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It was imperative that Christine remain in the dark about many things. He’d come to suspect, after many days of music lessons and nights of composing, that he was developing feelings for her. It was ridiculous to think of her ever returning said affections, or even reacting with happiness upon learning of them, so no matter how it made his heart clench he would never allow such a scenario to occur. Christine was his student, and possibly his friend, and he would be entirely content with this.
The other things Christine could never learn included his unsavory past, the skills he’d honed as an assassin, and some of his more pathetic habits. She already gave him funny looks as he followed her around his house, offering her tea or pastries or anything she wanted, and had taken to reminding him to sit and asking him if he’d eaten anything recently. She was already so disappointed that he wasn’t acting normally, so surely she’d be disgusted if she learned of the many things he did when she was gone. Carrying on practice conversations with the mannequin, for example, or taking her blankets off her bed and wrapping them around himself in a poor imitation of her embrace.
Today there was one more thing added to his lengthy list. Christine must under no circumstances discover how scratchy his throat was.
He’d woken up with an aching head, something that seemed quite unfair when he’d gone through all the effort of lying down in his coffin instead of passing out over his organ. His throat was sore and he couldn’t stop shivering, even when he wore his warmest cloak and built up the living room fire. Christine had even commented on how much warmer his house was today when he’d fetched her for their lesson, and he made a mental note to maintain this temperature for her comfort.
It had been a relief to sit at the piano and begin playing, but he knew that exerting his voice could have terrible consequences. His voice would surely come out sounding terrible, and while he managed to hide it when he spoke with a mysterious and alluring whisper, such a tactic would not work if he sang. Perhaps he could simply avoid their duets and ensure only Christine sang today.
“Maestro, I thought we were practicing the ending,” Christine said, and Erik waved his hand in what he hoped was an elegant fashion.
“Tomorrow, my dear,” he said. The ending was a tragic love duet sung between Tristan and Isolde, and although he’d spent many guilty hours imagining it yesterday he would not allow it to be his downfall. “Your aria in the middle could use more work, we want to ensure it’s perfect.” It was Isolde's pivotal moment where she decided to go against the wishes of her father and love her forbidden suitor. Christine had already perfected it, but it couldn’t hurt to run through it again.
When he played for Christine he was a being made entirely of music; no thoughts existed but the next note, the perfection of her pitch, the purity of her tone. He was no longer a creature covered in scars, a man trapped behind the face of a monster. He was her angel and she was his, and they carried each other to unimaginable heights. At least, that's how it was until he began to feel a terrible itching around what passed for his nose. He vainly tried to suppress it, but the glorious music was interrupted by a terrible clash of notes when he finally succumbed to the sneeze.
“Erik?” Christine asked, stopping just as abruptly, and Erik hunched his shoulders as he turned away from her in shame.
“It’s nothing, my dear,” he gasped, trying to breathe through his nose as little as possible. Sneezing was a horrible business with only one fully formed nostril, and though the mask kept most of the mess hidden from her he still felt disgusting. That damned itch had not left, and far worse he could feel how congested and stuffed up his head was. His nose might even start to drip soon, one of the few things that could make his hideousness even worse. Yet how could he stop the lesson?
Erik was under no illusions about his place in Christine’s life. He was her teacher, a role she permitted because of his skill. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that a lack of payment didn’t factor into her decision to work with him. She’d grown up on the streets, and having faced poverty was intelligent enough to recognize a good deal. But if he was no longer able to give her lessons, or gave her reason to doubt his abilities, or frightened her… well, she was now receiving a salary, and it wouldn’t take much to negotiate for a new teacher in her contract. A better man might have already started tapering off their lessons together, acknowledging that there was little else he could aid her with. But Erik was not better, and debatably not even a man, so he had to plot and scheme ways to keep her with him.
“Maybe we should take a break,” she was saying, and Erik shook his head and immediately regretted it. “I’ve never heard you make a mistake before.”
“Even your Maestro is human, my dear,” he demurred. “The emotion of your song caught me off guard for a moment. You are doing quite well.” His praise was sufficient to distract her and she fairly glowed at the rare compliment, her smile so radiant his breath caught. And then was forcefully expelled in a series of hacking coughs, much to his mortification.
“Erik!” she said, that perfect smile vanishing into a worried frown as her hands caught his shoulders, attempting to hold him steady even as he tried to lean away. As much as he craved her touch he refused to defile it, to manipulate her soft heart into offering him undeserved pity, to.... She began to rub his back and hum, and quite suddenly every righteous reason he had for not dissolving into her touch was gone. Her hands were so gentle and warm, and he was so very cold.
“You’re shivering,” she said. “This isn’t nothing, you know how I feel when you lie to me.”
“It's nothing important,” he gasped, only for his mind to go blank when her hand reached up to the back of his neck, skin touching skin. Bliss, yet with that awful fear that came with her hands so close to his mask. But she’d learned her lesson, hadn’t she? Surely the idea of seeing him unmasked again was more repulsive to her than it was to him, and he already wanted to crawl into some dark corner at the mere thought of it. But she did not reach for his mask.
“You’re burning up,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a fever?” He shook his head, setting the world spinning again, and her hands steadied his shoulders.
“We can continue,” he persisted, and she shook her head.
“Come here,” she said, and as meek as a kitten he allowed her to help him to the couch. At her coaxing he lay down, and she arranged a pillow beneath his head and smoothed his hair back, her hand skimming lightly over the mask without disturbing it. “You can’t play in this condition, you need to rest.”
She was right, and shame blossomed in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, his beautiful voice a pathetic shadow of itself. “I’ve failed you.” Yet she stayed, without mockery or derision, and he heard only compassion in her voice as she gently chided him.
“Erik, if I was in this state you’d never let me sing. Let me care for you the same way you’d care for me! You need rest; do you honestly think that some silly lesson matters more than you when you’re suffering?”
Of course he did. He knew his worth, knew that monsters couldn’t possibly be afforded sick days. But he was selfish and couldn’t remember if he’d ever been treated like this, fussed over and given blankets and truly cared for. He felt as though he could sleep for days, and surely no nightmares would dare intrude on the sanctuary of Christine’s presence.
Yet as with everything good in his life it could not last. He heard her receding footsteps and struggled to open his suddenly heavy eyelids, desperate to see her one last time before she departed. To express his thanks for her care, to ask for her pardon again, and if necessary beg for her return tomorrow. He wouldn’t allow himself to be ill again, and they could still have their lessons. He wasn’t a lost cause yet, it wasn’t over, he could still be of some use to her. He’d managed to sit up by the time Christine came back into the room.
“Your cupboards are entirely bare, I’ll need to make a trip to the market,” she said. Her tone then became one of surprise. “Erik? Why are you up?”
“Christine,” he breathed, blinking at her and taking in her blurrily beautiful form. His mind spun to understand her words; she needed food? He hadn’t made it to the market this week, he was a terrible host. “I apologize,” he said, only to feel her hands pressing his shoulders back down into the couch.
“It’ll only be a quick trip, nothing to fret over,” she said. “Did you need something?” Why was he up, she was asking, and he couldn’t bring himself to say I thought you were leaving and wanted to say goodbye. So he gestured towards the fireplace, an answer she accepted. “Of course,” she said. “One blanket’s hardly enough down here, is it? I’ll build up the fire before I go, and find you more blankets.” He nodded, and this time when she left he felt no stirrings of panic, only anticipation for the warmth to come. Blankets were nothing compared to her presence, the way she set him aflame and warmed him with the smallest touch, but he supposed they would do as a substitute while she was gone.
The blanket he was wearing now had been thrown over the sofa, something for her on evenings while she waited for him to build up the fire, and he lifted it to his face and inhaled. His nose was too clogged to smell anything, but he could imagine the scent of her perfume well enough. It wasn’t the warmest blanket in the house, but combined with one from Christine’s bed he would be wrapped in bliss.
His mind was not yet tired enough to avoid pointing out that Christine had not walked into her room searching for more blankets. His room had a few, perhaps she thought those would be more comfortable. Yet the thought made him anxious, although it took him a moment to remember why. Ayesha was in his room.
Erik bolted upright and stared after Christine, towards the open door to his room, his mind spinning. This would be a disaster.
A careless ballet rat had abandoned Ayesha in a practice room, and she’d caught his eye during one of his nightly rounds. At first he’d been startled, thinking it was a live cat, but a brief inspection had proven she was only a soft toy. She was quite beautiful, pale yellow cloth stuffed with cotton, with navy blue button eyes and embroidered whiskers, and tiny felt ears and a tail of yarn. He’d intended to ignore her, but she’d stared up at him so beseechingly that he’d been unable to leave her there. How could he, who’d been abandoned all his life, willingly leave her alone?
Ayesha was quite soft to cradle in his arms, and unlike a real cat she never needed food or to have litter taken out. She never minded his underground home, never balked at the sight of his face, and never acted disobediently. She sat where she was bid and would patiently listen to whatever he played her, and she never flinched away from his corpse fingers.
Erik had no idea who Ayesha had come from, but on one occasion he’d seen a child attend the opera carrying a small stuffed dog. It wasn’t as beautiful as his Ayesha but the sight had troubled him. He’d never seen a stuffed animal in the arms of anybody other than that small child, and he wondered if it was childish to have Ayesha as a friend.
His mother used to lock him in a closet whenever he was childish and misbehaved, such as when he asked for more food or tried to go outside. He would be forced to sit in the dark for hours to think about what he’d done, and he was never quite certain if he’d reached the right conclusions once he’d been let out. His mother was allowed to go outside and eat as much as she wanted, so perhaps the rules were different for him. But if that was the case how was he ever supposed to be good if he couldn’t observe how he was supposed to act and copy that? He tried his best even now to copy what he must be supposed to do, observing various aristocrats and their manners to put Christine at ease. Sometimes she thought he was odd, but that was far better than finding him horrible. What if Christine confirmed his fears, that Ayesha was childish? What if she laughed at him, or decided she could no longer take lessons from him?
The safest solution would surely be to get rid of Ayesha, but Erik could never do that. She’d been his only comfort and friend for years, and betraying her was unthinkable. The only other option was to ensure that Ayesha and Christine never met, something he thought would be simple given Christine’s aversion to the coffin in his room. Ayesha was resting there, curled up next to his pillow, and if Christine happened to look in the coffin in search of more blankets everything would be ruined.
Despite his limbs being horribly uncooperative Erik managed to unfold himself from the couch and make his way over to his room. He needed one hand on the wall to keep himself steady as the world was spinning, betraying him because it was surely wrong to try and keep this from Christine, but he had no choice. Ayesha helped him recover after his nightmares, and she was the first one to hear any of his songs, and she was the only being who’d never flinched at his face, not even once.
“Christine,” he gasped, stumbling into his room. “Don’t…” But it was too late. She spun around to stare at him, Ayesha in her hand and her face an expression of confusion.
“Erik?” she said, and he could already hear the insults that would come, the mocking laughter as she rejected Ayesha and him too, and the floor was suddenly very close. Her hands caught him, and her voice was worried. “Why on earth are you up?”
“Can’t see,” he mumbled. “Ayesha, you can’t…” a wave of dizziness washed over him and he closed his eyes, silently cursing himself for his damnable weakness. Why did his body choose to betray him now, when he needed to explain to her that it wasn’t as it looked, when he needed to think of some excuse for Ayesha that she wouldn’t find pathetic?
“Ayesha?” Christine asked. “Is that her name?” And she pressed Ayesha into his arms, held her there so his trembling hands had time to grasp her soft fur coat. “She’s very lovely, I was going to bring her out to you.”
Erik blinked at her and concentrated, but there wasn’t a trace of malice in her expression. She seemed concerned and perhaps a little annoyed with needing to practically hold him upright, but there was none of that contempt he feared. “Why?” he asked, his muddled mind still unable to understand this reality.
“Because I thought she might make you feel better,” she said. “And goodness, anything that can make you stay on that sofa is welcome, you’ve got to rest! Unless you’d prefer your coffin.” Christine grimaced at the thought and he shook his head. Having Christine tend to him at all was already such a foreign concept, and having it happen while he lay in his coffin would tip the experience into the realm of fantasy. He didn’t want to subject her to any more intimacy than what she offered, and her tending to him in his own bed made her feel like a wife, not a concerned student. He had to remember that distance, for both their sakes.
Christine helped Erik back to the couch, still clutching Ayesha between them, and as she tucked a blanket around him she spoke kindly and softly to him even though he could hardly make out the words. Something about coming back after a shopping trip, and making fish soup for him. Something about how beautiful Ayesha was, and how she’d love to hear about how he got her when he was feeling better. Most wonderfully of all, she said that she cared about him. That she wanted him to feel better, and although it was probably a delusion he pretended it was because she liked him, not because she needed him to give her more music lessons.
The couch was warmer than his coffin, and quite soft. It was probably thanks to the layers of blankets wrapped around him and Ayesha, this tiny cocoon of comfort that Christine had created. She fetched her hat and coat as he watched, and he blearily called after her before she left.
“You don’t mind?” he asked, a shameful quiver in his voice that he would absolutely blame on this damned illness. “You’ll come back?” Her eyes drifted over him, stopping for a moment on Ayesha tucked safely against his side, and she smiled.
“Truthfully I was quite glad to find her,” Christine said. “I hate leaving you alone down here, it’s good for you to have some company until I return. I’ll be back soon, so try to get some sleep.” The door closed behind her but he didn’t feel those stirrings of panic, didn’t feel the emptiness he usually did when she was gone. Perhaps his head was aching too much to worry, or perhaps it was Ayesha curled up so lovingly against his side. Erik hugged her closer and leaned back into the pillows, his eyelids drifting shut as he let himself rest.