Title: Regarding a Small Despair

Rating: M (For implied sexual content involving a girl of fifteen/man of forty-eight or nine and references to drug use)

Beta: Gladrial

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The owners own. This is for fun, not profit. I've made no money.

Summary: This morning, on a numb cloud, he walked the short distance from his room to hers, the sudden urge to see his darling in peaceful sleep taking hold, pushing him every step like the flames consuming his music. (E/C, mostly Kay AU with dashes of ALW/Leroux)

Author's Notes: I went all over the damn place with this. And loved it. Semi-coherent morphine ramblings from Erik as he feels up his sleeping girlfriend? This is how it goes, in but one of many universes. Not my first PotO piece, just the only one I've finished or felt like sharing. (Don't read if you find the stuff I wrote up above, to explain the rating, offensive. Seriously.)

"In the cold light of morning, while everyone's yawning, you're high. In the cold light of morning, the party gets boring, you're high. As your skin starts a scratching, wave yesterday's action goodbye. Forget past indiscretions and stolen possessions, you're high. In the cold light…"

-Placebo, "In the Cold Light of Morning"

Trust. People had trusted him with the creation of architectural masterpieces, from extravagant houses to magnificent palaces. A very long time ago, crowds put their trust in him to provide amazing feats and perfect musical wonders for that evening's entertainment. And there had once been a man that had trusted him with his very existence, several lifetimes past.

Now there was a young lady curled comfortably underneath the covers of a bed that had been untouched for nearly twenty years. A woman had died in it. It was where he had been better off born dead. And now, fittingly, he died little deaths there every night it seemed, every night into a beautiful orphan that trusted him with her heart, her future, her soul.

Through this relationship, as one may charitably refer to it, he had tainted her; irrevocably wormed his way into her mind and ate away at her innocence like the caustic demon she couldn't see him as. That he was to the very core. He loved her with his whole being, but what good did it do her if he was a festering plague of darkness? An atheist, a criminal, a bitter and deranged old drug addict shuffling around a basement and speaking to a cat. A murderer. The stain of sin never washes away, not after such acts as he'd seen to completion. The first knife sliding into the first felled man, bleeding on Spanish dirt in a gypsy tent as he watched with cold curiosity. It gnawed at him. Never regret, just raw and primal anger that dimmed like a candle deprived slowly of oxygen only as the opiate flooded his veins.

Precious needles, precious music, precious Christine.

He'd very rarely lingered in his useless guest room before she entered into the equation. Its only real feature of importance was his mirrored shortcut to the third cellar that grew in necessity as he aged and felt less like taking long routes around. Now he considered it hers. It was sprinkled with her articles, pillows carrying the scent of her after she'd departed, and the only place in the world that she could claim any privacy. Up there, in the crowded and bustling operahouse, she slept in a dormitory with other pale and skinny ballerinas, insignificant among many with nothing to herself. Beneath the earth, with a ghost, she was queen. Her expertly tailored clothes, her imported toiletries, her keepsakes were all arranged neatly in proper places. If the door was closed, he would knock before entering, a novelty for her after not having a room of her own for most of her young life.

And he had not slept in his coffin since their relationship had progressed in the past few months that felt of eternity. It wasn't unusual for him to wander into her room even when she was absent and catch the tiny slivers of sleep he ever needed among her covers and lingering scent rather than in his own ghastly bedchambers. Brush long fingers as he passed over her silver hairbrush or the case for the treasured violin that was buried with her father. That in particular held correspondence and mementos that he, being a loving and trusting phantom, would not disturb just as he would not want her rifling through his scattered desk papers.

This morning, on a numb cloud, he walked the short distance from his rooms to hers, having left a frustrating composition he'd already half-completed to burn in the fireplace. Smoldering, crackling waste of time. That was over and done with, and the sudden urge to see his darling in peaceful sleep took hold, pushing him every step like the flames consuming his music. Licking at his heels. A light sonata in his measured pace, growing higher and more ragged in his mind as he slunk into the room like a panther, one black paw in front of the other, bony shoulders moving in easy rhythm. He felt predatory.

Sliding onto the bed next to Christine without waking her was simple. Keeping himself from raining kisses upon her porcelain face and neck was considerably more difficult, but in the end he settled for watching her silently in the dark. One arm beneath her pillow and the other stretched out towards him, tiny fingers begging to be caressed. Her hair was a tangle of loose curls that several hours ago had been fanned around her head on the pillow as he hovered above, moving in ways that made her arch her back unbidden and womanly. Deceptive, as she was not yet a woman, not quite, though she grew more beautiful every time he laid fresh eyes upon her. It seemed not so long ago that he was seeing her for the first time, alone on that stage, a mournful little dove of thirteen with no light. No hope. No Angel!

She made a restless movement in her sleep and moved closer to him, burrowing her face in his shoulder before settling down once more. Silly girl. Her sixteenth birthday wasn't for another four months, but he was already mulling over what he'd delight her with. Presents, presents, presents…perhaps another nighttime excursion? It had been an incredibly charming trip to the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes on her fifteenth, after she'd overcome her initial horror at the concept of trespassing and he'd bribed a member of the security force handsomely for allowing them to continue their visit. They'd tried to identify which of the lounging crocodiles looked the most like Carlotta and Sorelli, she'd cooed over the little baby monkeys fast asleep in their mother's arms, and several of the larger mammals had obliged them by waking up and wandering over to see what the hell they thought they were doing there in the middle of the night.

Shining midnight panther pacing up and down, up and down in his enclosure, glowing yellow eyes and bright white teeth glaring at them. Up and down, up and down, all through his little Paris faux-jungle world. It was all the cat knew and all he saw. He felt a kinship with the creature, though his was now, but not always, a cage of his own design.

Time drifted by as he felt her breathe against him, a minute for every heartbeat. An hour for every sigh. An intoxicating sense of possession he reveled in as her slim hips settled against his. He pulled her closer, holding onto her like an anchor. The world was a turbulent crashing of waves and she was a rock, covered in the soft lace of foam and seaweed, lingering so tantalizing close to the promised shore. He would push her towards the beach and hold on for dear life. There were plans to be considered, wonderful marvelous eventualities, concerning his beautiful little jewel. And yet he wanted to stay like this forever, keep her to himself under the opera for more than just grasping slices of each month. Or spirit her somewhere else entirely, where there were no guidelines or considerations, just his young bride and her Angel dwelling far away from the particulars of society. He had more self-control than he was normally given credit for.

Bony fingers traveling along the smooth skin of her exposed leg, peeking from beneath the brocade covers. She mumbled his name into his shirt; his hand moved higher and he breathed hers in return, skeletal digits pushing back embroidered cotton, trimming lace. Her tiny nails dragging along his neck, underneath his loose collar, scratching the familiar itches that the drug brought, that he hardly noticed any longer until she stumbled upon them with her own hands. Her touch felt like a release. Little moans as she fought to draw him closer, lovely eyes still closed tight, her lover's name a chanted prayer on soft lips. Slick, grinding warmth on the cold hands of a monster. Gifting him with a long, shuddering exhale and yet another delicate piece of her heart.

He wrapped it in paper and placed it with the other fragments, quite aware that the shelf was unstable.