Christine DeChagny (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lethermindwander) wrote2019-02-11 03:20 pm
lethermindwander) wrote2019-02-11 03:20 pm
Entry tags:
tell me how's the way to see, show me all that i could be
He feels so utterly useless.
For three days, Christine has been in some sort of torturous catatonic state thanks to a particularly vicious demonic foe. Its venom had infected her after suffering a deep bite wound.
Hancock, Elizabeth and Booker (by extension of Elizabeth), have been fawning over Christine’s poisoned body since the incident. Trying, in their own ways, to soothe her. To help the poison pass quicker, break her out of whatever spell it’s holding her under.
And Erik, he feels useless. The only updates on Christine’s condition he’s been given have been vague at best. There’s a burning instinct in his chest to toss those three aside, to tie them up and eviscerate them for daring to keep him from Christine’s side.
Except, he knows better. Her friends are only doing what they think Christine would want. Even in their band of misfit demons, Erik is the odd one out. He knows what they must think of him. Given his history with Christine, not even counting what happened when they were both still alive, surely solidified the idea that they need to protect her from him.
Or protect him from her. Either way, really. Erik loathes seeing the demon Christine has turned into now. She was not lying that night, when she finally lost her wings. Her words still ring in his mind.
“There’s more terrifying things in Hell than you, Erik. And now I’m one of them.”
Briefly, as he stares at the closed, locked door to Christine’s room, Erik considers leaving. Christine has screamed it at him enough times, that he should just go back to the Requiem so he can be with his “new little ingenue.” He misses the relative safety of his home. He hates just how much he does miss Lacie. But he still doesn’t really know what to do with those feelings, either.
“You’ve always been a coward, Erik!”
There’s Christine’s bitter words hovering over his head again. He’s running from Lacie, too.
He tells himself he has to stay here, even if Christine doesn’t want him because he can see just how broken she is. He sees the cracks that Elizabeth and Hancock can’t and somehow, he’ll find a way to fill them. Even without his voice. It’s all his fault that she has fallen this far. That she’s turned into a the sort of demon that strikes fear into people the moment she walks in a room.
His dark thoughts are interrupted by the soft click of the door. Booker exits Christine’s room, alone. Immediately, his eyes find Erik.
“Those two aren’t ready to accept what needs to be done,” Booker grumbles at Erik. Voiceless, Erik tilts his head in acknowledgement.
“I don’t know what they’ve been tellin’ you, but for three days, all Christine’s been saying is your name.”
This piques Erik’s interest.
“Something about that venom, it seems to have trapped her in some sort of trauma. And all she’s been doing is asking for you. If you want to go to her, I’ll distract the other two so you can.”
Erik agrees before thinking. He has done far worse things than this in pursuit of her heart and soul.
“Good,” Booker smirks and disappears back into the room for a few minutes. He is successful in his quest to get Elizabeth and Hancock to leave Christine be for just a little while.
The three of them are long gone before Erik finds the courage to actually pick the lock on her door. Such a silly, simple thing! Even if he managed to make things worse with Christine’s recovery from this poison, what did he have left to lose?
The sight of her in bed makes his heart lurch. And then he hears her crying.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she wails, “Erik, come back, I’ll marry you, I will.” Her arms are stretched out into the darkness, reaching for something. Or someone.
He stands there, watching with morbid fascination.
(He doesn’t want to admit he’s paralyzed and unsure of what to do.)
“Erik, please! Please say something,” she cries, “It’s all my fault, it is, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she pounds her fists against the bed and pulls at her hair. The look on her face is panicked, not at all the demon the rest are used to. She looks frightened, the tears streaming down her face. Her eyes are glazed over and white, the cloudiness a side effect of the poison, blinding her from reality and keeping her trapped in her head.
“I should have said yes before, I’m trying to say yes now, but you’re not listening, why won’t you listen? Erik, come back, please,” her cries give way to a scream. A shrill, cracking, desperate scream. And then she slams her skull into the wall behind her.
Erik blinks and realizes that his eyes have filled with tears. Christine hits her head against the wall again and Erik finally rushes to her side. He immediately takes her head in his hands to stop her. She tries to shake his hands away, her own fingers trying to push him away.
“Erik,” she screeches, “say something, say anything, I-I need you.”
The one thing he cannot do to soothe her.
He sits down on the bed beside her and pulls her into a tight embrace. One hand splayed across her back, the other tangled in her hair, pressing her head against his shoulder.
“I need you, Erik, I need you,” she repeats, whimpering into his chest. Without his voice to break through the spell, he can’t tell if she realizes he’s here with her or not. He presses his silk-covered lips to her temple and tries to whisper the words against her skin. He hopes that she’ll remember the sensation through her haze.
“I’m so sorry, Erik, come back,” she mumbles and his heart falls. Desperate to get through to her, he pulls back enough to search her features for an answer.
His poor, broken angel. It’s all his fault she’s like this. That these are the cobbled memories she’s trapped in, that her heart has been so thoroughly broken, it’s all his fault. No matter how much she’d like to argue otherwise, it’s his fault. Because he couldn’t just leave the shy, lonely chorus girl alone.
He takes her hands and raises her palms to his face. He forces her to touch the soft silk of his mask. He holds her palms there until she more fiercely takes hold of his face.
“Are you there…?” She questions, thumbs caressing the silk. The dots seem to be connecting in her mind. One last thing to do to solidify it. He reaches behind his own head and unties the mask. When the fabric goes slack in Christine’s hands, she can’t help but pull it away from his face. He guides her palms back to his bare skin. She gasps in surprise. Her insistent fingers explore to her heart’s content. Flowing from his brows, over his sharp cheeks and deformed lips. She traces the edge of his nose and that is all the proof she needs. Her tears begin anew.
“You’re here, I’m sorry, Erik, I’m so sorry, please forgive me,” she sobs, throwing her arms around him. His fingers weave through her hair and press her head to his shoulder. His other hand splays across her back and holds her close again.
She can’t seem to stop crying. She needs to hear him. If only he could simply will his voice back into existence, he could tell her whatever she needs to hear to break this awful spell.
“Don’t leave me again, “ she whimpers into his neck. He can feel his clothing growing damp from all her hysterics. He holds her tighter, trying to trace soothing circles on her back.
Her hands desperately clutch at his shirt, fingers locked around the fabric. He can feel her lips mumble words against his neck and he feels distinctly guilty for the slight pleasure the sensation gives him. It’s been so long since he’s been able to hold her. This is the first time, he thinks, since she became a demon…
And that was countless months ago. Over a year, perhaps? Erik isn’t sure.
“I love you,” she cries and that simple phrase is enough to undo his already cracked composure. His shoulders shudder and for once, he is incredibly thankful his voice is missing. His own shaking sobs are silent. He hopes that she will not sense how distraught he is through her own turmoil.
That is far too much to ask for, the pair of them have always been a little too well tuned to each other.
She pulls back from him slightly, her hands again wandering the deformed planes of his face. Through her cloudy eyes, it seems like she is searching his gaze for something.
“I love you,” Christine says it again, her words clearer. And then she kisses him. Slow and timid, her lips move against his. He cannot resist, at her insistence. He surges forward, ready to steal whatever she will let him. Their lips glide and crash together as he tries to pour all the words he cannot speak into her. He forgives her for whatever imagined transgression has trapped her in her mind. He loves her in return with such ferocity that he wonders how she could ever question that fact.
But in an instant, it all comes flooding back to him as she pulls away. This is his fault. His lies of omission are what destroyed them both. His stomach sinks when he sees her eyes. They are no longer cloudy. Once again, they are shining gold.
And they are full of fury.
“Get out,” Christine growls, a vicious sound pouring out from her throat. Low and menacing, he never thought her capable of producing such a sound--
“Get out!” She screams it again, pushing him away from her with such violent force that it catches him off guard.
Her hand reaches for something on the nightstand near the bed. He distantly makes the connection that the sound is of metal clanking against the wood. A knife. Erik scrambles off the bed and towards the door but that is not enough distance to stop her.
She throws the knife and it finds a home in his chest.
He wakes up choking and coughing on the dusty air. The struggle to breathe is made worse by the silk of his mask and the pain in his chest. It feels like an attack. Searing, wrenching, paralyzing pain. With shaking hands, he unbuttons his collar to unrestrict his breath.
“If you were in need of a potion, you should have simply asked for one,” A voice slices through the air. Perfect in tone, melodic and magical.
Erik looks up, his eyes starting to focus as his breathing calms. White hair, hanging over him. Mismatched, glowing eyes staring down at him. Unmistakable face of a corpse.
The other Christine.
Oh, how she gets underneath his skin.
She bends down and picks up the empty vial at his side. She is quick, quick enough that he cannot stop her tiny, skeletal fingers from snatching it. She holds the vial near the hole of her nose and uses her hand to guide the scent to it. She grimaces at the smell.
“This is quite the powerful potion that you managed to concoct on your own,” she muses, “Rather silly for you to imbibe it yourself, though.”
He hates having to face the fact that she is more skilled than him when it comes to potions and magic. It is she that he must thank for the return of his voice, not that he has used it yet. While he had immediately started studying the intricacies of modern technology upon his death, this Christine had immediately thrown her genius towards sorcery.
It’s rather fitting, as much as he hates to admit it.
“The effects of this one differ from person to person,” she trails off and starts examining the ingredients he has laid out across the table. A makeshift lab of his own making, of course. For a moment he wonders how she got in here in the first place but Erik then remembers her penchant for breaking and entering.
Truly, this is a mirror he could have done without ever gazing into.
“For angels, it shows them what makes them happiest. Fills their heads with grand illusions. For those in limbo, it’s a bit of a toss up. Sometimes it shows them peace. Sometimes it shows them their deepest regrets…” She starts mixing something together. Pouring liquids, sprinkling dried out compounds into the concoction.
Erik watches her small, graceful hands. He refuses to waste his words on her.
“For demons, though,” she continues, “It always tortures them in some way. Whatever makes them feel guilty, whatever sins mercilessly haunt them...So either you made a mistake with your calculations...or that’s what you wanted.”
So perceptive, this Christine.
“A rather odd choice for escapism,” she says gently, holding a strangely glowing, glittering flask out to him.
“When we were alive, my Erik’s drug of choice was to seduce half of Paris,” she continues, “But I suppose people like us don’t usually have that option, do they? Except for that Hancock fellow. He’s a bit of an outlier.”
Erik refuses to take the potion from her, whatever it is. It doesn’t matter that this woman was almost entirely responsible for finding his voice and casting the spell to put it back where it belonged. He dislikes her presence. Especially since she has seemed to take an interest in watching over him. Like he needs to be coddled.
“Until you drink this, you’ll keep falling into trances in which that potion you drank will torture you,” she explains. He stubbornly stares her down, hoping that a look with such venom will get her to leave him be.
But he should know better. She is Christine, after all.
“Instead of wallowing in some twisted form of self-torment, perhaps you should do something constructive. Go write a concerto or whatever it is you do,” She shrugs. His temper starts to brew.
Before he has a chance to do something he’ll regret, Erik stands up and leaves. This pale, ugly imitation of Christine is only a cruel reminder of everything he has lost. Erik cannot stand to be in her presence any longer.
He slams the door behind him.
Erik hates her insatiable curiosity and her piercing, hideous stare. He hates that of all people in the world to be cursed with such a face, it had to be her. He hates her uncanny ability to see through his darkest thoughts and make him question them.
(He doesn’t wish to recognize the fact that his Christine can do the same thing.)
He sulks off to somewhere he doubts that she’ll follow him. He takes special care to make sure no one could trail behind him. He wishes to be alone, that was the entire point of that little torturous brew in the first place. He knew full well what it would do to him.
Erik finds himself wandering into a bar. A completely unpopulated one, of course. The building has been long condemned. He can tell at a glance that the structural integrity of the place is questionable at best. He’ll take his chances, only a fool would follow him here.
He sits at a dusty table and allows his thoughts to trail off. Away from the nuisance that is the other Christine’s well-meaning concern, he can allow that potion to do exactly what he wants. Erik closes his eyes and is thrown into another excruciating memory. Being frozen to the ground while Christine kills and kills and kills. He can smell the thick, pungent scent from all of the blood. She never would have gone to such lengths to protect him if she had known the truth, if only she had known before then of his infidelity.
(He needs to stop telling himself this lie. He knows the truth would not have changed anything. That’s just who she is.)
He remembers the first time he stood in her room after she had left the Requiem for good. The details flood his mind so vividly that his chest seizes. Her belongings had been scattered about. Strewn across the bed and the floor and the chair. Clear signs of a hasty exit because she couldn’t bear to be there for another moment…
And then he had found it. The little leather journal laying on the vanity. He had instantly recognized it as the one she had so often taken the time to write in when they had been alive. It did not take long before Erik’s curiosity got the better of him, especially once he had found the note left for him tucked inside the cover. She had meant for him to read this. So he devoured it. If it was to be his punishment to never see her again, at least he could feel her in the pages…
There had to be something in these memories, something that would help him decipher the perfect words to use, what to say once she had returned from her ridiculous little errand. After having no voice for so long, Erik had promised himself that his first words would be for no one except Christine.
If only it was that simple. There is so much he needs to say. He doubts she’ll ever be patient enough to listen.
(He so deeply regrets never being patient with her himself.)
So that had been the entire purpose of that ridiculous potion. If it would find a way to torture him, he knew it would bring forth all of these memories of Christine. Erik had hoped that he’d find something he had missed in one of their long past conversations that would help him be concise. There was no room for error in this, these new first words between the two of them.
With a long exhale he thinks back to that accursed night when Christine had been affected by that poison. Of his torturing visions, that one seemed to have stood out the most. His hand drifts into one of his many pockets and he withdraws that knife she had thrown at him. Ornately carved and rather beautiful, her taste in weaponry certainly matches his own. One more thing to add to the list.
He cherishes that little blade. It is a precious thing, even if she had thrown it at him in such vicious anger. If it shall be the only thing she gives him for the next century, Erik tries to believe it will be enough.
His thoughts lead him to the night when he had nearly killed the boy. Raoul. It feels so far away and long ago, farther than it actually has been. He had said so many cold, thoughtless things in his detached, violent rage that night. The knife reminds him. Erik wonders just how much of his cruel commentary his dear Christine has taken to heart, given how she had crumbled beneath that poison. He tries to tell himself that she knows better, that she has known this whole time that he never meant any of it. She has never mentioned any lingering insecurities…
But being honest with one another has never been one of their strong suits.
---
The sound of her voice mercilessly assaults his senses. At first, it feels like nothing more than a dream. It echoes through the walls and lures him outside. Erik knows that it is only her, the other Christine, but he can’t seem to stop himself from following her siren’s call. He has never heard her sing before.
She sounds like his Christine, at her core. Only there are added layers to the music pouring forth from her. When he finds her, she is standing on the edge of a cliff, singing at the deep valleys and tall, menacing mountains. Her white hair flows behind her, along with the billowing fabric of her pale turquoise cloak. She looks like some sort of faerie queen, her petite, skeletal frame being draped in so much fabric.
The song is something Erik doesn’t recognize. It sounds primal and utterly wild. It reminds him of his youth with the gypsies. Magical and ethereal, each falling note paints a vivid landscape in his mind. It is neither a sound of happiness, nor one of sadness, it simply exists on a plane beyond mere mortal understanding.
In all his years of existence, Erik had never expected to encounter another being with the same powers of vocal manipulation as his own. He is both entranced by its beauty and curious to study the phenomena from an outside perspective. He simply loathes that this opportunity had to come in the form of Christine.
Some sort of beast calls back to her, the cry cutting through the pure and clear sound of her voice. She changes her song to respond to the creature and Erik wonders if her song was meant to be a herding call to begin with.
The question is answered when a black, dragon-like creature lands on the cliff beside her. Her song stops and she laughs. Such a potent sound! Erik cannot bear the sound of this Christine’s laughter. She holds out her bony hand and the dragon bends its head to feast on the treat. She pets the dragon with her other hand and slowly turns around. Her gaze immediately falls on him and she smirks while she continues to lavish her new reptilian friend with affection.
“You cannot sneak up on a fellow phantom, you know,” she laughs, “But it’s good to know that kulning works on you about as well as it does on the dragons.”
Erik narrows his eyes. He is not in the mood for her jests. He is never in the mood for her jests. He doesn’t want to recognize them as the same ones his own Christine would be making. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that they are the same.
The dragon sits down and looks at her expectantly, waiting for another scrap of food. She offers one and it makes a happy sounding yelp of approval. Its tail swishes and it stretches its wings. Erik can’t help but think of all the times he had told his Christine fantastical stories of dragons. How he had once told her he used to ride a dragon...oh how she had laughed at that. He had kept the lines between fiction and reality so blurred when they were together.
And now this Christine was blatantly slapping reality in the face. She has fully embraced her status as a being outside normal existence.
“You usually don’t linger this long...do you wish to ask me something?” she quirks her head, tucking a lock of her wild hair behind her ear. Her dragon nudges her hand the moment she stops petting him. She goes back to scratching him behind the ears.
Erik has so many questions that he dares not ask her. Because he refuses to speak to her. Because he’s afraid of her answers.
(Answers that deep down, he already knows.)
“You want to know why I don’t wear a mask, don’t you?” she asks. Erik remains impassive. That had certainly been one of the burning questions on his mind, not that he’ll acknowledge it. Christine however, has that obnoxious ability to read his mind. She makes another high-pitched, melodic sound and urges the dragon to fly away for now. She’ll call on him later. This is a topic that deserves her full attention.
Christine steps away from the cliff and walks over to where Erik stands. It utterly perplexes him how she can stand there in the daylight, her teeth clearly visible through her transparent skin, seemingly without a care in the world. Her sunken eyes shine so brightly that he can’t help but compare her to the sun. Even looking as much like death as she does, she is radiant.
“I used to wear one,” she starts, “For most of my life, actually. When I was performing, I wore one carved of wood and iron. For dramatic effect, I suppose. It maintained my image of being a mysterious nordic mythical creature, even after I removed it.”
So she too, had been forced to show her face for coin. It breaks his heart. He then wonders if the scars along her sharp cheekbones were God-given or given by the hands of cruel men. The thought broils his temper. Erik doesn’t want to think about Christine being forced to endure such pain, though his imagination leads him that direction anyway.
(It’s a similar sort of cruelty that angels encounter in Hell.)
“Everyday, I wore something rather similar to yours. Made of silk, yes?” Erik nods in response.
“I wore a black one,” she explains, “I didn’t wear nearly this much color when I was alive, I’m afraid.” Christine fans that turquoise cloak out with her arms. Erik notes the delicate details sewn into it.
“When I played the phantom of the opera, I wore a mask of porcelain. It was so beautiful and eerie, how ornate it was...But I broke it. Shattered it. Threw it at a mirror and I never put another mask on again. At first...it was out of spite. I wanted everyone to look. I wanted them to see and be horrified that something like me could even exist.
But most of all, I wanted to let him find me. The man that had killed my father. He intended on killing me, too. I planned on living up to my monstrous reputation, I was going to kill him first,” She tells her story with such care, Erik finds himself waiting for each word with hidden, eager anticipation. When had he become so invested in her? Or had he simply been lying to himself since this Christine had crossed their paths?
(Lying is the most probable cause. It is impossible to escape the gravity between himself and Christine. Any Christine.)
“I never got the chance, though. To kill him. Erik, my Erik, did it for me. Decided in that split second to chance throwing his entire, perfect life away. And he turned to me right after, his hands shaking, and said that he did it to save me from becoming the monster I was so keen on believing that I was. It then occurred to me that if he, of all people, the man obsessed with all things beautiful, the most narcissistic, arrogant person in all creation could see me--Me! The ghost, the Draugr, the nightmare, the corpse girl, as a human being, then there was no reason that others couldn’t do the same.”
Erik forces his gaze towards the glowing sunset in the sky. He can’t bear to look at her. He can’t fathom her bravery. Yet, he wants to know more, needs to know more, if only to piece together more details about himself in her reality.
“There are days that it is difficult, I admit. But it’s my face. There’s no changing it, so why bother hiding it? If someone finds it unpleasant to look upon, that’s a fault of their character, not my own. If I can empower one, just one person out there that is different from the norm that they too, are not a monster, then it’s worth it. Every cruel name, every scratch and scar is worth it.”
He closes his eyes and becomes acutely aware that he is crying. She is so full of beautiful, naive optimism. He tries to invalidate her words in his mind. They are simply things one ought to say, ought to do, not things that actually happen. The world is vile and wicked, though she paints such pretty fantasies of it with her hopeful words. He wants so badly to believe her but...
She’s wrong. Such constant stares and jeers and scrutiny are not worth the off chance that someone will learn to see them as--
Erik hates this mirror. More than any other mirror he has ever encountered.
“I’m sorry, you...probably didn’t want to listen to all of that,” she trails off with an awkward little laugh. She looks up at him expectantly, biting at her lopsided lip. When he says nothing, they lapse back into silence. They stand there, staring off at the mountains. The hazy clouds swirl around them and this, he finally admits to himself, is a part of traveling that he has missed. Such peaceful, natural magnificence. It’s no wonder his Christine had fallen in love with this place.
The unmistakable sound of a phone buzzing interrupts the moment.
Christine starts patting herself down, forgetting where she had stashed her phone. The buzzing continues and she fumbles with the little technological marvel as she finally pulls it out of a pocket. She reads the message. Over and over and over. The look on her face goes from calm to frazzled to confused and elated. She shakes her head and it seems as if she can’t quite handle the contents of that message. She looks up at Erik, her lips suddenly trying to form words but struggling.
“They, ah,” she stammers, “Christine just texted me. Your Christine, because I suppose that needs clarification from time to time. Though perhaps it doesn’t, seeing as I can’t exactly go around sending myself messages...Well. I could. But that would be silly...wouldn’t it?”
She is very quickly unraveling in front of him and Erik can only think of one reason why.
“But the message...she says they’ll be back tomorrow.”
For three days, Christine has been in some sort of torturous catatonic state thanks to a particularly vicious demonic foe. Its venom had infected her after suffering a deep bite wound.
Hancock, Elizabeth and Booker (by extension of Elizabeth), have been fawning over Christine’s poisoned body since the incident. Trying, in their own ways, to soothe her. To help the poison pass quicker, break her out of whatever spell it’s holding her under.
And Erik, he feels useless. The only updates on Christine’s condition he’s been given have been vague at best. There’s a burning instinct in his chest to toss those three aside, to tie them up and eviscerate them for daring to keep him from Christine’s side.
Except, he knows better. Her friends are only doing what they think Christine would want. Even in their band of misfit demons, Erik is the odd one out. He knows what they must think of him. Given his history with Christine, not even counting what happened when they were both still alive, surely solidified the idea that they need to protect her from him.
Or protect him from her. Either way, really. Erik loathes seeing the demon Christine has turned into now. She was not lying that night, when she finally lost her wings. Her words still ring in his mind.
“There’s more terrifying things in Hell than you, Erik. And now I’m one of them.”
Briefly, as he stares at the closed, locked door to Christine’s room, Erik considers leaving. Christine has screamed it at him enough times, that he should just go back to the Requiem so he can be with his “new little ingenue.” He misses the relative safety of his home. He hates just how much he does miss Lacie. But he still doesn’t really know what to do with those feelings, either.
“You’ve always been a coward, Erik!”
There’s Christine’s bitter words hovering over his head again. He’s running from Lacie, too.
He tells himself he has to stay here, even if Christine doesn’t want him because he can see just how broken she is. He sees the cracks that Elizabeth and Hancock can’t and somehow, he’ll find a way to fill them. Even without his voice. It’s all his fault that she has fallen this far. That she’s turned into a the sort of demon that strikes fear into people the moment she walks in a room.
His dark thoughts are interrupted by the soft click of the door. Booker exits Christine’s room, alone. Immediately, his eyes find Erik.
“Those two aren’t ready to accept what needs to be done,” Booker grumbles at Erik. Voiceless, Erik tilts his head in acknowledgement.
“I don’t know what they’ve been tellin’ you, but for three days, all Christine’s been saying is your name.”
This piques Erik’s interest.
“Something about that venom, it seems to have trapped her in some sort of trauma. And all she’s been doing is asking for you. If you want to go to her, I’ll distract the other two so you can.”
Erik agrees before thinking. He has done far worse things than this in pursuit of her heart and soul.
“Good,” Booker smirks and disappears back into the room for a few minutes. He is successful in his quest to get Elizabeth and Hancock to leave Christine be for just a little while.
The three of them are long gone before Erik finds the courage to actually pick the lock on her door. Such a silly, simple thing! Even if he managed to make things worse with Christine’s recovery from this poison, what did he have left to lose?
The sight of her in bed makes his heart lurch. And then he hears her crying.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she wails, “Erik, come back, I’ll marry you, I will.” Her arms are stretched out into the darkness, reaching for something. Or someone.
He stands there, watching with morbid fascination.
(He doesn’t want to admit he’s paralyzed and unsure of what to do.)
“Erik, please! Please say something,” she cries, “It’s all my fault, it is, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she pounds her fists against the bed and pulls at her hair. The look on her face is panicked, not at all the demon the rest are used to. She looks frightened, the tears streaming down her face. Her eyes are glazed over and white, the cloudiness a side effect of the poison, blinding her from reality and keeping her trapped in her head.
“I should have said yes before, I’m trying to say yes now, but you’re not listening, why won’t you listen? Erik, come back, please,” her cries give way to a scream. A shrill, cracking, desperate scream. And then she slams her skull into the wall behind her.
Erik blinks and realizes that his eyes have filled with tears. Christine hits her head against the wall again and Erik finally rushes to her side. He immediately takes her head in his hands to stop her. She tries to shake his hands away, her own fingers trying to push him away.
“Erik,” she screeches, “say something, say anything, I-I need you.”
The one thing he cannot do to soothe her.
He sits down on the bed beside her and pulls her into a tight embrace. One hand splayed across her back, the other tangled in her hair, pressing her head against his shoulder.
“I need you, Erik, I need you,” she repeats, whimpering into his chest. Without his voice to break through the spell, he can’t tell if she realizes he’s here with her or not. He presses his silk-covered lips to her temple and tries to whisper the words against her skin. He hopes that she’ll remember the sensation through her haze.
“I’m so sorry, Erik, come back,” she mumbles and his heart falls. Desperate to get through to her, he pulls back enough to search her features for an answer.
His poor, broken angel. It’s all his fault she’s like this. That these are the cobbled memories she’s trapped in, that her heart has been so thoroughly broken, it’s all his fault. No matter how much she’d like to argue otherwise, it’s his fault. Because he couldn’t just leave the shy, lonely chorus girl alone.
He takes her hands and raises her palms to his face. He forces her to touch the soft silk of his mask. He holds her palms there until she more fiercely takes hold of his face.
“Are you there…?” She questions, thumbs caressing the silk. The dots seem to be connecting in her mind. One last thing to do to solidify it. He reaches behind his own head and unties the mask. When the fabric goes slack in Christine’s hands, she can’t help but pull it away from his face. He guides her palms back to his bare skin. She gasps in surprise. Her insistent fingers explore to her heart’s content. Flowing from his brows, over his sharp cheeks and deformed lips. She traces the edge of his nose and that is all the proof she needs. Her tears begin anew.
“You’re here, I’m sorry, Erik, I’m so sorry, please forgive me,” she sobs, throwing her arms around him. His fingers weave through her hair and press her head to his shoulder. His other hand splays across her back and holds her close again.
She can’t seem to stop crying. She needs to hear him. If only he could simply will his voice back into existence, he could tell her whatever she needs to hear to break this awful spell.
“Don’t leave me again, “ she whimpers into his neck. He can feel his clothing growing damp from all her hysterics. He holds her tighter, trying to trace soothing circles on her back.
Her hands desperately clutch at his shirt, fingers locked around the fabric. He can feel her lips mumble words against his neck and he feels distinctly guilty for the slight pleasure the sensation gives him. It’s been so long since he’s been able to hold her. This is the first time, he thinks, since she became a demon…
And that was countless months ago. Over a year, perhaps? Erik isn’t sure.
“I love you,” she cries and that simple phrase is enough to undo his already cracked composure. His shoulders shudder and for once, he is incredibly thankful his voice is missing. His own shaking sobs are silent. He hopes that she will not sense how distraught he is through her own turmoil.
That is far too much to ask for, the pair of them have always been a little too well tuned to each other.
She pulls back from him slightly, her hands again wandering the deformed planes of his face. Through her cloudy eyes, it seems like she is searching his gaze for something.
“I love you,” Christine says it again, her words clearer. And then she kisses him. Slow and timid, her lips move against his. He cannot resist, at her insistence. He surges forward, ready to steal whatever she will let him. Their lips glide and crash together as he tries to pour all the words he cannot speak into her. He forgives her for whatever imagined transgression has trapped her in her mind. He loves her in return with such ferocity that he wonders how she could ever question that fact.
But in an instant, it all comes flooding back to him as she pulls away. This is his fault. His lies of omission are what destroyed them both. His stomach sinks when he sees her eyes. They are no longer cloudy. Once again, they are shining gold.
And they are full of fury.
“Get out,” Christine growls, a vicious sound pouring out from her throat. Low and menacing, he never thought her capable of producing such a sound--
“Get out!” She screams it again, pushing him away from her with such violent force that it catches him off guard.
Her hand reaches for something on the nightstand near the bed. He distantly makes the connection that the sound is of metal clanking against the wood. A knife. Erik scrambles off the bed and towards the door but that is not enough distance to stop her.
She throws the knife and it finds a home in his chest.
He wakes up choking and coughing on the dusty air. The struggle to breathe is made worse by the silk of his mask and the pain in his chest. It feels like an attack. Searing, wrenching, paralyzing pain. With shaking hands, he unbuttons his collar to unrestrict his breath.
“If you were in need of a potion, you should have simply asked for one,” A voice slices through the air. Perfect in tone, melodic and magical.
Erik looks up, his eyes starting to focus as his breathing calms. White hair, hanging over him. Mismatched, glowing eyes staring down at him. Unmistakable face of a corpse.
The other Christine.
Oh, how she gets underneath his skin.
She bends down and picks up the empty vial at his side. She is quick, quick enough that he cannot stop her tiny, skeletal fingers from snatching it. She holds the vial near the hole of her nose and uses her hand to guide the scent to it. She grimaces at the smell.
“This is quite the powerful potion that you managed to concoct on your own,” she muses, “Rather silly for you to imbibe it yourself, though.”
He hates having to face the fact that she is more skilled than him when it comes to potions and magic. It is she that he must thank for the return of his voice, not that he has used it yet. While he had immediately started studying the intricacies of modern technology upon his death, this Christine had immediately thrown her genius towards sorcery.
It’s rather fitting, as much as he hates to admit it.
“The effects of this one differ from person to person,” she trails off and starts examining the ingredients he has laid out across the table. A makeshift lab of his own making, of course. For a moment he wonders how she got in here in the first place but Erik then remembers her penchant for breaking and entering.
Truly, this is a mirror he could have done without ever gazing into.
“For angels, it shows them what makes them happiest. Fills their heads with grand illusions. For those in limbo, it’s a bit of a toss up. Sometimes it shows them peace. Sometimes it shows them their deepest regrets…” She starts mixing something together. Pouring liquids, sprinkling dried out compounds into the concoction.
Erik watches her small, graceful hands. He refuses to waste his words on her.
“For demons, though,” she continues, “It always tortures them in some way. Whatever makes them feel guilty, whatever sins mercilessly haunt them...So either you made a mistake with your calculations...or that’s what you wanted.”
So perceptive, this Christine.
“A rather odd choice for escapism,” she says gently, holding a strangely glowing, glittering flask out to him.
“When we were alive, my Erik’s drug of choice was to seduce half of Paris,” she continues, “But I suppose people like us don’t usually have that option, do they? Except for that Hancock fellow. He’s a bit of an outlier.”
Erik refuses to take the potion from her, whatever it is. It doesn’t matter that this woman was almost entirely responsible for finding his voice and casting the spell to put it back where it belonged. He dislikes her presence. Especially since she has seemed to take an interest in watching over him. Like he needs to be coddled.
“Until you drink this, you’ll keep falling into trances in which that potion you drank will torture you,” she explains. He stubbornly stares her down, hoping that a look with such venom will get her to leave him be.
But he should know better. She is Christine, after all.
“Instead of wallowing in some twisted form of self-torment, perhaps you should do something constructive. Go write a concerto or whatever it is you do,” She shrugs. His temper starts to brew.
Before he has a chance to do something he’ll regret, Erik stands up and leaves. This pale, ugly imitation of Christine is only a cruel reminder of everything he has lost. Erik cannot stand to be in her presence any longer.
He slams the door behind him.
Erik hates her insatiable curiosity and her piercing, hideous stare. He hates that of all people in the world to be cursed with such a face, it had to be her. He hates her uncanny ability to see through his darkest thoughts and make him question them.
(He doesn’t wish to recognize the fact that his Christine can do the same thing.)
He sulks off to somewhere he doubts that she’ll follow him. He takes special care to make sure no one could trail behind him. He wishes to be alone, that was the entire point of that little torturous brew in the first place. He knew full well what it would do to him.
Erik finds himself wandering into a bar. A completely unpopulated one, of course. The building has been long condemned. He can tell at a glance that the structural integrity of the place is questionable at best. He’ll take his chances, only a fool would follow him here.
He sits at a dusty table and allows his thoughts to trail off. Away from the nuisance that is the other Christine’s well-meaning concern, he can allow that potion to do exactly what he wants. Erik closes his eyes and is thrown into another excruciating memory. Being frozen to the ground while Christine kills and kills and kills. He can smell the thick, pungent scent from all of the blood. She never would have gone to such lengths to protect him if she had known the truth, if only she had known before then of his infidelity.
(He needs to stop telling himself this lie. He knows the truth would not have changed anything. That’s just who she is.)
He remembers the first time he stood in her room after she had left the Requiem for good. The details flood his mind so vividly that his chest seizes. Her belongings had been scattered about. Strewn across the bed and the floor and the chair. Clear signs of a hasty exit because she couldn’t bear to be there for another moment…
And then he had found it. The little leather journal laying on the vanity. He had instantly recognized it as the one she had so often taken the time to write in when they had been alive. It did not take long before Erik’s curiosity got the better of him, especially once he had found the note left for him tucked inside the cover. She had meant for him to read this. So he devoured it. If it was to be his punishment to never see her again, at least he could feel her in the pages…
There had to be something in these memories, something that would help him decipher the perfect words to use, what to say once she had returned from her ridiculous little errand. After having no voice for so long, Erik had promised himself that his first words would be for no one except Christine.
If only it was that simple. There is so much he needs to say. He doubts she’ll ever be patient enough to listen.
(He so deeply regrets never being patient with her himself.)
So that had been the entire purpose of that ridiculous potion. If it would find a way to torture him, he knew it would bring forth all of these memories of Christine. Erik had hoped that he’d find something he had missed in one of their long past conversations that would help him be concise. There was no room for error in this, these new first words between the two of them.
With a long exhale he thinks back to that accursed night when Christine had been affected by that poison. Of his torturing visions, that one seemed to have stood out the most. His hand drifts into one of his many pockets and he withdraws that knife she had thrown at him. Ornately carved and rather beautiful, her taste in weaponry certainly matches his own. One more thing to add to the list.
He cherishes that little blade. It is a precious thing, even if she had thrown it at him in such vicious anger. If it shall be the only thing she gives him for the next century, Erik tries to believe it will be enough.
His thoughts lead him to the night when he had nearly killed the boy. Raoul. It feels so far away and long ago, farther than it actually has been. He had said so many cold, thoughtless things in his detached, violent rage that night. The knife reminds him. Erik wonders just how much of his cruel commentary his dear Christine has taken to heart, given how she had crumbled beneath that poison. He tries to tell himself that she knows better, that she has known this whole time that he never meant any of it. She has never mentioned any lingering insecurities…
But being honest with one another has never been one of their strong suits.
---
The sound of her voice mercilessly assaults his senses. At first, it feels like nothing more than a dream. It echoes through the walls and lures him outside. Erik knows that it is only her, the other Christine, but he can’t seem to stop himself from following her siren’s call. He has never heard her sing before.
She sounds like his Christine, at her core. Only there are added layers to the music pouring forth from her. When he finds her, she is standing on the edge of a cliff, singing at the deep valleys and tall, menacing mountains. Her white hair flows behind her, along with the billowing fabric of her pale turquoise cloak. She looks like some sort of faerie queen, her petite, skeletal frame being draped in so much fabric.
The song is something Erik doesn’t recognize. It sounds primal and utterly wild. It reminds him of his youth with the gypsies. Magical and ethereal, each falling note paints a vivid landscape in his mind. It is neither a sound of happiness, nor one of sadness, it simply exists on a plane beyond mere mortal understanding.
In all his years of existence, Erik had never expected to encounter another being with the same powers of vocal manipulation as his own. He is both entranced by its beauty and curious to study the phenomena from an outside perspective. He simply loathes that this opportunity had to come in the form of Christine.
Some sort of beast calls back to her, the cry cutting through the pure and clear sound of her voice. She changes her song to respond to the creature and Erik wonders if her song was meant to be a herding call to begin with.
The question is answered when a black, dragon-like creature lands on the cliff beside her. Her song stops and she laughs. Such a potent sound! Erik cannot bear the sound of this Christine’s laughter. She holds out her bony hand and the dragon bends its head to feast on the treat. She pets the dragon with her other hand and slowly turns around. Her gaze immediately falls on him and she smirks while she continues to lavish her new reptilian friend with affection.
“You cannot sneak up on a fellow phantom, you know,” she laughs, “But it’s good to know that kulning works on you about as well as it does on the dragons.”
Erik narrows his eyes. He is not in the mood for her jests. He is never in the mood for her jests. He doesn’t want to recognize them as the same ones his own Christine would be making. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that they are the same.
The dragon sits down and looks at her expectantly, waiting for another scrap of food. She offers one and it makes a happy sounding yelp of approval. Its tail swishes and it stretches its wings. Erik can’t help but think of all the times he had told his Christine fantastical stories of dragons. How he had once told her he used to ride a dragon...oh how she had laughed at that. He had kept the lines between fiction and reality so blurred when they were together.
And now this Christine was blatantly slapping reality in the face. She has fully embraced her status as a being outside normal existence.
“You usually don’t linger this long...do you wish to ask me something?” she quirks her head, tucking a lock of her wild hair behind her ear. Her dragon nudges her hand the moment she stops petting him. She goes back to scratching him behind the ears.
Erik has so many questions that he dares not ask her. Because he refuses to speak to her. Because he’s afraid of her answers.
(Answers that deep down, he already knows.)
“You want to know why I don’t wear a mask, don’t you?” she asks. Erik remains impassive. That had certainly been one of the burning questions on his mind, not that he’ll acknowledge it. Christine however, has that obnoxious ability to read his mind. She makes another high-pitched, melodic sound and urges the dragon to fly away for now. She’ll call on him later. This is a topic that deserves her full attention.
Christine steps away from the cliff and walks over to where Erik stands. It utterly perplexes him how she can stand there in the daylight, her teeth clearly visible through her transparent skin, seemingly without a care in the world. Her sunken eyes shine so brightly that he can’t help but compare her to the sun. Even looking as much like death as she does, she is radiant.
“I used to wear one,” she starts, “For most of my life, actually. When I was performing, I wore one carved of wood and iron. For dramatic effect, I suppose. It maintained my image of being a mysterious nordic mythical creature, even after I removed it.”
So she too, had been forced to show her face for coin. It breaks his heart. He then wonders if the scars along her sharp cheekbones were God-given or given by the hands of cruel men. The thought broils his temper. Erik doesn’t want to think about Christine being forced to endure such pain, though his imagination leads him that direction anyway.
(It’s a similar sort of cruelty that angels encounter in Hell.)
“Everyday, I wore something rather similar to yours. Made of silk, yes?” Erik nods in response.
“I wore a black one,” she explains, “I didn’t wear nearly this much color when I was alive, I’m afraid.” Christine fans that turquoise cloak out with her arms. Erik notes the delicate details sewn into it.
“When I played the phantom of the opera, I wore a mask of porcelain. It was so beautiful and eerie, how ornate it was...But I broke it. Shattered it. Threw it at a mirror and I never put another mask on again. At first...it was out of spite. I wanted everyone to look. I wanted them to see and be horrified that something like me could even exist.
But most of all, I wanted to let him find me. The man that had killed my father. He intended on killing me, too. I planned on living up to my monstrous reputation, I was going to kill him first,” She tells her story with such care, Erik finds himself waiting for each word with hidden, eager anticipation. When had he become so invested in her? Or had he simply been lying to himself since this Christine had crossed their paths?
(Lying is the most probable cause. It is impossible to escape the gravity between himself and Christine. Any Christine.)
“I never got the chance, though. To kill him. Erik, my Erik, did it for me. Decided in that split second to chance throwing his entire, perfect life away. And he turned to me right after, his hands shaking, and said that he did it to save me from becoming the monster I was so keen on believing that I was. It then occurred to me that if he, of all people, the man obsessed with all things beautiful, the most narcissistic, arrogant person in all creation could see me--Me! The ghost, the Draugr, the nightmare, the corpse girl, as a human being, then there was no reason that others couldn’t do the same.”
Erik forces his gaze towards the glowing sunset in the sky. He can’t bear to look at her. He can’t fathom her bravery. Yet, he wants to know more, needs to know more, if only to piece together more details about himself in her reality.
“There are days that it is difficult, I admit. But it’s my face. There’s no changing it, so why bother hiding it? If someone finds it unpleasant to look upon, that’s a fault of their character, not my own. If I can empower one, just one person out there that is different from the norm that they too, are not a monster, then it’s worth it. Every cruel name, every scratch and scar is worth it.”
He closes his eyes and becomes acutely aware that he is crying. She is so full of beautiful, naive optimism. He tries to invalidate her words in his mind. They are simply things one ought to say, ought to do, not things that actually happen. The world is vile and wicked, though she paints such pretty fantasies of it with her hopeful words. He wants so badly to believe her but...
She’s wrong. Such constant stares and jeers and scrutiny are not worth the off chance that someone will learn to see them as--
Erik hates this mirror. More than any other mirror he has ever encountered.
“I’m sorry, you...probably didn’t want to listen to all of that,” she trails off with an awkward little laugh. She looks up at him expectantly, biting at her lopsided lip. When he says nothing, they lapse back into silence. They stand there, staring off at the mountains. The hazy clouds swirl around them and this, he finally admits to himself, is a part of traveling that he has missed. Such peaceful, natural magnificence. It’s no wonder his Christine had fallen in love with this place.
The unmistakable sound of a phone buzzing interrupts the moment.
Christine starts patting herself down, forgetting where she had stashed her phone. The buzzing continues and she fumbles with the little technological marvel as she finally pulls it out of a pocket. She reads the message. Over and over and over. The look on her face goes from calm to frazzled to confused and elated. She shakes her head and it seems as if she can’t quite handle the contents of that message. She looks up at Erik, her lips suddenly trying to form words but struggling.
“They, ah,” she stammers, “Christine just texted me. Your Christine, because I suppose that needs clarification from time to time. Though perhaps it doesn’t, seeing as I can’t exactly go around sending myself messages...Well. I could. But that would be silly...wouldn’t it?”
She is very quickly unraveling in front of him and Erik can only think of one reason why.
“But the message...she says they’ll be back tomorrow.”