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He often wondered why the girl even bothered to accompany her mother. This place, this hell, was shrouded with the black of gloom, the darkest of grief, so suffocating that even he forgot to breathe at times. There was always something shattered, always something spilled, always something stained. But he couldn’t find himself to care. All that mattered was his Don Juan.
The first time she came, she was dressed in a pale pink shirt and dusty riding pants, what once was a bleached white now dirtied with dried mud and dark, grassy stains. Her face was still flushed, despite the feverish atmosphere. The air was heavy and damp, yet it was also dry, and often cold, during the nights. She must have been working - or whatever she had been doing - until the very last second, right before descending down below.
And for what reason, he did not know.
He knew who she was, recognized her by the golden ribbon in her hair; a terrible choice, really, as it clashed greatly with the already blonde, flaxen strands curling down her back, but he kept quiet. She’d never caused any trouble, never upset her mother, nor gave him any reason to write a threatening letter to the managers. Never stepped out of line, never complained.
He also knew, simply from watching her dance, from observing her bleeding passion, that once given the freedom, she would never be restrained. Such wildness, such power he saw in her eyes as she approached, something blue and sharp. Perhaps . . .
No. What did it matter? Nothing mattered.
Her eyes widened as she saw him, his figure dressed in shadows . . . some sort of midnight that was barely tamed. His fingers were poised over the keyboard of his piano - never the organ, not anymore - and crimson, red-ink dripped steadily across his fingers, staining the ivory keys.
He saw everything but fear in her eyes.
“Oh, Erik, what have you done?” Madame Giry chastises, rushing forward and grabbing a towel, though he shook the woman off.
“It’s just ink, Madame.” His voice was scratchy and torn, as if he’d screamed for hours on end, or hadn’t talked in weeks. Or perhaps he’d finally caught a cold, finally caught his death, finally neared his end. He’d barely been walking for thirty years, yet he felt as if he’d been living for fifty more. He felt life too heavily on his shoulders, squeezing his heart, pinching his nerves.
Music was his only solace, and dreams his only escape.
Not even Madame Giry’s consistent visitations helped anymore.
He watched the blonde girl - how old would she be? perhaps eighteen? - kick her muddy boots off before stepping onto the fine Persian rugs, and he appreciated the gesture, even though he wore shoes himself - as did the Madame. She seemed perhaps a little shaky in her movements, and he thought he saw her lips close around his name, a silent whisper, as if trying the letters.
The confusion in her face was tangible at most, and he immediately understood why. She didn’t seem afraid of him, afraid of the man sitting above her, broken and soulless, because he was only a man. She was afraid of the Phantom, the masked monster, but instead, found a weary, ugly man, whose name was the simplest thing about him.
“You seem shocked, girl,” he said, speaking up at last, voice rusty and cold. “Is it so surprising for me to have a normal name?”
Madame Giry shot him a scolding look as Meg’s face became troubled. “I . . . Well . . . Forgive me for saying so, Monsieur, but I expected almost a grander name.”
“Like what? Morpheus? Or perhaps Mephistopheles?” His voice was growing hoarser as it grew louder, and the blonde gulped, though held her ground.
“Perhaps, but I much prefer ‘Erik’, in a sense. It makes you seem more human.”
“As if you wouldn’t want to see me as your enemy!” He spits, enraged for reasons he didn’t understand - she’d done nothing wrong - why was he being this way? - until Madame Giry practically whacks him on the shoulder.
“Do not speak to my daughter in such a way!” She growls, and he crosses his arms, rolling his eyes.
He could only see her figure out of the corner of his eye now, but she - quite literally, to his shock - shrugged his words off and bent down on the rug, carefully extracted small pieces of glass he hadn’t even noticed were there.
He cocks an eyebrow, now too distracted to continue his work. She was helping? What kind of foolish girl she was, to clean a monster’s lair!
She ignored him for the rest of the time, as did he to her, and didn’t turn away from the piano until both her and her mother were gone.
On the floor sat her golden ribbon, crumpled and forgotten, as if it had fallen out without her noticing. With annoyance, he bends down and snatches it up, crushing it in his fist, ready to throw it into the lake for all he cared. But for some mystifying reason, as he held it above the lake, he couldn’t let go. Swearing now, he shoves it into his pocket.
She’d be back the next day. He’d set it somewhere she’d see it, so she wouldn’t forget it again.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
“Don’t touch things that aren’t yours, girl!” He yells, and the blonde stumbles away from his library, fingers snapping away from the book spine she’d been skimming.
Flinching away from his fist slamming against the piano bench at his side, she rights her shoulders. And in a small voice, almost cautiously, states, “Though I am a girl, I ask that you call me by my name.”
An ounce of shock flooded through him, unused to someone countering him. And then, guilt, on heavy reins, circled through him, as he recognized her cautious bravery, all for the importance of self-respect, all of which he’d had beaten out of him - literally and figuratively.
A certain respect for the girl blossomed in his chest, rooting itself there. He wondered how many times she’d said that, the words seeming practiced. How many men had called her by that, called her ‘girl’, and she’d demanded respect, no matter how softly.
He saw her spine straighten at the sight of his anger melting, and she stared at him curiously, waiting, watching. She was observing him, he realized, and he wasn’t the same man as before, who could hide behind a mask, despite the one covering half of his face.
He feared the growing opposition of indifference in her eyes. He didn’t want pity, and he surely didn’t want acknowledgement.
“Where’s your mother?” He says, turning swiftly now, breaking their eye contact, and she sniffs, rubbing the elbow she’d banged against the wall from her fright.
“That is why I came yesterday, Monsieur. My mother is away in Italy with my Mémé, and isn’t sure when she’ll be back. I’m staying behind for the performance, and then the auditions coming up in the next few months,” she explains. He considers asking why she left - during a rather busy season, no doubt, in the Garnier - but at her crestfallen features in references to her grandmother, he said nothing.
He was almost stunned by this admission, not realizing the importance behind the girl’s appearance the day before. He could see it in her eyes, though, by the way they clouded, the way her limbs looked sore and spent, as if she’d been up all night, pacing and worrying. A golden necklace hung from her neck, poking out from between her breasts and falling forward as she bent over, ruffling fallen sheets of music into her hands.
He’s quiet for the rest of the time, simply observing her. It had been a while since he’d observed the innocence of childish youth, nearly passing from that threshold into feminie adulthood, and found a grief - no, a longing, perhaps the grief of dreams long dead - so potent in every movement that it was an old stain on her soul.
Once she’d left, he realized that the golden ribbon remained forgotten in his pocket. Groaning, he sets it upon the piano, so he wouldn’t forget the next time.
And though he soon forgot about the ribbon again, he couldn’t erase from his mind the girl’s movements, how he understood every action, that it must be done, but resentfully and sorely so.
He, too, knew what that exhaustion felt like. But every day, she wore a smile on her face. A genuine, real smile, and it baffled him, how she came in showing such little fear, and showed him kindness, even when he did not return it.
“Foolish girl,” he spits, but even as he does so, he knows she isn’t the foolish one.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
He hears her before he sees her, light, dancer feet prancing up to his home, the gentle sound of boots being removed as she surveys the place.
Shoving down his bitterness, the bitter taste of embarrassment and self-loathing, he addresses the blonde without even looking at her. “I am sorry for the way I spoke to, berated you over something you had not been informed of,” he begins. “I’m particularly peculiar with the order and sincerity of my grand collection, and have trouble sharing what has become most precious to me, even beyond this piano.” A sigh, a gesture toward the keys, and then, “Books are worlds of our own makings, yet not of our own exclusive enjoyment. If there are any you’d like to borrow, you are welcome to, as long as you don’t mark in them. I prefer annotations and notes be done outside of their pages, if you must.”
Her shock was vague and cautious, as if afraid to show too much emotion, but she nods her head at him, a show of forgiveness as he slowly turns toward her, interested to see which novel she pulls from the bookshelves. Upon careful inspection of her watchful gaze, he removes a dark, crimson covered book, ‘Dracula’.
He quirked an eyebrow. He’d expected her to choose something lighter, something feminine.
He turns back toward his piano, shutting his eyes and lowering his head onto the frame of it, resting there and exhaustion swept through him, from not sleeping the previous night. His back ached from sitting at the bench for so long - had he even moved since yesterday? - but when he lifted his gaze, suddenly remembering the golden ribbon, she was gone.
In her place, however, something caught his attention. Something bright, something bold, something colorful. He draws closer to the bookcase and finds a single sunflower, golden and extraordinary, a splash of wonderful life in the depths of blackest hell.
It touches him, more than he’d like to admit, that she’d give something so beautiful to something so ugly as he. He lifts it carefully into his fingers, as if it were a child, and cradles it against his sunken, broken chest.
He’d never admit to the tears in his eyes, either.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
She returns the next day, unaware that he had been waiting for her arrival, truly interested in the progress of her reading. She came bursting in, having read the entire novel after rehearsal the previous day and that morning, opinions already flooding from her lips. He doesn’t reply, but he listens, suspecting she had no other soul in this opera house to share her thoughts with that would truly care.
Did he truly care? Perhaps not. It was his favorite, after all, and he immensely enjoyed hearing different perspectives on the story. He cared enough to listen, and to observe the brightening in her eyes as she spoke of the novel.
Off-handedly, he hears her mention how colorless and drab his home was, how it surely hadn’t been decorated since the Medieval Times, and asked if Prince Charlemagne had chosen the colors.
“Ah, and what does a little ballet girl know of the controversial prince?”
“He most likely used his revert to Christianity as a political move, to give himself equal powers to rival the Catholic Church, which I found interesting. Surely the government should have recognized a need to balance the powers! There’s also this story, I read something comical and perhaps fiction, but it was something of the prince being so excited to be crowned that he became impatient, taking the crown from the bearer, and placing it on his head himself. I believe it was on Christmas Day.”
How much color her words, her excitement, her knowledge brought to his drab home, as she’d described it as. He was drawn to it, drawn to her radiance, the gold spilling from her lips. He was passionate, perhaps too much for his own sanity, but the way she spoke of history and literature . . . oh, he wished he understood how passion flowed through her, so quickly and intensely and beautiful. Not like his own threatening, murderous, destructive waves.
“And speaking of, Christmas is coming up soon, Monsieur! Do you not celebrate?”
He was rendered quiet once again, secluded in his own thoughts and madness, but she seemed to understand, simply speaking in light tones of her day. He thought it would annoy him, and though he was an isolated creature, the immense comfort he felt from someone engaging in the simple act of indulging him in their day was incredible.
By the time he pulled himself away from his mind, she was gone, and with mounting frustration, snagged the ribbon from the piano and tied it around his wrist. As he did so, something caught his eye.
He stood and approached it, and in the corner, found a small box. Now atop it, he opens the small thing, and finds a small, golden globe, an ornament, now freshly painted.
Well. One certainly needed some sort of tree, to hang this, of course.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
The next time she came in, his home was cleaner, not as messy, and certainly not as torn and broken. And perhaps that was a reflection on the man himself. He watched as the girl threw a glance towards her, almost nervous, before plopping down on his sofa - his reading chair, he sat there nearly everyday, and his blood warmed at the sight - and cracking open ‘Dracula’ again, beginning to re-read.
And he doesn’t mind. Not really.
“Are you hungry?” He asks, suddenly, startling her into nearly falling off the sofa, and she waves her arm out to catch herself. She gives him a sheepish smile, as if embarrassed, and the rare feel of his cheeks warming encompases him. He shakes his head then, turning away.
Was he so desperate for human connection that the first young girl to come marching into his lair was his first pick?
But when he glanced back at her, the promise of food and drink in her eyes and the sight of his favorite novel pressed against her chest, he suddenly felt quite up for conversation.
“Are you quite certain, Monsieur? I wouldn’t want to . . . well, I know I’m not most invited nor welcomed, here . . . you truly needn’t feel obliged to do so. My mother asked, and I’ve admired your work, it’s truly no trouble-”
“I know how disgusting that dormitory food is, Meg Giry. Barely edible,” he says, gracefully standing and making his way toward the kitchen, just past the dining table. “It truly is no trouble. It’s quite boring, cooking only for myself, and I rather miss it. Now tell me, do you like chicken or red meat?”
Her words were said through a wondrous, curious grin. “Chicken, if you please.”
He seemed to have a grasp on table manners, which surprised her, as he pulled the chair out for her, though didn’t push her in. In all honesty, she certainly didn’t mind, still feeling on edge when being within a foot of him. She was scared of him when he was an inhuman phantom, prowling the halls, but now as a man, he simply made her . . . uneasy, at times.
He had been right. It is easier to think of him as anything but a man.
“You must promise me you didn’t poison this,” she teases, glancing up at him as he sets a steaming plate caprice chicken in front of her, and she doesn’t gauge his reaction, though he doesn’t respond.
He felt awkward, not having normal relations with a human that wasn’t some sort of figure trying to save him for such a long time that he instead asked her questions, and he began to learn all sorts of things about her. That she loves singing almost as much as dancing - which surprised him - and that she dreamed of pursuing an education dedicated to philosophy - which surprised him even more - and a humorous story about Sorelli scaring the children with a scary story, and though Meg had laughed, she had been the one to comfort them, and had held them when they undoubtedly had nightmares.
He suddenly wished he’d had a Meg Giry in his life, when he was younger. Someone who would comfort him when life became too overwhelming, too terrifying, too threatening.
Inevitably, she changed the topic to ‘Dracula’, and though he didn’t engage in much talking, he listened to everything she had to say, and though it made him anxious, he looked her in the eyes while she spoke.
“You can keep it,” he says, as she slips her boots back on. “The book, I mean.”
Her eyes widened, and she held it tighter against her chest. “Do you mean it? Are you sure? Are you completely sure? Isn’t it your favorite?”
“Yes,” he replies honestly. “But you seem to like it much better than I do.”
“Oh, thank you!” She squeals, and in a moment that took his breath away, she rose up on her toes to kiss his bare cheek. “Thank you so much!” And with that, she fled from the room, and he could hear her skipping as she exited the hallway.
He’s frozen, for a few moments, before lifting a hand to his cheek, where her lips had been, and sees the yellow ribbon tied around his wrist.
He decides to leave it on. Perhaps he’d remember it next time.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
She was frustrated, this time, when she came in, and he raised an eyebrow at the sight. He’d never seen her flushed and angry before, something that was strangely befitting, and he found curiosity and something almost frustrating rising in himself too. What had happened? Had someone upset her?
He tries to tell himself he doesn’t care, but he thinks about her smile from yesterday and how it warmed his chest, and realizes he does.
“What’s wrong?” He questions, watching her as he collapses into his throne, probably unknowing that it was, in fact, a throne. He locks his hands behind his back at the sight, ignoring how attractive she looked just then. He takes a deep breath, and keeps his eyes pinned on her face. He doesn’t miss how she seemed surprised by his question.
“I keep getting trouser roles,” she mutters, placing her hands against her heated cheeks, sighing. “It’s fine and all, but my auditions just don’t seem to be sufficient enough for anything more. How am I a performer if I can’t seem to improve?” Groaning, she buries her face into her hands. “How difficult it is, to be creatively stuck in a position I have no way out of.”
He knew he was surely going to regret asking, but he did anyway.
“I am very strict, mind you, and do not tolerate tardiness, short of your own death. I know nothing of dance, and your strenuous and constant practices will be no excuse for not being prepared, but I will give you adequate lessons to improve your voice.” He says all this in one breath, and he craves the look of excitement and hope on her face before he melts away.
“I have no money, Monsieur, to pay you with. I’m sorry, but I cannot accept.”
“Free of charge, Meg, if only to see my shows become a great success-” And before he could even finish, she’d launched herself at him, her arms coming around his waist tightly, squealing. It was a chaste embrace, barely enough for him to even think before she’d already pulled away.
“Oh, I must come up with an excuse for the girls! Oh, thank you so much, Monsieur, thank you! Or shall I call you Maestro?”
“I think Erik would do just fine,” he replies, still unable to process, and she smiles, slowing for a moment, holding her hand against her heart.
“Thank you, Erik. You are very kind to offer such a thing. I can’t think of another man in all of Paris that would be kind enough.” And with that, she turned a left.
He didn’t remember the yellow ribbon until he jerked from a nightmare that night, laying on the couch she sat in most of the time, and rubbed it between his fingers, seeking comfort. He was surprised to find it still smelled like her.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
She’d started dancing around his home, recently, spinning and twirling and brushing the edges of her dresses with his things. She was always humming something from their lessons, always something Mozart, her favorite composer, and it filled him with great pride that she’d chosen the same one he held in great esteem as well.
He loved watching her honey curls splay out across the room, and sometimes, he’d play something gentle and lovely and light for her to dance along to. And when she was finished, a perfect smile would cross her lips, one that had been inspired by him, and he would tell her so.
She sat beside him, this time, and he cringed away before her side pressed against his, and he would relax, moving his fingers back to stroke the keys once more. She would sway back and forth, and would sing when he would play something she knew - and he tried to pepper those in, though he would chastise her for singing before warming up.
It was then that he realized he wanted to kiss her, desperately, and hold her against him tightly, to feel her heartbeat against his. He wished to see her dance around his home, wherever that might be, for the rest of his life.
And he wished to dance with her.
He liked her, more than he should, especially when her lips connected with her cheek, a ‘thank you’ for his music, for his presence, for his meals. She’d began to spend more time down there, and though she did much of the talking, he’d noticed her touches always seem to become closer and closer.
His heart leapt everytime his fingers brushed hers, and he wondered if hers did the same.
He remembered the ribbon this time before she left, but he tugged his sleeve down, concealing it, keeping it.
He later found out, when gingerly examining his bookshelf for another book to gift her a golden bookmark, in-between the pages of a fresh copy of ‘Dracula’, which boasted its newest edition.
His hands shook as he held it, and then pressed it against his heart.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Though he’d asked her to stop cleaning, now having the energy to do it himself, she still came around, almost everyday, though not on Fridays.
“Regardless of what your mother said, it is not your responsibility,” he had argued. “I don’t want you cleaning after rehearsals, anymore. You are exhausted enough.”
And what he could hardly admit to himself was that he wanted to clean. That he wanted to impress her.
The lessons were going well, Meg making huge leaps of improvement every few weeks. And as those went on, he couldn’t deny his impossible attraction toward the woman. It was delicious how quickly she latched onto the music and movement as deeply as he did, and though she wasn’t any sort of genius as he was, it gave him an immense amount of joy when she succeeded.
He wondered what it would be like to steal those honey-laced Italian words she sang into his mouth.
The ribbon remained tucked away, around his wrist, beneath his shirt.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
It was the final week before the Christmas holiday, in which the performers would have the week off, though not before strenuous, nerve-wracking auditions, and a posted cast-list the day before Christmas Eve.
Erik had known that Meg was nervous, and though he didn’t fiddle around with the cast lists anymore, if she simply got ensemble members, he would write a letter to the managers, demanding she at least received the alternate for a leading role. He had come to know her talents and range quite well, along with the competition in the opera house. And though it was tight - and he was sure he was unbiased - he truly believed Meg to be among the best.
She came back as he was gazing at his clock, hoping she’d come down to him, hoping she’d tell him what role she’d gotten, and when he glanced up at the sound of Meg kicking boots up, there were tears streaming down her face.
She launched herself into his arms as he stood, and he worried the presence of her tears meant to bring another story of failure, but at the laugh that escaped her throat, he couldn’t help the tight grip his arms had as they wrapped back around her.
“Oh, Erik, I got a solo! I got a solo! A whole solo! A whole song!” And he pulls back at her words, cupping her shoulders, a proud grin on his face, and the pride and adoration in his eyes were dizzying to Meg. And at once, she thought about kissing him.
And he, to her.
But instead, he offered her a meal, and she accepted, looking around the room, making sure nothing was broken or leaking, but found his home clean. Not a speck of dust in sight! Not even on his books - which seems as if he’d been through them recently.
And as her gaze shifted back to him, she noticed how clean his hair looked, that it was washed a gleaming onyx and brushed, and his clothes, a mere reflection of that, new and clean and ironed.
The circles under his eyes seemed significantly lighter too, now only dim, navy lines that she could only see up close.
He tried to speak more, that night, and when he needed the courage to do so, he would gently touch the ribbon before words poured from his mouth.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
It was Christmas Eve, and perhaps for the first time, he’d procured a gift. It was for Meg, of course - the next year of her tuition, which she worried about incessantly, now that her mother hadn’t returned yet, and a bundle of roses. He’d made a glass hairbrush for her, stained golden with pink bristles, and wrapped it carefully - as carefully as he could.
Though he wished to see her, it was alright if she didn’t return for a couple of days. He knew she was struggling with the absence of her mother still not being home, and worrying for her grandmother’s health.
But he’d be here, whenever she returned after spending time with her loved ones.
He placed the gifts under the tree, its only decorations the careful placement of sunflowers and the single golden ornament, and backed away, a feeling of warmth spiking his chest.
The tree was to be a surprise, and he so wished he could gather her reaction soon.
Before he could sit back down at the piano, there was a low sobbing, mixed with the struggling sounds of splashing and stumbling and gasping, and he looked up in time to find Meg halfway through the lake, crying and sputtering and holding her arm close to her chest.
With wide eyes, he throws his jacket off, shucking his shoes off to the side and darting forward without much thought, wading into the lake. She looks relieved once she sees him, and he reaches out, pulling the girl tightly to him, wrapping a strong arm around her waist before pulling them to shore.
The first thing he notices is blood, everywhere, and he pulls her quickly up to him, eyes roving over her figure as she sways from dizziness. Thrusting her forearm forward, he sees a nasty, large cut across the expanse of it, and with a hitching breath, explains, “The little girls had been hearing a noise in the flys and were frightened, and I’d gone up there looking, and there was nothing there, obviously. I’d been hoping to find you, but you haven’t come out for quite some time, so I wanted to make sure you were alright, if it was indeed you. I feel from one of the catwalks and . . . and I must have cut my arm on something sharp . . .” It was wickedly bruised, and a wonder it wasn’t broken.
“Come and sit . . . I’m going to clean the wound first, and then find some thread. Don’t go anywhere,” he says in low, comforting tones, and she nods as he helps her onto the sofa, and she cradles her arm closer, staining her nightgown further.
“Oh, I’m sure me not returning will frighten them all the more!” She says, worried, and he shushes her, wetting a towel in the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about them right now.”
He returns, then, with the towel, the needle, and the thread, and she seemed stressed, and before he could stop her, she was apologizing. “I’m so sorry, Erik. I’m sure you were getting ready for bed, and here I am, after some stupid mistake-”
He shushes her, shaking his head, kneeling before her with the towel. “I’m glad you came to me, Meg. I’ll always be here, whether it’s to celebrate with you, or patch you up.” And she smiles at him, though it was asymmetrical with the tears tightening her face and eyes.
Holding her arm over a bowl, he pours a bottle of alcohol he’d left open for too long over the wound, and she moans with pain, squeezing her eyes shut as her free hand comes to fist the cloth at his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, my dear, but it must be done,” he says, and she nods as he towels her arm, prepping the needle and thread. He watches as her eyes blow wide with fear.
“Don’t look,” he tells her, eyes flicking up to hers. “And don’t hold your breath. Try to breathe evenly, alright? Try not to flinch, and don’t touch me, and it will be all over soon,” he promises, and all she can is nod again, taking deep, shaky inhales.
Turning her face away, feeling nauseous, she squeezes the arm of the chair, gritting her teeth and the tip of the needle bites into her skin.
She didn’t cry out now, but tears ran down her face as she bit her lip, and he spoke gently to her, telling her she was brave, and that it was almost over, and it’s never stupid to look out for the children, and to remind her to breathe.
Once he was done, the masked man wrapped a bandage around her arm, asking her if it was too tight, and she instead replied with, “I’m not going to be able to perform now . . .”
He shakes her worries off, gently placing her arm against her stomach, staring up at her. “You forget who you have in your corner, dear. I won’t let anything happen to your solo,” he promises firmly. He didn’t know how to comfort her, other than with what she’d already shown him, but he knew he’d have liked to have been comforted during his own failures.
With trembling fingers, he brushed the tears away from under her eyes, and curled flaxen strands of damp, stringy hair behind her ear. In return, with her healthy hand, she cups his bare cheek, leaning forward slightly, and he eases himself closer from his position on the floor.
Though he’d wanted to kiss her, it was suddenly too much, and even the temptation and elation of knowing she wanted the same didn’t outpace his fear of rejection. Collapsing into her hand, he thanked her quietly that she hadn’t touched his mask, and he felt her forehead press against the crown of his head.
“I’m glad you came,” he says again, and she scoots closer to him, cradling his head against her shoulder, and buries himself there, his hands wrapping around the backs of her knees, lost in her embrace. He pulls away to stare at her for a moment, as he saw that same wild fierceness in her eyes, a power that she wielded over him, that same magic that coursed through his own veins, and he knew that she, inexplicably, was buried in his soul.
“Thank you, for helping,” she whispers. “And regardless . . . I was going to visit you, anyway, in case you were wondering, but you had the passage behind the walls blocked off. But no matter! I have a gift for you.” And with that, she pulls a sopping wet ribbon from her pocket, and hands it to him. “Merry Christmas, Erik. I think you’d prefer red on your wrist than yellow, anyways.”