Lisa
Holy...well, holy
something...jeez, you never told me any of this stuff. Holy, well anyway...now I feel like a real
heel. Spam, if I didn't know how Elsie
Part II turned out I would still be throwing Erik at you! Anyhow...At this point I was completely
oblivious to Marie's feelings for Erik...Hell, I knew we both loved him, but I
always thought of it as a friendship connection, nothing more. After all this was the real Phantom, not
some idealized character you could write smut for. At any rate, Marie was right about one thing...Erik was in need
of comfort...
It is always a good day in the neighborhood when you get out of Physiology early (Ok, I admit it, I used to be a Mr. Rogers fan...who wasn't?) Actually, it's more like a red letter day...most of the science professors have a work ethic like my Japanese teacher, they'd have to be dying before they'd miss class. Anyhow, I was out an hour early because there had been a gas leak in Boyer (the science hall) and they try not to blow the students up if they can help it (puts them out a lot of tuition). I dropped my stuff off in my room and, sketchbook in tow, went off to visit Erik. There was an art show about the castle and I wanted to fly some ideas by him...O.K., that and I wanted to get him to watch Braveheart. So, with William Wallace under one arm and some gargoyles in the other (sketches from the castle silly, I could never lift a gargoyle!) I skipped off the Erik's complex.
Halfway up the stairs (he lives on the second floor) I could hear music blaring through one of the doors... "Gee, I wonder if Erik will kill them now, or wait ‘till the song is over?"
When I got closer I realized the music was coming from Erik's apartment. "Weird." I stopped and listened a moment at the door. It took me a second but I recognized the last bit of Point of no Return blaring through the wood. I knocked and waited, nothing. I knocked again, harder this time, no response, but the door hadn't been shut all the way and it swung open.
The music came blasting into the hallway so I stepped in and shut the door...wouldn't want the neighbors to call the manager! "Erik?" I called, looking around the living room, no response. I walked further in to the apartment. For a moment I felt a sort of odd panic, this was too weird, then I saw him.
He was sitting on the sofa, his legs curled under him and his face buried in his hands. He was sobbing convulsively, body shaking, audible even over the blaring music. I started to back away, he would never want someone to see him like this! My retreat was halted as a particularly plaintive wail overcame Michael Crawford’s voice. I couldn’t just leave him... I started walking cautiously toward the couch. I wanted to help him but I didn’t want him to be angry with me.
“C’mon, every heroine in phantom phic gets to do this scene, so can you.” I whispered to myself as I sat gingerly on the edge of the sofa. Erik didn’t notice me yet...Michael was demanding Sarah Brightman make her choice... I took a deep breath and put what I hoped was a comforting hand, on Erik’s shoulder.
Erik jumped under my hand. I heard him pull in a deep breath before turning to look at me. My gods, the pain in those blue eyes of his, it made me want to burst into tears myself. He started to say something, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. Ironically, as Sarah Brightman sang to the Phantom of the stage that she must show him he was not alone, I pulled the real Phantom into my arms.
There was, as it had been described in so many phan phics, that moment of hesitation when he fights the need to be comforted. I ignored it and held his shaking form closer. We sat like that for a long moment, Erik turned half toward me, head resting on my shoulder, my arms around him.
I leaned back on the couch, taking him with me. I stroked his hair with one hand as the reprise of Masquerade came over the speakers. The dam broke. Erik could hold it in no longer, he began sobbing again, clinging to me like a small child. I just sat there rocking him gently as I remembered my mother always doing for me when I was sick or hurting.
It tore at my heart to hear him weeping and interspersed between sobs, soft cries of ‘Christine.’ How much could one person go through? How cruel could the world be? I wondered as the musical ended and Four Seasons came on. Thinking about all that had happened to Erik I almost had myself in tears.
His weeping subsided gradually. His grip slackened and he turned his face away from me. I leaned him back so his head would rest on my shoulder and placed a light kiss on the top of his head. Knowing no words of mine could possibly comfort him I just stroked his hair with my hand and tried to provide comfort in presence at least.
It was a long time before he broke the silence between us. “I apologize for subjecting you to that Lisa...” He trailed off as if unsure where to go from there.
“Don’t apologize Erik, everyone’s entitled to a little emotional outburst now and again.”
“I think I would classify that as more of an explosion.” His voice was still strained.
I debated for a moment, should I ask? Me, tactless as I am, went right ahead. “Would you mind if I asked what the catalyst of the ‘explosion’ was?”
Erik took a deep breath.
“If you’d rather not tell me...”
“No, no I will tell you...I borrowed ‘my’ musical from Marie and I decided to listen to it when I returned from class. I hadn’t really listened that closely when I heard it the first time and I was curious about how much liberty was taken with the story. So I sat down with the lyrics in hand and read along...it brought back so many memories Lisa... things I had been trying to block from my mind. By the time that song...Point of No Return came on I was sobbing like a fool.”
“No,” I said, positioning myself so I could look into his eyes, “You wept like a man who has been through a terrible ordeal, you wept like you should have months ago when all of this first happened.” I smiled at him, knowing what I was about to say was about as cliché as I could get, “How did I put it in Sanctuary...Ah, yes, don’t fight the tears my friend, sometimes they are the only remedy for wounds of the soul.”
Erik just looked at me for a beat and I felt the need to lighten the mood. “Don’t you just hate it when people quote their own work...sheesh, and could that have been any more cliché?”
“Another ‘Gargoyle must not fight gargoyle’ moment?” He asked with a ghost of a smile.
“Exactly...so what do you say, we can pour out our hearts over coffee?”
“Won’t that be a bit messy? After all, hearts are quite bloody.”
I smiled and got up. “Smart-ass, I’ll get the coffee, you find us something to eat.”
“Yes ma’am.” He quipped, offering a salute.
I rolled my eyes in mock exasperation as he followed me into the kitchen, “Ugh, Phantoms! Are all of them this sarcastic?”
Erik paused in rummaging for a moment as if to consider the question. “No, most of them are more ectoplasm than anything else.” He commented as he pulled a loaf of banana bread out of the fridge.
We must have spent the next two hour talking over coffee and some good banana bread (made it myself). Erik told me about his life at the opera, the pranks he had played on the staff, the fun he’d had with the managers, and then Christine. He told me how he had become obsessed with her, how he had nearly killed her in his rages. I reminded him that he had let her go in the end, not the act of a monster, but of a noble man. He scoffed at my use of the word noble, but he seemed to take some of my comments to heart.
Keeping to my word that we both spill out our hearts, I told him about the less wonderful times of my life. But my life had been damn near perfect compared to his so I didn’t feel I had much right to complain. He pressed and I told him about moving almost every two years, losing friends and finally the year my mother kicked me out.
“You think you were in a bad state today? You should have seen the tantrums I threw that week! I’m tellin' you, I had to suppress the extreme urge to see what a microwave would do to mom’s CD collection and what the kitchen knives would do to her couch.”
Erik looked at me over his cup with a raised eyebrow. “Remind me to never upset you.”
“I snort in your general direction! Sheesh, I’m not that bad any more.” I said tossing my napkin at him.
Erik caught it deftly. “I was simply thinking of my CD collection, I am rather fond of it and I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to it.”
“Oh, well as long as you weren’t worried about upsetting me.” I sighed dramatically. Then I looked down at my watch. “Oh shit!” I exclaimed jumping up from my chair.
“What is it?” Erik asked with mild concern.
“I’m supposed to meet Marie for dinner in about five minutes! I gotta go!” I looked over at Erik. “I’ll see you tomorrow ‘kay? Marie and I will drop by for a Braveheart viewing.”
He nodded, “Sounds interesting, isn’t that the film where they chop the man’s leg off and decapitate another man?”
“That’s not all that he happens, sheesh! Tomorrow at five then?” I asked as I headed for the door.
“Tomorrow at five.” He agreed as I left.
****
It was a week and a half later when I plopped dramatically onto the bed next to Marie after class. "What's up?"
"Wow, one Bobbsey twin without the other, somebody call Guinness." Marie commented with a over-dramatized look of shock.
"Huh?" I responded intelligently.
"You’re here, Erik's not...new event." She explained slowly, as if I was a small child.
"What?" I was confused by this point.
"You heard me, the two of you have been spending every waking moment together."
"So?" I said, sitting up to look at her.
"So...maybe you two should consider dating."
I laughed. "Right Marie, me and the Phantom of the Opera on a date, and for our next trick we'll make monkeys fly straight out Erik's ass!"
"I'd make the sound effects but he’s not here (any time there's a reference to monkeys of the flying variety shooting out anyone's ass ---very Wayne's World--- Marie follows it by saying, 'There they go' and pointing out the monkeys with the appropriate sound effects...she does a very good chimp...at least that’s what the chimp said…and that was probably more than you needed to know about her.)
"Uh-huh. Like you need an excuse to do the monkey sounds...anyway what makes you think he's interested in me? You lose your remaining brain cells while I was out? You really need to keep a tighter grip on those things!" I quipped, trying not to think about how it had felt to hold him in my arms.
Marie sighed, never a good sign, "Ok, several reasons, 1--He's been spending all of his time with you and barely even looked at me..."
"But half of my classes got cancelled this week, and you couldn't go museum hopping with us cause you had to go home for the weekend." I interjected hoping to stop this little rant.
"I mean when I am here, take tonight for example."
"But you weren't home when we left." I protested.
"You could have waited five minutes until I got back from class." She pointed out.
"Ok, so I suck and I'm sorry, what's your point, besides the one on top of your head?"
"I think he'd like to court you."
"What?!" I exclaimed, sitting up straighter and hitting my head on the top bunk.
"Careful...you heard me." She said, looking at me calmly.
"Yeah, I'm not sure which is weirder though...the fact that you think the Phantom has an interest in me, or the fact that you used the word 'court'“ I rubbed a the growing lump on my head.
"Why shouldn't he have an interest in you?"
"Um...should I draft you the entire list...it could take a few days to print...or would you like the condensed version?"
"Lisa." She said in what I refer to as her 'future mom' voice.
"What?"
"C'mon, I could think of tons of reasons."
"Ah, but you're deranged and not a very reliable source."
"Be that as it may...you are one of the one's who dragged him out of his apathy, you're one of the people who befriended him when he most needed it, you're damn cute with that hair cut (insert my groan), you're part of the Honor's Society, you have the same work ethic as he does, you love architecture and are a very good artist (I snorted in derision), you make him laugh and continually astound him (Yeah, with my four-letter vocab) and you like him, don't you?" She stopped, looking at me expectantly.
"Um...yeah, as a friend."
Marie gave me the 'Yeah right look'..."Uh-huh… ‘as a friend’ my Aunt Gertrude's rear end! I've seen the way you look at him. And you talk about him constantly."
"Ok, first off, ewww! Don't talk about Aunt Gertrude's rear! That is just nasty! Secondly, how do I look at him? And thirdly, I talk about you constantly too dear...I do that with my friends!" I stressed the last word.
"Ok, first off, I don't even have an Aunt Gertrude, it's a figure of speech! Secondly, you look at him like you would like to lap him up from a bowl, or at least jump his bones, whatever! Thirdly, I'm willing to bet you don't go on for hours and hours about my eyes, or my hair, or my voice, or that really cute thing I did yesterday while attempting to help you load a desktop theme... at least I hope you don’t."
Sigh. "Do you have a point or are you just ranting?"
The slow speech started again..."The. Point. Is. That I think you should go out together...it's obvious he likes you."
I scoffed in her general direction...scoff scoff scoff! "You are nuts...and squirrels and various other indigenous animals!"
"We've discussed this. Bottom line...I think he would like to go out with you.”
"Well dear, I think if the Phantom is interested in either of us, it has to be you."
"Oh, yeah right. I'm not the one who explored South Street with him yesterday."
"Whatever dear...you've got a lot more to offer than I do...I'm just comic relief."
"Since when? And exactly what do I have to offer?"
"Ok, most folks I am aquatinted with wouldn't hang around me if it weren't for the weird ass sense of humor. And you, well, you have the hair...long and soft, the voice...unlike my croaking, and the talent, you can write and draw circles around me!" I counted the points out on my fingers as if I could use them to convince both of us.
"In what happy little universe?"
"It's not particularly happy, but it's mine and it's called reality."
"Well, I know how to settle this once and for all." She announced.
"How?" I asked warily.
"Simple...I'll ask him."
I nearly hit my head on the top bunk again. "WHAT?!"
"You heard me...I'll ask him at breakfast tomorrow." She said calmly.
"The breakfast I'm supposed to be at? No way! That is on conversation I do not want to witness!" I protested.
"Alright then, just leave before I ask."
I smacked my hand into my forehead and groaned. "God, how do you even ask something like that with tact?"
"Leave that to me...now you need some sleep, go to bed."
"Yes mother." I saluted and put my PJs on, thinking. "He's going to choose you. I'd bet money if I had any."
"We'll see."