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Black Angels	By : Provocateur Category: M through R > The Phantom of the Opera > Het Views: 12725 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter 25: Where Do We Go Now, Oh Wayward Lover?

A/N: Wow, it feels like it’s been forever since my last update. In fact, it really has, and I am very sorry about that. I’ve been busy. Here is the newest installment, I can only hope you’ll enjoy it and that you haven’t given up on me and my sporadic, unreliable writing schedule. Thanks to all who have reviewed, I appreciate it. Please R n’R.

Oh, and allow me to whore out my LJ. It’s in my profile, check it out and friend me. There are rants, pictures, phan-fic chronicling, and cool quizzes (not to mention really pretty colours that will drive your eyes to the greatest heights of ecstasy).

On with the show…

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“I suspect your night was everything you dreamed it would be and more?”

“It was spectacular.”

“Your idea of spectacle is repugnant.” Raoul looked up from the chaise that he had been lounging on stiffly for the past three hours. He had tried to drift off to sleep, but each time he felt consciousness slink away his mind would wander to more pressing matters, such as his stifling shirtsleeves and heavy boots. It was never advisable to slumber whilst fully dressed, as the constriction often rendered relaxation rather impossible, which completely obliterated the purpose of sleep.

Why was it so impossible to rest when one’s mind was so full? And full of what exactly? Raoul’s brain felt as though it were swelling with each passing moment. Every time a hand moved on the old wooden clock in the hallway, his mind swam with distressing thoughts and images. He was a prisoner in a foreign country, held in place by the chains of familial obligation and the weight of blackmail and threats. He felt ill at ease in his own skin, as though his body was being compelled to break free from his bindings even as he reassured himself that all was well in his mother country with his wife.

He was trapped, he was frightened, he was angry, and he was being eaten alive from the inside out by a dull warning. Something in his life was amiss, and like a premonition constantly interrupted by moments of wakefulness, his contemplation of the unknown was hindered by his naïve rationale.

Philippe removed his cravat and waistcoat leisurely, his movements light. He was a man satisfied. Raoul envied his gracefulness and cheery demeanor, but never could be lower himself to entering a smoke-filled, bawdy whorehouse filled with loose women with loose morals and even looser nether regions. It was so…distasteful. He could almost smell the sweat and perfume in the air, the jasmine and lavender mingling with perspiration, alcohol, and cigar smoke.

“I suggest you sleep, oh Cardinal de Changy, your public shall want to be greeted by your glittering smile and boyish disposition come the morning.” Philippe sat upon the opposite sofa and sighed deeply. It was an ugly room, but somehow it felt rather cozy. When under the influence of complete and utter satiation, even the gaudiest of chambers could appear quaint and endearing.

“Mock me all you wish, but know that come tomorrow morning, it will not be me who is itching in unmentionable places.”

Philippe laughed gruffly and snorted.

“Kindly refrain from mentioning my unmentionables, such is not the talk of fine Frenchmen.”

“There is only one fine Frenchman in the room.” Raoul knew such a statement held no merit. A fine Frenchman of good repute and standing would not find himself staring at the blade of a knife in the hand of a spry henchman.

He felt like a fine man when suspended on the end of a noose - for at that point, victorious or not - he was a hero. Now he was simply a dupe, and a stupid one at that.

Philippe started, “I am the fine Frenchman who spent the evening with one very fine Englishwoman who assured me that my culture breeds incredible lovers.” Philippe ran his hands through his hair, it felt moist from sweat and most certainly smelled of a myriad of things, some more unspeakable than others.

“She lies through her crooked teeth.”

“Her teeth were perfectly straight, and very white.”

“You are going blind in your old age,” Raoul muttered.

“Better to die a blind man with a light heart than a seeing man with a black one,” Philippe responded in a way that sounded rather wistful.

Raoul paused for a moment. Was his heart going to blacken? He had stared darkness in the face, had seen it in all of its hideousness, and he emerged from it a sane and happy man. Why was he beginning to feel so old? His face and body were young, his voice was light and pleasant, yet his mind was worn and graying with doubt and worry.

“Perhaps,” Raoul began, “it is best to die with a full heart and a clean soul, regardless of what the eyes have or have not seen.”

Now it was Philippe’s turn to pause.

“Wise words from a young man. Yet I will tell you that it is ignorance that destroys the soul, not a brief tryst with a lady who possesses a silly name.” Philippe felt his eyelids grow droopy as his body molded to the warm embrace of the tattered cushions.

“What makes me so ignorant?”

Silence.

“Philippe?”

Silence.

“Philippe!”

“Hmph.” The sound of unintelligible utterances made in sleep.

Raoul played with the words in his mind. Ignorance is the death of the soul, is it? To what was he so ignorant?

“Philippe?”

Only the soft footsteps outside the window and the wind against the smeared glass could be heard.

“Raoul?” A muffled voice emerged from the comatose figure on the sofa.

“Yes?”

“I know that you are just dying to know…”

“Yes?”

“I swore I would not tell you, for fear of inciting jealously…”

“Speak, man!”

“It is you who begged to know, not I who begged to tell.”

“I hold nothing against you.” His heart began hammering wildly in his chest. An answer to his queries was coming. It did not even need to be the right answer, or truly an answer at all. All he needed to hear was some confirmation, some shred of acknowledgment that he was ignoring something of importance in his life. Perhaps to have even the barest hint of light shed upon the dull ache in his stomach would bring to the forefront of his mind the cause of the uneasiness that was plaguing him.

He was called ignorant, and he was not angry or defensive. He felt ignorant, as though his eyes were not seeing all there was to see, for his mind was so troubled for reasons he could not fathom.

“Raoul, her name was Satin Wildflower, and she had gorgeous breasts.” Philippe’s voiced faded into a massive snore, accompanied by a slight, very ungentlemanly giggle.

Raoul was angered, yet relieved. Perhaps he had seen an ominous hint where there was none.

“Perhaps”, he thought, “perhaps I have been too long away from home after too many trying ordeals.”

With that, he slept.

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For the first time in her life, Christine felt young. She was young in body, but never had she felt that beautiful carelessness of spirit that young girls possessed so brilliantly. Her mind was always plagued with wistful longings for things that could never be, and her detachment from the enchanted world of the living kept her a shy, reclusive woman with great dreams and great talent, but little actual spirit.

She grew up wanting her father and the promised intangible angel of legend. She wanted someone to make her into what she was supposed to be. Like a lost lamb weeping for its shepherd, she never allowed herself time to find her own way. She was pulled in every which way by her ideals, and never could she stop and look at the glamour of the stage and see the frivolous fun and beauty for what it was. She always looked for signs, for confirmation of her spiritual longings, for reminders of her mentors.

Now that she had lost some of her faith, she was more alive inside than ever before. A world with no ghosts, spirits, or angels was actually not the cold, empty place she once feared it would be. Everything was real, and although it certainly was not idyllic or perfect, it was freeing.

This morning she had giggled and laughed as she shuffled her lover outside the backdoor like a blissfully enamored young woman who was entertaining a besotted young man in her bedroom. It was sinfully scandalous, and her righteousness no longer crept upon her. She was troubled by her hedonism, yet she embraced it.

She loved him. She loved the danger about him, the wild and unpredictable side of a man who was alternately hard and soft. Like a portrait, she could look at him and see something new and different with every critical and loving glance. She could see his sadness, his pain, his suffering. Or if she so chose, she could look at him and see strength, passion, and dedication.

It was wrong to love him, but she never pushed him away. It felt wrong to be with him, and it felt wrong to be without him.

A light rap at the door startled her. She had been sitting on the same sofa that she sat on the night before in morbid contemplation. Now she sat there in the company of her delicious memories.

Who could be visiting her? Surely it was not Erik, for he preferred to pry open locks and slink through windows like a demonic serpent who longed to wrap about her body until she could not breathe from the mixture of fear and exhilaration.

It was not Raoul, for he would not knock to gain entry to his own house.

“Madame?” Victor, her tired and portly butler, cleared his throat before addressing her.

“Yes, Victor?” She turned to him and smiled widely. She had hoped the staff would warm up to her, but their indifference remained.

“A Mademoiselle Giry here to see you.”

Meg.

Her heart leapt into her throat. Her last conversation with Meg had begun and ended badly. She resented her condemnation, yet a part of her understood from where it stemmed. Still, she dreaded having to defend the indefensible affair that she was having, and that as far as she knew, was continuing.

She stood and thanked the butler quietly. Smoothing her hair and dress nervously, she peeked outside of the room to see Meg coming towards her. Meg’s arms were crossed sternly in front of her chest and her lips were pursed in such a way that made her look more like her mother than she ever had before. Even her uncharacteristic stiff gait spoke of the strong and matronly ballet mistress.

They smiled briefly at each other before Christine stiffly motioned for Meg to follow her into the sitting room.

The feeling of discomfort was stifling. Two women who had shared everything with one another throughout their childhood felt like mere strangers on opposite sides of the war of ideals. Morally divided, they had little to say to one another in a manner that was not cold or condescending. It was heartbreaking.

“Tea, Meg?” They both sat awkwardly, smoothing their clothes and shifting their eyes.

“Yes. You have a lovely house.” Meg looked about her and let out a sigh, it was a beautiful home. The colours were soft and feminine, the furnishings crisp and new. It even smelled new, a scent that was most unfamiliar to her, as she had always lived in older buildings that smelled of the past. She was most impressed with the cream-coloured sofa; it was so pristine that she worried her skin would somehow mar its beauty.

“Yes, it is all right.” Christine answered indifferently. Her house felt like a museum, it was beautiful and prestigious, but not at all personally comforting.

“Just all right you say? I would say it’s pretty damn gorgeous, a lot better than a flooded stone dungeon at least.”

“He does not live in a dungeon!” Christine snapped.

“He did. If I recall, he lived there for most of his life. Liked it too, decorated it like it was the most affluent palace he had ever set eyes on.” Meg felt her heart grow cold as she looked at the spoiled princess before her. The porcelain doll in front of her looked at her with those huge chocolate brown eyes, so filled with innocent indignation. She was given so much, and she cared nothing for it.

“You cannot stay angry at me forever, Meg.”

“I’m not angry with you.” Meg answered quietly.

“Oh?” Christine raised one eyebrow inquisitively.

“I am hurt by you, by the person you have become.”

“What have I become? You sit there and you judge, and judge, and judge! I can see so much hate in you, and I cannot apologize for it, nor can I change it. I’m almost growing tired of wanting to. Besides, you will not let me…”

“I do not need to hear it, Christine!”

“You will not let me explain things to you!”

“You have nothing to explain, you have become one of those women.” Meg looked about her nervously, checking to see if any staff had heard her voice rise.

“Would you please speak civilly? The butler does not need to hear this.” Christine’s voice had grown dry. She was at the terrible stage between tears and rage. Her body burned with indignation, yet her heart ached for the stranger who used to be her most loved and trusted confidant. “Now please tell me what kind of woman I have become.”

“You know what kind.” Meg said coldly.

“I do not.”

“You are naïve Christine, not stupid. You know.”

“Please just say it, Meg,” her voice shook with anger, “please say what it is that you have come here to stay.”

“Here.” Meg reached into her cloak – which she had not bothered to remove – and held out a small envelope.

“You wrote me a letter?” Christine asked quizzically before grasping the paper in her trembling hand.

“No,” Meg laughed dryly, “it’s from that man who you went to church with one day and promised to love and cherish forever before God, me, and his family. Do you remember him?”

She tore the letter open violently.

Raoul.

Did he know? Had word somehow gotten to his blissfully ignorant ears as a means to punish her for a truth she was not yet willing to face in its entirety? Her eyes scanned the page rapidly.

He didn’t know. She closed her eyes and thanked God over and over again.

He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know…

She could have kissed Meg for bringing this most wonderful news. He was delayed, he was angry, and he was disgruntled, but he did not know.

“He doesn’t know Meg…” Her voice trembled with relief.

“Indeed, that would be a shame. It would certainly spoil your scandalous affair, would it not?”

Christine was torn. She wanted to scream at her to get out. It would have been warranted, even expected. She was being mercilessly insulted in her own home by the one woman she trusted and loved the most.

Yet, she wanted to tell Meg. She wanted no more than for Meg to understand. A lonely person wants nothing more than to hear that someone understands her and is willing to sympathize with her when her heart is bruised, broken, soaring, or confused. It is natural to want the support and approval of the few people who take a shattered orphan into their care. It is natural to weep tragically when that loving embrace is forever withheld.

“Meg, I will give you two choices. Please think on them carefully.”

“Oh?”

“You can leave now. Take your judgment and sneers with you and never return, for you will not be welcome back.”

“How charming…”

“Let me finish.” Christine raised her hand impatiently. “Or you can listen to me, you do not have to understand or even approve. In fact, if you wish to hate me after you hear my story, I will accept it. I will not like it, but I promise, I shall accept it.”

Meg paused. To leave was too final. She could - in good conscience - condemn her friend for falling into the trap of so many women before her. Women who wanted adventure and drama often ended up disenchanted and alone, living forever in regret of their carelessness and stupidity.

Yet to walk out on Christine was to leave a part of her soul broken and withered. A cry for compassion was a cry for compassion, no matter how pitiful. Was that not what her mother had said to her, albeit silently? To take in an orphan openly and without objection was to embrace a fundamental principle that it was best to give whenever possible, for those who had nothing would always have nothing should the world turn a blind eye to their plight.

Goodness was very basic, really. It was only too tragic that the one who takes the goodness often turns their back on he or she who gives it freely. Looking at Christine, and seeing her deep, unyielding support of her wayward, criminal lover proved the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished to be true.

Meg’s mother had given both Christine and her Phantom a home in their darkest hours. She had fed, clothed, and protected them at the cost of her own comfort - and even safety. When light had fled the lives of those two forgotten souls, her mother had carried them on her back, never asking for anything in return. How had the two ungrateful cubs repaid her? By becoming the worst of hedonists, destroying the world around them so that their selfish desires may be fulfilled, all well staring at the aghast world with watery, innocent eyes, crying out that they have suffered too much to be bound by the laws of humanity and decency.

That creature destroyed lives, and now Christine spat upon the graves of those lost to his rage by taking that animal into her body and heart and calling him a man. A man worthy of love, no less.

Meg hated Christine more than ever before, but she could still not find the strength – or the coldness – to walk from her house forever.

“Speak, Christine,” Meg began, her lips pursed together tightly, making her usually pleasant and childish face appear hardened and forbidding, “I will hear you out, if only for a few moments.”

Christine cleared her throat silently; it felt too full to allow her to speak. Her skin still burned with both anger and relief. She hated being spoken to as though she were a recalcitrant child guilty of wandering the Populaire corridors after midnight by the one woman who used to accompany her on such journeys, but she would endure the judgment for as long as it took to see that tiny bit of understanding creep into her friend’s visage.

“Meg,” she began, “I know not what to say to you about…him.”

“There is nothing you can say that I do not already know.”

Christine sniffed loudly, Meg raised one eyebrow quizzically.

“There is much you do not know, actually…”

“Then I have no need to hear it!” Meg snapped. Christine had never realized how much she could sound like her mother when angered. Her angelic blonde companion would have looked perfectly natural rapping a cane against a wooden stage prop and demanding attention with charismatic authority.

Christine ignored her.

“Well, you chose to stay, so you’ll hear it anyways.” She knew she sounded petulant, but her patience was wearing thin, and she felt like in these past few months her reserves for said characteristic were growing dry.

“Then cease pausing and say what is that you think I need to hear, please.” Meg folded her arms across her chest defiantly. She looked formidable, like a fortress unable to be taken by any amount of oratorical pillaging. Christine had poetic, romantic battering rams in abundance, but steel walls rarely give way.

“I have said it before, but I shall say it again, to reassure if you nothing else. I love him. I do. I have fallen in love with the monster who destroyed our home and nearly murdered my husband. I have made love to the man who kidnapped and threatened me. I love the man who took for granted the graciousness of your mother, and turned his back upon her with little care for her sacrifice.”

Meg sat silently, it was never wise to interrupt one in the midst of a great confession, and it would thwart their thoughts, which were as genuine as thoughts could be.

“He is frightening to behold, and even more frightening in his anger. He has an unpredictable nature, and a fierce disposition. He is broken and damaged, and thus he acts out like a wounded and threatened animal. All of these things that you think of him are true, he is everything terrible that you can imagine.”

Meg nodded her head stoically.

“You wonder how I can love him? I do not know. I see in him a great beauty that obliterates whatever it is that has made his face what it is. He is a brilliant artist, one whose heart is so full of inspiration that he can set one’s soul aflame with admiration. He is a true talent, and for so long he has never been able to use it. I see in him a man who could not live with himself because he had no voice, no means of giving to the world the gift which he was born to share. I see in him a lonely creature who so needs kind words and the acceptance of just one person. I see in him a man who is damaged, angry, confused, and flawed. I see in him a soul that understands my own, and when we allow our passions and desires to come together, something indescribable happens. He is my dark, morbid counterpart. He is the rough, untamed part of my mind. His music is my voice, and my voice is his savior.

Christine’s voice had risen higher than she had intended, and even higher than she was conscience of. She sounded introspective, yet strong. Confused, yet enlightened. Lost, yet dedicated to swimming against the current towards her destination.

“We are a terrible combination, and a beautiful one. We have the power to destroy, and the power to give life. We hurt people when we are together, but we destroy them when we are apart.”

Christine stalked forward and grasped Meg’s limp hands in her own, clasping them with urgent roughness and wringing them frantically. Her eyes were wide and pleading, her grip strong and unyielding.

“Do you not see, Meg? It is beyond understanding. It just…is. It exists because it must, I have given up fighting, and I am a happy loser.”

“Can anything be so powerful, Christine?” Meg gently traced Christine’s whitened fingers with her own while searching her eyes desperately. There was no longer skepticism or coldness in her tone. That had been replaced with bewilderment and wonder. Her heart was beating so frantically, the blood pulsing through her veins seemed to burn her flesh.

“Yes Meg, and it makes me feel as though I am mad.” Christine felt her lips turn upward into a smile, the smile of one whose heart has suddenly been freed from beneath a crushing weight.

“You are mad, you must know that.” Meg gently touched her friend’s cheek.

“Madness is far better than sanity.” Christine’s voice shook with relieved laughter as she spoke.

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The night had come quickly. It seemed that only mere moments ago he had been shuffled out of the backdoor of Christine’s house. In that moment he had regained an aspect of youth that he had never experienced. The thrill of being in a place that he should not be for fear of compromising a lady’s reputation. He had always imagined that only naïve and foolish young boys played the part of Romeo, running rapidly away from the homes of their lovers with little regard of the severity of their breach of propriety.

He was compromising a lady’s reputation, but he did not care. He did have to hide what was simmering between them, but that did not bother him. He was enraptured, and his ecstasies rendered his logic superfluous. His joy was too great to feel bitter about being the secret lover. It would come to haunt him soon, but now that he had taken her regardless of the rules of their final separation and knew that she would easily welcome him back into her arms at a moments notice. It filled his old heart with childish glee.

His home seemed warm and complete, even though Christine was absent. Sofia sat across from him at his lovely, ornate table, sipping red wine casually. She had come to him wanting a quiet, casual drink as friendly acquaintances. He had agreed, as now was a time for great celebration. His sad, pitiful existence had one victorious event of which to speak, and it deserved to be toasted voraciously.

He went to the woman who had left him a second time, and she had taken him back. No objection, moralizations, or arguments. It was all the proof he needed of the devotion that he so wanted to doubt due to his own penchant for suffering abject disappointment constantly.

“You seem happy tonight, Erik.” Sofia ran her fingers up and down her glass, enjoying the soft clink of her nails against the stem. The night was so warm and gentle, just like the mood of her normally tortured companion. He was like any other man sitting before her, one filled with pride and contentment.

“I am a satisfied man.” His voice was more velvety and thick than before, but lovely nonetheless.

“Where is Mademoiselle Giry?” Sofia enquired lightly.

“Who?”

“Who?” Sofia’s face contorted into a look of confusion, her brows knitting together. Had she heard Christine’s name incorrectly? Surely Erik had not forgotten the woman whom he had worked so hard to please a fortnight prior.

“Mademoiselle…the woman, your…your companion.” She did not wish to say her full name, as she was not sure if Christine had revealed to Erik their rather emotional conversation.

“Oh, Christine.” He paused thoughtfully. He never stopped to think that Christine would have given a false name. He praised her inwardly; she was a deceptively clever girl.

“Yes!” Sofia smiled broadly. “You looked so dejected when you asked to borrow my carriage, and now you seem so content, is she returning to you?”

Erik mused silently to himself, his mouth turning up into a dangerously handsome smirk.

“She hasn’t left, not really.”

“Will you be bringing her here permanently?” Sofia enquired softly. She did not mean to sound jealous, for she wasn’t, but she did fear that the lovers on her property were hiding something. If they were, she most certainly had the right to know. She had no objection to romance occurring outside her door, but destructive unions brought about ill effects for more than simply the lovers who caused the strife.

“Such a thing would not be possible, but I have many idle hours to think, and it’s not something that I struggle to do. I will find a way for us, I always have.” He grinned before draining the entire contents of his glass.

“She is a lucky woman, having such a dedicated paramour.”

“I am far luckier than she, but that will change. If I want the world at her feet, I can give it to her. In fact, and I do not wish to sound…arrogant, I can make many things happen. Such is my nature, I am a primitive and resourceful creature.” His grin widened further. He was a restless man at peace.
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Black Angels