The characters of Phantom find some common ground. In honour of the 10 000 milestone recently reached by this wonderful fandom.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never mine.

Fellows In Perdition

"This is a bleak day," Erik proclaimed as he trampled, uninvited and unannounced, into the Persian's sitting room. Nadir, to his credit, did not even flinch, well accustomed to his old friend's peculiarities by now.

"Did you have to leave Christine again?" he asked. "Wait, no, that's not right. A Love Never Dies fic? They usually get you well and truly steamed."

Erik sneered. "Hardly," he snapped, pouring himself a glass of wine (once again uninvited). "Such atrocities are merely a drop in the bucket to what I have heard today." He downed the wine in one and refilled the glass immediately.

Nadir's eyebrows rose. What on earth could have got his friend so well and truly out of sorts? "A self insert?" he guessed. Erik's hands slammed down on the wood of the table, his shoulders hunching over, back to Nadir and staring at the wall as though it's pale, vaguely floral pattern had mortally offended him.

"No, Daroga," he rasped, his usually beautiful voice a shadow of itself. "It's... it's the fan fiction stories. They're up to... ten thousand."

Nadir gasped in horror, and immediately joined his friend at the wine bottle. There was only one way to react to this level of madness: to get rapidly and blindly drunk. Religion be damned, they were all in hell anyway.

Later, when both men had regained control of themselves, they had managed to crawl back into their armchairs. Nadir's head hurt, but he reopened his newspaper with a feeling of renewed calmness. Erik just looked grim.

"They're up to ten thousand now," Erik repeated morbidly for the eighteenth time. "Ten thousand!"

"So I've heard," his friend replied, immersed in his newspaper. Amy Winehouse was dead, poor child.

"I can't bear it anymore," said the fiend, pacing, tugging at what little hair he had. "I simply cannot. Poor Erik! Poor Erik to be used so vigorously and unwittingly to satisfy their perverted impulses." He and Christine were frequently called upon to express their... bond in the most perverse and inappropriate ways. Poor Erik, indeed.

"I know, Erik." Personally Nadir thought the Vicomtess was a bit of all right. He wouldn't mind taking over for Erik for a week or two...

"I'm tired, Nadir! I'm an old man. I can't keep up with this nonsense, you know - they seem to think I'm up for it ten times a day, switching positions at least three times per... interaction. Christ, man, how athletic do they think I am?"

"Of course, Erik."

"They cannot even understand how truly hideous Erik is!" Nadir had no arguments there, but was always a little concerned when his old friend slipped into referring to himself in third person. "Erik is a living corpse, no woman would want to engage in amorous activities with him! Bloody Gerard Butler - "

Erik's tone was undeniably jealous, but Nadir, being a sensible man, chose not to point this out, offering only an ambiguous, "Hmm."

"And Andrew bloody Lloyd Webber!" Erik ranted. Nadir sniffed. His friend got into this rant at least once a week; after a hundred years it really was nothing new. "There we were, happy in obscurity; we had to deal with the odd little film, nothing too major, and this, this... monstrosity! Christine and I used to have tea, you know! Tea! And now I have to roger her in all manner of positions - "

"I know, Erik!" Nadir interjected in frustration. "Don't you think I know? Last time we were called upon to appear together in a 'tale of friendship', I couldn't sit without wincing for a week!"

He was willing to bet beneath his mask his friend's ugly face was flushing crimson. "I thought we agreed never to discuss that," Erik mumbled, scuffing at the carpet with one impeccably polished boot. "What happens in fandom stays in fandom."

"I agree utterly, but it is getting to the point I can't even play chess with you without imagining you with your pants down."

Erik cringed.

Thankfully, this supremely awkward conversation was curtailed by the arrival of Christine and Raoul. These days affairs between the three of them were relatively peaceful; they mostly got on with their lives. It was difficult when they were constantly recalled to their old positions of adversaries and damsel in distress, as Christine was wont to put it: "Haven't they heard of women's rights?"

"Good afternoon, Nadir," Christine trilled out, her husband following in her wake. "Erik." She kissed his masked cheek, ignoring the way his hand slid down to cup her waist intimately. "Oh, you." She slapped him away.

"Old habits," he said apologetically.

"We were just discussing the recent crisis," Nadir said, and Erik shot him a grateful glance.

"The ten thousand, of course," Christine nodded, seating herself on the sofa. "I could hardly believe when I heard."

"Neither did I," Nadir replied soberly. "When Erik told me, we had to get drunk just to cope."

Christine wrinkled her nose. Regardless of how many times she and Erik got it on below the Opera, she was still a lady. "Quite."

"So you agree that there's a problem."

"Of course there's a problem!" Christine blurted out. "Erik and I have... history, it's true, but can't they just let us sort it out in our own time? It's horrible, the things they make us do..." Christine blushed a bright crimson. "The flies, the organ - oh my God, Box Five - "

"Shut up, Christine!" Raoul barked, and his lovely wife cringed.

"I'm sorry darling." Raoul sighed, slipping an arm around her waist and turning her into him.

"No, I'm sorry," he replied tenderly, dropping a kiss onto her forehead. "I'm fresh off a domestic abuse fic, it's hard to think straight."

Even Erik felt some sympathy for the poor abusing Vicomte. It was a blatant violation of canon at best (at worst complete lunacy) to think that the kindly, simple Vicomte would ever hit his wife, yet he was called to do so on a regular basis. Really, given his past, it was more likely to be Erik doing the beating, yet very few seemed to pick up on that. Erik's head cocked to the side.

He'd had to leave some rather nasty bruises on her hips last time they'd...

Christine, as if sensing his gaze, blushed. "Erik!" she scolded.

"What?" he asked, spreading his hands in a universal gesture of supreme innocence. "I did nothing!"

"I know what you were thinking," she said warningly. Erik flushed all the way down to his neck.

"It's a little hard not to," he snapped tartly. "I had no sleep last night. Not that you're not lovely, Christine, but I can't continue performing like this, and as for the slash - "

"God," Raoul exclaimed rather violently. "No more!"

Erik shuddered, and the two men for once in complete accord.

The Vicomte was on a roll. "If I have to hit Christine one more time, there's going to be trouble," he murmured. "And I can't bear another sip of alcohol. Honestly, if we weren't fictional characters my liver would be completely trashed."

Erik grimaced in sympathy. "I know. If I took the amount of morphine they think I do, I'd have been dead and buried long before Christine came to the Opera. You know, we all thought years ago that this fan fiction craze would peter out eventually, but it's still going strong. We can't wait for them to get bored and find another fandom. Something must be done."

"So we're agreed, then," Nadir said, looking around at his fellows in perdition. "We have no choice. We must act to save ourselves." There were nods all round.

"No more pathetic confessions of love - "

"No more slash," Raoul interjected with feeling, and Nadir nodded.

"Agreed. If I have to see your scrawny naked body one more time, Erik - "

"I'm not exactly thrilled about it either," Erik snapped.

"And if he has to bend me over the piano one more time, I'll shoot them," Christine added, and there was general assent.

"Right. Here's what we'll do. Erik, you bring the Punjab lassoes. I'll bring the swords. Christine, you bring the snacks. Raoul, bring the hairspray and we'll meet at the de Chagny chateau at eleven. Bitches are going down."

"Of course, Nadir, except perhaps lay off the gangster talk a little. We are, after all, French. And a Persian."

"Quite right. My apologies. Let's tear these fiendish maidens limb from limb."

"... like that's any better."

"Shut up, Christine."