Chapter Text
“i’m taking him.”
the phantom announced, breaking the silence with a trembling voice while still half-swaying, a man trying to remember how to stand inside his own bones. salt wind, gun smoke, gaslight glared off the water. the pier boards trembled every time a wave hit the pilings; the whole world felt one heartbeat from going under.
raoul, on the other hand, was on his knees in the wet. christine, christine’s corpse to be exact, lay across his lap, head tipped in the crook of his arm the way he used to cradle her when she pretended faintness as a joke, except she was actually heavy now, fully slack, the weight of someone who couldn’t correct their own fall. gustave was folded over her skirts, fists knotted in the ruined satin, face pressed to blood that keeps seeping no matter how hard he tries to hold it in with his palms. the stain has crawled across half the bodice, black in patches where shadow pools, vivid at the edges where lantern light catches the red.
raoul had heard erik’s words, yes, but he did not dare look up yet.
“i’m taking him,” erik repeated again, steadier, like the repetition will make it law.
“like hell you are.”
gustave hiccuped at raoul’s tone. the little sound felt so obscene next to the hole in christine’s side. raoul jolted, protective reflex, hunching over both of them.
“over—” his throat locked on over my dead body, because a body was literally across his lap. instead, he swallowed, and tried again. “over you. you are not touching him.”
“he is my son.”
“only biologically.”
“we had a bargain, vicomte.”
raoul’s head snapped up at the word vicomte —the title feeling like a slap in the face because yes, he still bore it, whether or not the estates are mortgaged half to hell. “..we had a drunken blackmail in a bar. you named stakes i never had the power to give. and you think you can take my son now? you’ve barely been here—”
“your son?” erik’s tone twisted, a hiss. “you know as well as i do he’s mine.” he moved closer, step by deliberate step, the boards beneath him groaning. “and as i’ve said before, we had a deal, vicomte. you remember, don’t you? if she sang, you were meant to disappear. so tell me—” he tilted his head, sneering beneath the half-mask.
“why haven’t you disappeared yet?”
raoul’s throat closed in an instant.
‘disappear’.
as though christine’s death wasn’t enough of an erasure. as though he hadn’t lost her twice over—once to the phantom’s damned music and now to death itself.
“you put them down anyway.” erik stepped forward, boards creaked. “ ‘devil take the hindmost’, remember? she sang. you lost.”
“well she died, erik!”
“and?”
“the wager is void. she is dead. dead!” raoul hissed, shifting christine’s body, shielding gustave. “you’ll not take him away. he’s lost one parent tonight. i won’t let him lose another.”
“stop yelling,” gustave sobbed, interrupting the two, not lifting his face. “please—stop—she’s—she’s cold—”
there was a silence, jagged and terrible. the young boy’s small, hiccuping breaths were the only sound that filled the atmosphere.
erik’s gaze dropped briefly to christine. for a fraction of a second, his composure cracked—the faintest tremor, a shadow crossing his face. then he straightened, voice flat. “she sang for me. she died for me. the boy is mine.”
“for goodness sake, monsieur! i—” raoul was about to argue even further before flinching at the sudden movement from gustave. he was now trembling ever so slightly, clinging onto raoul’s coat. instantly, silence filled the atmosphere.
erik’s hands hunt useless at his sides. he could build a carnival empire, engineer stage illusions that wrung tears from thousands, conjure an aria out of raw noise, yet he could not seem to find a safe way to touch his own child without flinching at raoul, the law, the blood.
this is ridiculous, some grim corner of him observed, almost clinically. you have killed men for less paralysis than this.
raoul shifted ever so slightly, dragging christine higher to keep her hair out of the pooled water between boards. gustave refused to let go of the vicomte and christine, so the boy came with that movement, folded awkwardly across her waist. his sleeve soaked more blood. raoul’s own cuffs are ruined. none of it mattered anymore, however.
what mattered to raoul now was not letting any phantom of a bargain snatch his son out of reach while christine was cold yet still warm enough to fool the body into believing she might breathe.
“gustave,” raoul sighed out eventually, forcing calm. “look at me.”
it took a moment before the boy finally peeled his face off fabric. tear tracks, bloody nose smear, eyes blown too wide.
“your mother—” raoul’s mouth trembled before he clamped it shut, resetting. “your mother loved you beyond measure. you are not a prize. you are not a wager. you will not be taken anywhere you don’t want to go. do you hear me?”
gustave’s sobbing finally quieted, turning into tiny shudders. immediately, raoul smoothed a trembling hand through the boy’s hair, and for the first time in years, he realised he’d never once just… held his son in such a way. not like this. not where it mattered.
the phantom crouched now, not close enough to touch, but close enough that raoul felt his presence looming like a storm. “we can’t leave her here,” erik murmured, voice stripped down to something almost human.
“we won’t,” raoul said hoarsely. his thumb traced christine’s cheek, now cold. “we’ll take her home. back to paris.”
“and the boy?”
the viscount hesitated. “he comes with me. to paris.”
erik’s laugh was humorless and low. “you still don’t understand, do you? he is coming with me.”
“no.” raoul’s voice hardened. “we’ll do this my way. he’s not losing both parents tonight.”
“i beg your pardon, vicomte?”
“gustave shouldn’t lose two parents in one night. you want him? be in his life. but you do not rip him away from everything he knows when he’s still—” his voice breaks. “still counting breaths.”
“i will give him everything.” erik’s insistence was almost childlike. everything was the lever he’s always tried to use when love failed: music, marvels, whole amusement empires conjured from obsession. “resources. teaching. the best tutors—”
“but he also needs breakfast and someone who remembers where he hid his tin soldiers.” raoul spits it, low, tired. “he needs routine. he needs someone who knows which lullaby gets him back to sleep and which one makes him cry harder because it was hers.”
“i know her music,” erik grumbled, and oh he shouldn’t have; that fault line runs all the way back to an opera house in paris. raoul’s shoulders spike.
“of course you know her music. do you know how to braid hair?”
erik blinked, clearly confused. “he’s a boy.”
“long hair. it tangles. someone does it.”
“i’d say it’s rather short to be braided now.”
gustave, still staring at the floorboards, muttered, “mama used to. sometimes papa tried. it hurt.” his mouth twitches; memory & grief trip over each other. “we cut it last winter.”
“see?” raoul said. “you don’t even—”
“stop!” gustave’s voice cracks loud enough to stun them both quiet. he finally sat up and turned. there was blood on his collar where he pressed against christine; none of the adults had cleaned it; he looked down, spotted it, and swallowed, eyes going huge and glass-bright. “y..you’re both being stupid.”
raoul inhaled as if to scold, but erik sliced a hand to warn him off. “let him speak.”
gustave pulled in air like he’s about to plunge underwater. “i don’t want any of this. i don’t want to choose. i don’t want to not choose and then have one of you go away forever because of a dumb bet. mama— mama said you’d… you’d find a way. she said her love wouldn’t die so we shouldn’t kill it by fighting.”
the word kill hit all three of them instantly.
silence filled the atmosphere, again, but in a different way now.
after a long minute raoul asked, softly, “gustave. if… if we didn’t fight, what would you want?”
“both.” his answer was immediate and exhausting. “i want to learn music with him”—a flick toward erik—“and i want breakfast and stories with you. i want to go to paris sometimes. i want the rides here. i don’t care about titles. i don’t care who won.” his voice frayed. “you’re grown-ups. decide.”
erik looked at raoul, and raoul looked back; they both flinch from what they see mirrored: men who lost christine in different ways at least twice, now balanced on the edge of losing the last piece of her if they misstep.
“shared custody,” raoul mumbled, the words tasting like iron. “alternating seasons? or… you base here; i split time. schooling will be hell though. passports. his name—”
“he is not a de chagny.”
“well, he is legally! changing that overnight will cause scandal you cannot bury in carnival sawdust. you want him safe? you keep the de chagny papers intact until we agree otherwise.”
“i will not sign away paternity.”
“i’m not asking you to. i’m asking you to stop trying to erase mine.”
the two could do nothing but stare at each other, clearly reluctant about this whole situation, whereas gustave wiped his nose on his sleeve, watching like an umpire no child should have to be.
erik folded, very slowly, forward, elbows on knees, hands steepled over ungloved palm where dried blood webs the creases. “i said i was taking taking the boy. i.. retract that.” the admission visibly hurt him, but he kept going. “i propose: we both take responsibility. legally—” he grimaced instantly “—we craft something binding. i will fund his education. you will oversee his day-to-day while i rebuild facilities here to house him safely when he visits. he will study composition with me. he will keep his current surname until… he chooses?”
“… very well.”
gustave slept at last.
the vicomte had not expected it to happen at all. in fact, he had expected hours of shuddering half-sobs, of starting awake every time the pier-gun crack replayed in his head. yet, instead the boy had folded sideways the moment his cheek hit pillow, shock smothering grief for now. raoul sat there a long time, crooked in the little chair beside the narrow bed, one hand on gustave’s shoulder to make sure the rise and fall stayed regular.
when he finally stood, his knees popped. his coat had dried stiff with blood at the hem. he eased the door almost shut.
the phantom was waiting in the corridor like a problem left unsolved.
gaslight along the wall hissed low; farther off, phantasma machinery clanked and wheezed down for the night. christine’s door stood across the hall, pulled to but not latched. raoul couldn’t look at it for more than a second.
“he’s down?”
“for now.” raoul leaned back against the wall. it felt rather damp, but maybe that was just him. “if we wake him we start over.”
“then we don’t wake him.” erik folded his arms, then unfolded them, restless. “we settle what we can before morning.”
“fine.” raoul scraped a hand over his face. “you first. you had conditions.”
“several.” erik’s gaze flicked toward gustave’s door. “first and foremost; no gambling. none. not with his inheritance, not with your allowance, not with the roof over his head.”
“you presume—”
“i know. debts. markers. i saw the way the croupiers watched you when you came ashore. you will not stake his security to buy your pride another night of cards.”
“i never—”
“don’t lie.” erik’s mask caught a flare of light; his mouth under it was a hard line. “put it in writing. all chagny properties tied to his trust are removed from play. any new wagering triggers immediate review of guardianship.”
raoul’s laugh came out paper-dry. “guardianship. you think a magistrate will hand him to you because i sat at a table?”
“i think he will hand himself to me if you ruin him,” erik deadpanned. “sign it.”
the anger that rose in raoul’s chest had nowhere to go; he swallowed it with the bitterness of old brandy. “and if i sign, what do i get? you build trapdoors under my floors and spirit him out at midnight? no. my turn. you don’t kidnap him. you don’t vanish him into cellars or cavities behind mirrors. if you take him anywhere, you say where and when and why.”
“i don’t kidnap children,” erik defended himself, offended.
raoul arched a brow.
“…anymore,” the older man amended, thin. “very well then. no absconding.”
“and no murder.” raoul added it flatly.
erik made a small, incredulous sound. “you make that sound as if it’s a hobby, vicomte.”
“with you? i refuse to assume. additionally, no murdering valets, creditors, violin tutors, or anyone who annoys you within earshot of the boy.”
“that is absolutely absurd.”
“agree to it.”
“tsk. fine. no murder within earshot.”
“erik.”
“fine. no murder at all. unless self-defense. i reserve self-defense.”
“..nn. i’ll allow that,” raoul hummed, because he had no idea when he’d started negotiating homicide exemptions at two in the morning outside his dead wife’s bedroom, but here they were.
silence stretched. the lamp hissed. rain finally started ticking against the windowglass at the far end of the hall.
“next,” erik continued on, breaking the silence. “no alcohol where he can reach it. lock the decanters. if you drink, you do it in moderation and not before lessons.”
raoul visibly stiffened. “you dictate my habits now?”
“do you want me to completely ban off alcohol then, hm?”
“…”
“that’s what i thought. i dictate the conditions under which i trust you not to drop him down a staircase because your hands shake.” erik’s tone didn’t rise; it didn’t have to. “prove me wrong. stay sober when it matters. if you can’t, i take him until you can.”
raoul so desperately wanted to swing. instead he inhaled through teeth and counted to six in his head. still counting breaths, he’d told gustave. hypocrite. “i.. will lock the liquor,” he said. “i will not cede custody over a glass of wine at supper.”
“brandy,” erik said.
“wine,” raoul repeated.
“brandy,” erik insisted.
“we’re not arguing varietals,” raoul snapped. “write ‘intoxication’ if you’re so worried. measurable. observable. and if you accuse me without cause, i take him to paris and you can write arias about your loneliness from new jersey.”
“brooklyn,” erik muttered.
“worse.”
that almost—almost—twitched the corner of erik’s mouth. though, it died before it lived.
“speaking of paris,” raoul said, feeling the conversation tilt toward the inevitable, “we are going. you know we are.”
“for the burial,” erik allowed.
“for longer.” raoul forced himself to meet the mismatched stare: mask, scar, fury, grief. “he wants both of us. dragging him across the atlantic whenever one of us misses him will break him. we choose a house and we both live there.”
“live.. with you.?” erik recoiled as if struck.
“i hate it too,” raoul added on quickly. “but he asked. since we can’t give him christine, we can give him this.” he swallowed. “temporary. we try it. until he’s steady. then we reassess.”
erik stared past him down the corridor, jaw clenched so hard raoul heard the click. rain thickened; lightning flashed thin white through the window. the carnival outside moaned and settled. inside, christine’s door shifted in the draft and tapped its frame, soft as knuckles.
“paris,” erik said at last, bitterness dragged through gravel. “not the main hôtel.”
“god no,” raoul said. “a smaller place. out near boulogne. roofs leak. grounds are decent. space for a studio.”
“two pianos,” erik added on almost immediately.
“fine.”
“and an organ.”
“absolutely not.”
“a small organ,” erik bargained.
“harpsichord,” raoul countered.
“barbarian.”
“mask,” raoul said.
they let that one hang, both aware how fast the edge between insult and intimacy could shear through them.
“..we don’t fight in front of him,” raoul added. “rule.”
“well, we’ve already failed, haven’t we?”
“we fail less then! if there’s heat, we take it outside. closed doors. no shouting where he can hear.”
“and if one of us does?” erik asked.
“the other gets bedtime that night,” raoul immediately said without thinking. “penalty.”
“petty,” erik murmured.
“effective.”
“done.”
they traded more that night:
— lessons at set hours (music mornings, academics afternoons; raoul argued to reverse, but erik refused; they compromised by alternating days).
— letters to be left unsealed when either traveled.
— medical consent requiring both signatures unless immediate life-saving urgency.
— the de chagny surname to remain until gustave chose otherwise at majority; paternity acknowledgments sealed, not public.
— no titles (“vicomte”) when arguing in front of gustave.
by the time the two had run out of breath, the lamp flame had guttered low and the rain had settled into a steady patter like someone drumming a muted snare.
raoul pressed back against the wall and let his head thump it softly. “we’ll put it to paper tomorrow.”
“today,” erik corrected. dawn had begun to grey the window.
“..ah. today, then.” raoul pushed away. “i’m going back in with him.”
“i’ll sit with her,” erik said, voice suddenly thin. he nodded toward christine’s door. “if you object—”
“i don’t,” raoul said, the words were heavier than any document he would sign. “say what you need to.”
with that, the viscount slipped into gustave’s room. the boy hadn’t moved an inch. rain light smeared silver across the quilt. raoul eased down, lay atop the coverlet beside him, and let his fingers rest in the space between them until gustave’s hand, sleeping, found his.
in the hallway, erik opened christine’s door and went inside. the latch clicked.