix, however. 

Mirrors are portals, did you know? And each and every little universe, a microcosm of our own - the reflection is you, but it is not, and to cover that possibility would be truly a shame. Never mind the cold - although how could one be with a vision such as that? Oh, amant convoité, you are as beautiful as the most treasured of portraits, the very best of song. And you say that you cannot, cannot sing, cannot act - but, in fact - you excel at both as though your body and mind were crafted with just such intent.

Your song this yestereve was particularly tantalizing - could you even hear, mon ange du sommeil? The inhale, besoin de, the exhale like the tintinnabulation of cathedral bells? I could never be the author, the composer of such a sound, although try I may, and thus I might.

I know that you do not wish to come to me as I have asked - but I do not beg. Need of me again, and I shall be there - a simple vow, ne jamais être brisé. But do not forget your duties unto me, and to the art we each serve...only think - could there ever be a better teacher than the creator himself?

Endlessly yours, toujours,

C.P.’

Raoul does notice, then - the mirror unveiled, staring back at him like the accidental stare of a rippling puddle in the mud, and he wants nothing more than to step in it. And further, the blanket heavy on his legs, slid just beneath the mess, the shame. And the costume is gone from the floor, the window still open, the sun still shining through clouds of rain, a mirage of dying flowers littered upon the dresser, petites pierres tombales.

And Raoul takes this long-winded note, this promise, this revolting indenture - and he crushes it like cut glass in his palm.

Chapter Text

IX.

It is dark in this little chamber, the stone brandished a seeping cold beneath these fabric lain knees, the familiarity of ache demanding respite but numb of the knowledge to hear it.

And this is the exchange, the unspoken vow of sinners, of vassals bargaining with a power apart, an entity sine nomine, naked and unknowing.

This is where Raoul must be, where the after meets beginning, where eyes watch gargoyles over every corner, guarding every edge as soldiers to the brigade. 

And as he stares upward, the colors are like spots behind the eyes - blurred fragments of indistinct and ever changing light, close enough to perhaps touch but just enough to preclude any innate ability to do so. And the little pictures making up figures of salvation, tiny stories that are omniscient upon the world, that lay inside instinctual understanding beyond human comprehension or definition, those that burrow into the depths of seeing eyes and leave their stamps of hot wax to be cut by no letter opener, nor snuffed like fingertips to the flame in any tangible way or natural possibility.

But, then again - what about this is at all inclined to nature in the slightest of regards?

Raoul kneels, and he can still feel the warmth of an echoed memory imbedded like a vice to his throat, even despite the lack of physical evidence or wound, the flesh rather simply smooth and knit together, just as a baby borne, clean as a virgin promised, in wait. And his clothes are pressed, his shoes shining tiny reflections of self, petites vies, his hair combed through without break nor hassle. 

And, yet - he cries. 

Raoul cries silently - the tears find paths from eye to cheek, down to line of shaking jaw where it clenches unbroken, dripping to hands clasped just so in tight prayer, confession, fear. Perhaps that is why the lights are vague so, mixed half together like paint or oil, focused and then gone, caught and then chased once more.

And when a hand clasps down gentle but firm upon his shoulder, he startles - had not heard the footsteps, the surety of each human breath - and he swallows, hard, scurries to stand and wipe at his face harshly before turning, and -

“Father, I apologize, I did not realize - “

“Hush now, child. Tell me - for what sins do you cry for now? What is it that has brought you here so? That is what matters to me, in this house of God. Tell to me, and I will listen.”

The priest stands around eye level to Raoul, adorned in full black with just that signature dash of pure white across the collar, like snow - his face in shadow, it feels almost more so eerie than holy - but his voice is gentle, soft, and with a rosary around his throat, how could he be anything but?

“I fear…I fear that if I were to speak it, aloud - that He - “ Raoul swallows again, hard, “- that He would not allow me to…to be here, anymore - that it is simply too much, and I - well, try I might, I cannot turn away from it.” 

The priest tilts his head in the slightest of inclination, surely attentive, his voice not interrupting the silence but rather coasting through it, existing with inherent belonging, a gentle heartbeat.

“And what is it that you turn from? Be at ease, child - remember that our Lord loves all of his children, despite their sins, all of which exist equal to His forgiving eyes.”

It is a rather odd thing to not see his own eyes, but perhaps it is, in a sense, a form of confession - and who is Raoul to question a hand of God? There is a wooden cross nailed to the divot in the ceiling above - and he stares at it for a pronounced moment, as though perhaps expecting some kind of ecliptic answer, only for his eyes to flicker back down suddenly, pulled on impulse to shadow. “What if - Father, have you ever seen the Devil?”

The question settles for a long punctuated moment, dust building up upon shelf or page, providing shelter in its silent answer. Then, after short and certain inhale, “the Devil resides in all of us, as is our price of freedom to humanity, son - so - therefore, allegorically speaking, I have indeed seen the Devil - in many multitudes of ways to the conduction of sin, indeed.”

It frustrates Raoul, for a moment - but however could he be understood truly without speaking those words aloud? A prophet is still human, after all - and what else could one provide if not the answers to the foreign affairs of this nature? “I just - I meant, perhaps…in a literal sense. I have simply…” and there is no longer a need for falsities - despite the lack of eyes there, he looks, stares directly through to whatever may lay beneath, “Father, he is everywhere. I cannot hide, I cannot run. He has bewitched me, heart, body and soul, and I cannot escape. In the light of day, in the face of dark night. I lay awake, and he is there, and in my dreams, it is a vision of pure, beautiful temptation, and there is no respite from this raw cycle of unvirtuous torment.”

“Oh, child,” the priest laments, as Raoul catches escaped breath, “is that truly how you see it?”

And something about the voice is different now, somehow - something has changed, something deeply and determinedly wrong. And his figure - it suddenly, incomprehensibly grows, taller as though made just to stare down at Raoul, and the eyes for the very first time are there, glowing ice crystal blue, and then this thing is stepping forward, into the light -

“Is this how you see me, petit vicomte coquin?”

If a human being could breathe through lungs pumped through by blood cold as the southern winds, flesh chilled from gasp of stuttering mouth down to tips of shivering fingers, then that would be Raoul in this moment, backed up to spine struck harsh and unforgiving against golden alter, nowhere else to run, left in the hands of a God unseen or heard by any ear of man. 

The phantom walks toward him slowly - each step a distinct, threatening echo in this chamber of both life and death, eternity and mortality, providing Raoul the time to go nowhere at all, clambering atop of this alter, pressed against molding and glass and metal, and a candle stutters for a moment as he knocks into it, before tipping over and rolling with a resounding clink.

And just like that, the flame catches, licking at the red cloth beneath, a tiny spirit growing swift and hungry to vicious beast - Raoul can feel its heat so close, beating like a heart, and he attempts to keep away from it, but there is nowhere else to turn - this alter aflame, the devil afoot - and not an angel to siphon its power away.

The fire is a shock of warm color in the tiny reflections that are this creatures eyes - and, for the very first time - it is the face. The entire face, without mask nor veil, flesh that appears to already have been burnt, covering the cheek and growing strong like a weed to the other side, reaching, curving down the jaw, a path into the hair that is no longer smoothed back. It is unkempt, falling into his face, thin on that charred, skeletal side, where it has not been delicately coerced to cover over. The eye is like glass, the cheek a piece of crumpled parchment paper, something destroyed and then left behind, forgotten without will nor want.

And there are many of him, it seems - jolting and dissipating reflections fragmented all around, a glitch of nature, choppy waves of salt burnt tide, too dark and too deep to penetrate, to even think to determine. And the fire is somehow, in this haze, spreading around the room, as if this entire cathedral were truly a pyre, the thick shadow of smoke drawn out like fog over each wooden pew until those too are consumed and turned to ash.

“Please…miséricorde du Père, sois avec moi maintenant, I pledge myself unto you, take me now - !”

“Oh, comme c'est adorablement futile. To whose god do you cry? Do you truly believe that He can hear?” The phantom is so close now - and there is no reaction of mind to any of the flames licking at his heels, nor to that burning in those eyes of porcelain and glass, melting the ice into some unknown, volatile substance, leaking. He tilts his head, and it is in a way that is more like a snap, a cracking of the bone within, no transition between one position to the next. Raoul cannot breathe.

“Tell me…tell me whose god it will be to save you now, petit enfant - tell to me which of the angels will burn the feathers of their wings to shield you from these flames.”

And there is suddenly a thought that breaks through all else, through this madness and the daze of heat and pulse-catching fear - if it had been him, then where is the priest in truth now?

Between the brick of wall and the alter, there is a small gap - a metal grate, and sight can see through to the shadows beneath, under this consecrated floor. And when Raoul attempts to reach it, to perhaps gage his escape, jump into that small abyss - there is a sight that else wise could bring a man to his knees - a stark reflection in the deepest seas of crimson red.

The hand is reaching, though the muscles are relaxed in lack of soul within - and in the palm turned heaven bound, there is a little cross - the very last of cries desperate of futile hope and succumbing faith. And Raoul turns back to look up at this phantom, this man, this creature who grins as though this is how it should truly be, that there is actually something in this terrible field of nothing - he grins, and Raoul weeps - and he closes his eyes.

“What is it that it would take for you to succumb to your truest self, mind, body, and soul? Is there even worth in this temple as it burns to the ground, the man bleeding just as he always prayed for, if the one who uses it betrays himself so easily before this throne, this garden of ultimate God?”

“You know nothing,” Raoul practically spits out the words, his eyes squinting now to see the spirit flitting through the sparking of indistinct kindle, objects once held sacred now desecrated and left a world without soul nor salvation. And Raoul thinks that he is crying again, still, sweating next to heat of Hell, eyes burning as though they too are caught aflame. The smoke fills his lungs thick and unforgiving, tight as the noose it ties - and yet those eyes still watch without blink, nor respite.

“What is it that I do not know, exactly? I have seen your visions, your dreams - have touched you and bled you and tasted you inside of me, beating heart upon my tongue, burrowed deep within your bruising flesh. You have prayed, and you have called to me and begged upon your aching knees - do not say that I know nothing - for you know that I know everything. Rien n'est un secret pour moi - everything is alive that you think or know or feel. And I can see it now - oh, comment il palpite à travers la veine de la vôtre jusqu'au cœur du mien.”

Suddenly, that face is before him - staring down at Raoul upon this blazing alter, nothing to suppress, not a thing to glance away toward. He is here, and he is reaching out, touching the sharp nails to trembling flesh, tracing tracks of cyclic tears, turning them to red just as smoothly, as though they had never been anything but. And Raoul contorts his face, eyes screwed shut, head shaking through the contact, and then there are two bare hands pressed to either cheek - an ice bath - gentle, soft - beyond the art of any reasonable recognition.

“I never intended for this fear…” he begins, voice low, very nearly lost to the crackling behind. “There is nothing I would not give…for you to want me here as I am.”

And when Raoul opens his eyes, just enough to let the light in, slip through the cracks of acknowledgment - the phantom is looking at him in such a way that one might gaze at a lover - intimate, tender devastation. His brow is slightly furrowed through skin still smooth, his mouth downturned and ajar, the little fangs showing crimson stains between each lip, the eyes searching, longing - and Raoul cannot deny it, how could he? And the scarred side of this face, it struggles to match this emotive nature, cannot follow the muscle of the other, the same tremble or exhale. And it does not frighten him - it does not scare him at all.

“…then why?” Raoul asks, a breathless and urging plea, his head still shaking - and the palms on his face are cold now next to the heat of the flames surrounding, nothing existing left to compete. “Why kill, why harm when you vow against such things? Was it not by your word that you promised to do the very opposition of such? Why chase me - would you think that I somehow would not love you? That I could not? You claimed to know of the truth - then tell me now, what is that truth? What do you know that I cried and hurt and prayed to not be the one and only existing truth?”

The phantom - he stares, and it seems that this creature does not believe the words suspended in thick air between them, a hanging and starving disbelief. The words do not come, and Raoul opens his eyes full against the smoke, bare against this burning smog, leaning in, breathing deeply through open mouth - “you do not see the truth because you convinced yourself that it was true only through window alone - but I am not your God, nor your devil - and I will design my own fate. I will sing only if I choose to, and it will be my own words that leave my tongue - you. Do. Not. Scare. Me.”

And then - Raoul has grasped this stunned creature by his sacrilegious collar, snow stained to bulleted blood, and he is kissing him, full and without hint of hesitation nor mercy, and despite this cathedral beginning to shake and fall burning debris around them, they do not part, even for risk of shaking breath. And Raoul can feel the tears - but they are not his own, and they run rivers of crimson red, a waterfall from chin to back of hand, and Raoul has never before felt rapture such as this.

Raoul is biting down, piercing at flesh foreign of his own body, the gasps and cries resulting lit a new flame through his veins, singing a song of angel or devil or simply human instead. And he touches the face beneath shadow, mask of porcelain or bone, strokes his fingers through the thinned strands of dark hair, and everything is close, close, close.

“I will tell you who you are,” Raoul growls as he pulls away, metal on his tongue, dripped over open, panting lips, “you will do as I demand - look at what you have done - and take what I give to you as you watch it all burn to the ground.”

And Raoul is tearing at cloth with teeth and hands, feeding these pieces of ruined vestment to the starving blaze, touching flesh barren for the first time of all - and the phantom allows him - relents to it helplessly but willing, wanting - and there is no question.

Raoul is tearing open his own shirt, button by suffocating button, trousers thrown awry and without a care to what gnaws at them now, and it is the phantom alone who is pinned to wall beneath gleaming cross and the singular candle still at work, alone in this entire little microcosmic world. “Petit oiseau, little bird, little bird…”

Raoul whispers against flesh, touches to every syllable, grasps and kisses and feels, oh, so much indeed - senses the soul of the man, the creature writhing beneath, oh so beautiful and yielding. 

And that is when the phantom cries, a song of damnation and utter salvation, a slack-jawed and gasping, “forgive me, pardonne-moi, forgive me…”

It is then that Raoul takes this creature’s throat in a grasping, strong hand, pinning him like sharpened nails to the wall, a dizzying crucifixion, and the blood is slippery on his fingers and palm to the other, and the incoming touches are upon that surety of man, and nothing could be human more, in this moment or any other, burning and falling into an inescapable abyss - this is the end of all worlds, the penultimate moment that shall never again be crossed.

“Tu es à moi, tu m'appartiens...never again - shall you crucify me.”

And when all comes undone, when the breathing slows, the shaking tumbling from bodies used and aching - Raoul is fallen into crook of shoulder and bleeding throat, and all is dark, and all is quiet - a hand warm upon back of his neck, cupping his hair, strokes a lulling prayer of gentle song and sudden understanding.

His body is completely limp, a corpse held together by string and faith alone, heavy and numb, and there is no flame, no fear. It is simply…

Him.

Chapter Text

X.

He knows where he is before he can even open his eyes.

It certainly is far from the first of times he has been awakened, stirred upon this silk, felt that smooth fabric like polished marble beneath his wandering fingertips, traced without much urgency for the exit of a seemingly endless maze, the key at the end which yields to the peeling open of those same eyes, gives way to the reality of light and life and feeling.

The bedchamber is empty - of course, it is littered with the usual subjects, the candles and foreign decor, flora and fabrics, a little cracked mirror and a music box. But there is no man, no presence to be found or discovered, none to lean or grasp onto. And the silence is a deafening roar broken only by the muffled ringing in his eardrums, a gentle throb only to be matched by the weakened pulse droning on somewhere beneath his temple, little percussion.

Raoul sits up, a meager attempt, groans - his bones ache, his ribs most of all, starkly heavy as though a hand pressed and made just to keep such a chest from expanding, stuck on the inhale, a coerced and slow suffocation. Perhaps not entirely fatal, simply a slow process of tortured and definitively cruel exhaustion.

His head, too, dazed some and free not of this grating discomfort that seeps throughout Raoul’s entire being, sat atop like a carbon copy of himself, a little soul reflected his entire being just to fit slightly off, a flicker of anxious fervor as the final piece of puzzle as it does naught to slide smooth into place.

And part of Raoul does wish to stand, to leave this little existence and find him, be angry and show it, but how could he? How could he bear it? Perhaps he hears now some lilting of gentle music through the air, pretty little chords full and distinct, quiet but sure. And of course he is there, how could he not be?

But Raoul stays, letting his eyes fall to the drowsiness still clung needy to his form, sticking shut like by wax seal, little weights that grow just so that one may give into it unnoticed and easy, like water brought slow to the boil. And his muscles in those arms weaken just enough for his head to fall back into the portaled cloud of pillow beneath.

And at one moment, after a span of immeasurable time, there is a feeling, a warmth trailing along his cheek, down Raoul’s exposed jaw, touching it ever so gently, stroking slow as though afraid to break something completely delicate, made fragile like porcelain or glass. And he leans into it, does not think of who, or when, or why - and it is all still, a thick curtain of black and the vague apparition of color dancing a background behind. 

He lays, sighing heavy to the sensation as though riding a wave past the tide, wanting and taking without much else, a simple existence. There is no deliberation, no stutter, nothing but simple need and fulfillment - a gentle exchange, an ebb and its endlessly dependent flow.

And Raoul finds that his body somehow holds a predisposition separate from his mind, one that inclines him to lose all sense for thought and reason - and he does not find he particularly wishes to remember - does not want to know again the hot lick of flame, the fear, the ache churning with the flow of blood a fertile river to the most desperate of sacred places, that which acts the most forbidden of ripened fruits.

And that pleasure, however - perhaps that is all he will contrive to feel for the rest of his little human eternity, a yearning that only manifests itself to one inside the gripping delusions of their dreams and visions, brought to life only by the simple and succinct fact of intentioned indifference - to simply let go of one’s cares and fears - though perhaps that is oftentimes more difficult than not.

Now, however, in this little room warm and serene - it is the most rudimentary of all things.

“I cannot find any reason for it…” begins the voice, stirring like a pour of cool honey to Raoul’s ears, sliding through to signal, a path taken in footsteps memorized, retraced, “this zealous want, though it is I who feels the same…for how could one possibly desire a face such as this..? J'accepte, mais je ne comprends pas - why do you lean to my touch, little dove? Reveal your secrets unto me…I wish to know all of them, all of you.”

The voice has hushed now, a quiet warmth near to his ear, tickling that sensitive skin, close enough to feel the brush of the lips that press tender and slow, gentle as though hardly a thing at all, as though a single action in confirmation to those words, that declaration. And Raoul does not respond, simply shifts in his sleepy state, and there he is, body so hot, so close. He wants to burrow inside and live there forever, a little sand-soft cove near the warmest of salted seas, naught and no a wind to knock them astray.

And the man does not speak, though his body is rigid, as though now afraid to move, to react - but Raoul finds a hand between them, so calloused and alive, taking it in demand and bringing the arm close to press to his chest - and he hugs it to him gentle but tight, securing it as though a child to a doll, mouth touching the soft of palm without the slightest opening of eyes - for the picture is already foretold, and the light and color is in the feeling unraveling before him now, in this little space of everything and nothing, care and then none. 

The hand idly cradles Raoul’s face, and he finds that this sleep may be the first and only one he has ever known to hold within it the sacred and precious keys to tranquility, and to peace. He signs this contract with no name, no signature, just a mark of understanding made from beating heart, the flow of blood waxing and waning in like a moonlit tide. “It is you…” Raoul whispers, voice foreign even to his own ears, “simply you, toujours toi…”

And then, sleep is again in his embrace.

Raoul does not expect the phantom to still be there when he awakens, when he comes to - and there is that beautiful, pure moment in which always appears in the blur of blinking awakening, that time in which in so short a span there is nothing but simple blissful existence, and the man warm at his side is nothing more than a fitful piece of that eternally breathing life. 

And Raoul inhales it all in, the wax and rose and ink, the gentle surety of skin past cloth, the intimately human familiarity of soft, pliant and giving flesh. He presses his fingertips to it, feels the sure beating of heart, and the man startles, as though he hadn’t quite noticed Raoul’s stirring in his arms.

He almost expects him to speak, to break the moment - but there is nothing at all - nothing but the gentle lull of breaths, the distant crackle of flame. And it is Raoul whose voice sounds through this moment, soft and hardly above a whisper.

“You stayed.”

Then, a pause, and -

“I did.”

It hangs in the air between them, suspended to rope as though this bed were truly a stage, with not a script at all to follow. And Raoul tightens a fist around the phantom’s shirt, this soft piece of pearl fabric, the buttons undone, the thing itself only partially tucked into those dark pants - and it is perhaps more intimate in this moment than that drinking of one’s blood, or the touching of skin to trembling skin, drawn pure and sinful pleasure from those pressing lips, soft like the healthiest of petals, oaths made and then broken and reborn.

Raoul pushes himself up, and finds that his muscles do not ache, but are rather simply fatigued - yet he holds himself as steady as is right, and he looks down at the phantom. And despite this state of undress, he is back again wearing the mask, and Raoul reaches out, touches it, that smooth, cold porcelain - so impersonal, so devastatingly devoid of any human semblance of self - and he slowly grasps at the edges, watches as the phantom simply allows him to remove it, and the hair falls forward into the eye of glass, the skin as rouged as the lips, and that is the mask.

The eyes stare forward at Raoul as he looks, touches, feels - and he finds himself leaning forward, pressing his mouth to the wavering plateaus and valleys of delicate skin, breathing him in in the most human of all things, worshipping in that devoted embrace of lips and tips of stuttering fingers. 

Raoul kisses at the jaw, the cheek, the eye that flutters shut in allowance - presses mouth to the corner of tremble-breathed mouth, until there is nowhere left to go, no path abandoned yet untaken, and the breaths intertwine as one, the warmth brushing to warmth - and thus, it is.

Raoul pushes himself slightly forward, brings one leg over the two, presses the gentle weight of himself upon him - and the phantom relents, his own hands limp at his sides, loosely grasping on the sheets beneath as Raoul cups his at this man’s neck, down to his shoulders warm beneath fabric, pushing it aside, breaking from damp mouth to kiss little marks a trail down the tendon of his throat, and as he breathes, he asks, “what is it that you are called, petite énigme? They say the phantom, the ghost, the man, the creature - and yet I feel your heart so vividly beneath my tongue - so who are you, really…?”

And the eyes flutter, the breath stutters, and Raoul can feel the struggle beneath him - he pulls back slightly to see that face, touching the hair, smoothing it back, tilting the chin. “N'ayez pas peur - is that not the very phrase you whispered unto me that very first night? You wish to know me - then allow me to know you.” 

His voice is low, an urgent hush of breath, his hands cupping that face, both sides of even nature, no prejudice in that touch. And it really takes not a thing - not a thing at all.

“Erik. My name is Erik.”

It is beautiful - and how could it not be? A name a portrait of the artist it is beholden to, the words little waterfalls from speaking lips, and he sees the fangs glinting inside, a hint of the desire shown with widened pupils to those eyes, a dull-edged threat. And Raoul repeats it, says it aloud for the first time, as though sounding it out, a story written, unspoken. “Erik…compositeur d'étoiles, tisserand de la vie, my Erik…”

And he kisses him again, and again, and once more - and the hands lift, though they tremble, and they touch Raoul’s back softly, tentative and tender and inconceivably shy. And he takes one of these hands, pushes up the sleeve past elbow, trails forbearing presses of mouth down to the break of wrist, feels the gentle throb of pulse beneath, a muted little rhythm, nuzzles cheek warm to palm. And he whispers, voice hardly breaking but sure, “are you hungry, petit fantôme?”

Erik nods, slowly, his breathing uneven, emerging slightly heavy from his lips as they part. And Raoul uses this hand not his own just once more, relenting possession, holds the index finger like a butcher’s knife, the nail sharp as that dagger, slicing a smooth, tantalizing strip along his throat, an act as smooth as the severance of warm, melted butter - and he gasps lightly, his own eyes fluttering shut, Erik yielding a shuddering reaction beneath him as darkening eyes come alive at the sight. Raoul allows himself to fall forward, can feel the blood trickling down to pool at the collarbone like some fragrant broth, and then the mouth is upon him, the tongue lapping out and tasting the beyond of flesh with sudden, coveted urgency. It is as though pure instinct takes over, fuels this creature, this Erik - and the confidence is perhaps not even his own, but rather something intensely, categorically primal - whichever it may be, Raoul wants to drown in it.

The teeth drag along his throat, tease at the reacting skin, and if Raoul gasps, whines at Erik’s sudden clawing grasp at his shoulder blade, neither would say. And the heat pulses through him, a fatal connection strung and tied from one body to the next, and their positions, Raoul pressed heavy and rocking atop of his lap, do nothing but to further exacerbate the issue. 

He finds himself in fact pushing down that weight harder without much thought toward it, nor to much anything else, and the nails pierce from fabric down to flesh, the mouth gasping and finally whimpering a sound that is akin to pure, ecstatic golden light shot straight through to Raoul’s ears - it cements him in his place, pretty as a prayer, makes him want it even more, pushing and pulling and squeezing, relentless fervor, blinded desperation, as sudden as a spark.

And in this moment, there are no flames, no kindle in Hell that could ever work to defeat the heat building between them now - it is a dizzying, needful pleasure, tight and throbbing and beautiful, and yet there is so much in clad still between them - but neither can move, can stop, can think - and Raoul feels himself again growing weaker with each and every gulp swallowed down against him, the heavy bob of that throat, every breath taken and used and lost. “Cher Dieu au ciel, Erik…I can’t - I cannot - “

It is a plea of sorts, the strangest surrender, and he can feel it swishing in the hollow of his throat as he himself tries to swallow down any last remaining semblance of composure he may still in such a moment possess. The noises teasing at his mouth, sitting and knocking at the backs of his teeth - they are pitiful, demanding - and they are escaping without any possibility of getting them ever to return back inside.

His body is languishing, his face dropping without much will to the crook of another neck, the breaths stuttering and hot and loud - and for a moment, Raoul fears perhaps that someone will hear - but who ever could do that, in this darkened underground, this chamber of nothing and everything and nothing again? So he allows himself to lay collapsed there, as though there had ever been a choice in the matter at all, and the hands slip from his back, and then one is cupping his throat over the wound, and he already knows when the fingers twitch and fall, that nothing at all shall remain, both a blessing and a curse - a fate known and acknowledged all too well.

And Raoul lays there, unthinking - his mind is as blank as a page, or perhaps one in which the ink has been spilt to ruin, an art instead of a saga. 

There’s a sudden strength in the arms up around him, surrounding and secured so tight, almost too much so - and the voice is thick in Raoul’s ear, such a sheer veil of emotion lain to cover, “you won’t leave me, will you? You will stay, forever and evermore?“ Then, softly, a startling little plea, “s'il-vous-plaît…”

And could such a thing even be described to one as pathetic in such a context? The voice so small, so desperate - an innocent manipulation, perhaps, but one that Raoul cannot help but to relent to, a bud to the blossoming bloom. It is spoken a ruthless, veritable truth, and who is he to deny it? A man turned by man to spirit, to monster. And Raoul was the first - the first to see him as anything but, the first to lay in these arms and look at that face, and furthermore, to do so willingly. To want to - and what an entirely inconceivable thing, to stare directly into the light of the sun and choose not to turn away.

“I…to vow is a terribly dangerous thing,” Raoul replies slowly, lifting his head from that shoulder, breathing in the air, exhaling heavy but gentle. “I don’t think I could swear to a thing, and yet…” he looks down at Erik, those sad cornflower eyes, holding within them such a palpable, aching hope, and he can feel it pooling low in his belly. “I will try. I will try to stay…that is the promise. If there is indeed a choice in the matter at all….” his voice trails off, “then I will stay.”

It seems to be enough, for now - and there’s a little smile playing at the corners of Erik’s lips, the scarred side coming up a little short, and Raoul simply cannot resist the urge to press his mouth to that stuttering corner, reveling in the way the muscle instantly pulls upward, as though his kiss would heal that which has been forever broken. 

“And I believe it,” he says, voice thick but low, bringing with it every emotion it carries, “I believe you.” 

They stay like that for a while, passing undisturbed time laid between each other’s arms, until Raoul realizes the state of himself - Erik had indeed, at some point or another, redressed him in what clothes had remained, but unfortunately, most had either been lost or torn, and the thick, clinging smell of smoke still lingered heavy upon his skin, in his hair - simply everywhere - and Raoul can absolutely not stand it.

So here now he is, standing wearily in this phantom’s private washroom, a darkened little space tucked behind some damp-bricked hall, with an ornate, large and golden tub stood on curled feet against the wall centered of the room. It gleams as though never before used, the space filled with flora and foliage, a little garden, a forest whereas sun cannot reach. It smells delightful, really - a refreshment of the senses, and Erik is filling the tub without even so much as touching it, the warmest of waters, steam filling and creating droplets of precipitation along the green arms and hands of these plants, reaching out toward Raoul as though filled with little souls, like they can just see him with eyes unfound.

“You must be made of magic, un sorcier, the way you enchant every little thing you touch,” Raoul says into the damp air, his eyes blinking still drowsy, his muscles aching as he stands, his shirt hardly hanging to his skin at all, torn as though by savage beast. “How is it that you do all of this?”

He reaches upward, touches fingertip to vine - here, there are the plumpest of grapes, the most vibrant, rich of all colors, deep and healthiest of purple, the most ripe of all fruit. Erik is beside him now, an unceasing, buzzing presence, leaning around to take one of these rotund little things in between thumb and forefinger, plucking it with a simple pull - it slips easily from the vine, and he rolls it between those fingertips, examines its stormy canvas of color, the gleam of its unbruised skin. Raoul expects a true answer, but instead, Erik simply replies, a playful and gentle confirmation, “préposition bête - but yes, magic indeed.”

Raoul stares at the grape there in his hand under skeptical brow, before it’s being gestured toward him, a gentle offering, “here - try it, je connais ta faim - and then there will be wine, as much as you wish to drink, as much food as you could eat.”

“You’re not stuffing me for the slaughter, are you?” Raoul retorts, only half serious, but still unsure of why any of this is occurring at all, how a priest can be slain and a church burnt one moment and a bath run to feast the very next. But he, Erik, does not say anything in response, simply smiling softly as though held privy to some amusing secret, and Raoul follows him to stand before the bath - and he cannot find time to protest as Erik is already pulling the tattered shirt from his arms, undressing him like a seasoned butler, though performed in much a more intimate manner.

Raoul does not look into his eyes as he does this, finds that he cannot - the trousers falling to the floor of cool, smooth brick, the rest simply discarded - and there he is, formed in this light just as a statue of that David, stood just as still, waiting but unsure of what. And he doesn’t expect Erik to follow suit, to pull the shirt from his own dark pants, to show to him the scars that branch all the way down - it had been so hard to see betwixt those smoke and flames, the dizzying fear and desire, that he had not truly seen, had not thought a moment of it - but the phantom of the opera, this man - he is tugging off his undergarments, and then there is truly nothing, and they are simply two hearts, two minds, no sound but the gentle rushing of water to fill that space between them. And Raoul swallows - hard.

He hadn’t noticed before, but there are rose petals of the most vibrant of reds floating a garnish atop, the scent so sweet and immediately inviting, so different now from that awful soot. And he steps in, doesn’t know else what he would do, allows himself simply to sink into it, sighing heavily as the warmth embraces him so gentle yet so strong. His muscles immediately begin to loosen, and it’s the best he has felt in what seems like forever, and ever, and the water is the softest of all.

“Join me?” Raoul exhales, lifting an arm from the water, and Erik takes the hand where he stands, climbing now into the tub at the invitation as though he somehow needed it, and he’s settling himself down on the opposite side, facing Raoul, watching him like an already full cat to the unaware mouse, tilting his head ever so slightly, simply examining him - and he isn’t sure whether it’s those eyes that cause him to flush, or the heat building like a flood up through his tired, half submerged body. 

“You know…I had a dream that I was drowning, some nights ago…that I had sunk deep beneath the surface, that I could not breathe.” A breath, “and it was so completely terrifying, and real - and I wonder, have wondered…was it you? Were you - were you drowning me?”

There are a few moments where no response comes, Erik simply blinking, watching him. His eyes don’t exactly squint, but they do soften, and it is only a single breath more before he is finally relenting. His voice is quiet, the words slow, deliberate. “Sometimes…we blame the monster, and not the reality.” He dips his fingers down against the water, watching as those respondent rings spread and disappear, little ripples there and then gone, stirring as though a drink in a large glass, inadvertent intoxication. “Think of it, mon jeune - it was I who saved you, I who pulled your limp body from that darkness, that void of nothing. So am I the villain…? Or…am I a savior?”

“So you were there,” Raoul exhales, blinking, and Erik’s silence is all the confirmation he needs. Then, suddenly, “why? Why me?”

He remembers when he had asked the same before - when that voice had led him into that shadowy corridor, lured him out by confusion and disorientation alone, refusing answers to the questions he had asked, that which he had so desperately pleaded. But it was all so different now, in such a short span of time, was it not? And perhaps now, there will indeed be an answer.

Erik seems to ponder for a moment - and it is still so striking to see him like this, nothing but skin, and more skin, when before all he had been was a cloak of shadow and a single white crescent, that alone surety of night. The eyes are still so compelling, though, so fascinating - such a light blue that they could emit a glow all their own, so sharp as claws, knives - the epitome of poignancy - fangs.

And yet, not as deadly as they once were - there is still a stark humanity that cannot be blinded by those eyes, that which is held hostage behind such a pink mouth, the character of which he so proudly and expertly portrays.

He speaks, and it is softer even now, as though such a thing could be possible. “Why not you?”

He says it so simply, so obviously, that it strikes Raoul like a blade pierced directly through to his heart, the blood leaking down to a nauseous stomach, racing like a startled rabbit. It shouldn’t be so surprising, really - and yet, as he stares ahead into those eyes, the genuinity runs so deep there that there is simply nothing else - cannot be anything else. 

Erik seems to notice this, and he leans ever so slightly forward, touches the tips of his fingers to Raoul’s where his hand is tensed upon the ledge of the tub - and the eyes lock, and all is known. “Remember that I have not coerced you into being here. I did not plan what occurred at that poor temple of God, nor any incident of before. I have not planned a single thing,” there is a sudden intensity to his words - Raoul finds he cannot look away, and the fingers atop of his own begin to very slightly press downward, the nails almost pinning him into place, “some may call it simple destiny - and wouldn’t that be the most beautiful of all things? Think…perhaps you have even been made just for me, ma jolie petite colombe.”

The other hand lilts up to gently touch beneath Raoul’s chin, and he feels his breath catch - it’s like there are two of him at once, the subtle pain enough to make him stay, the deliberate stroke of skin to skin to make him want to - it is just as the two sides of his body, as though he were two separated halves of a person sewn into one together, the souls merging and creating something both strange and miraculous and beautiful.

It is ridiculously confusing.

“Two hearts…tied together as one,” Raoul whispers, noting the way Erik’s lips lift at the words, and he suddenly feels like maybe he does have control - more than he had firstly thought. He nods, and Erik draws in close, and in this tub, he is on his knees above Raoul, looking down at him like he could eat a thousand meals and still be starved, practically salivating, nearly trembling.

“Hungry again…?” Raoul whispers, looking up into those eyes like they are mirrors to his own, finally seeing what lies within.

“Starving,” Erik confirms, and water is wine.