Say You'll Share With Me | Phantom Oneshots

The Day My World Crumbled

this is one of my phantom of the opera oneshots that I've posted on AO3 and fanfiction.net (where you can check me out - nerdywriter36 :D) and decided to bring over here as well :)

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Nadir closed the front door and leaned against it with a heavy sigh, his throat sore as a few of the tears he had been trying to fight back the entire day finally fell onto his cheeks. He'd had to receive countless people who had stopped by to pay their condolences over the course of the day after Reza had been buried, even though the last thing he had wanted to do was entertain people and make conversation; all he wanted was to curl up in his bed and bury himself in his own grief.

He had just seen his son be buried that very morning. He was completely alone; the two people he loved most in the world were dead and there was nothing that could mend that pain. No amount of sympathetic words or hugs or prayers could fix it or bring them back. Perhaps that was why he found those exact things so exhausting.

Reaching up to dry his tears, Nadir turned around to make his way to his bedroom, only to jump slightly when he saw Erik standing a few feet away, just outside the door to the sitting room. "You really do have an aversion to using doors, don't you?" he asked with a sigh.

"You were standing in front of the door. I couldn't exactly open it," Erik replied matter-of-factly,

Nadir shook his head, not in the state of mind to deal with his friend's idea of humour. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you...make sure you were alright."

"You could have done that at the funeral that you didn't attend."

Erik didn't even flinch at the insult that was thrown his way. "I was there, Daroga. You simply didn't see me," he replied calmly.

"Why? You didn't want it to come out that you were the one who killed the very same boy that we were burying?" Nadir snapped, tears immediately filling his eyes and his throat quickly tightening as he spoke. He hadn't meant those words; he knew in the back of his mind that every word in that sentence had been false, simply a ploy to make Erik feel guilty. In reality, Nadir knew he already did; he knew how much his son had meant to his friend. He had seen the tears that Erik had tried to mask on the night of Reza's death, and he'd heard the broken sobs the night before coming from the room his friend stayed in when resting at his home; the entire ordeal with losing Reza was killing Erik just as it was killing him.

"Before you try to apologize, don't bother. I know you didn't mean that, Nadir," Erik said, dropping the formal title in favour of his actual name given the sensitivity of the situation. "At least, I would like to think you didn't."

"No, of course not. I'm sorry, I'm just...so tired. I've been up since the crack of dawn to make preparations and say my final goodbye to my child, I've been crying all day and trying to put up a front for people I don't even really know, pretending that their consolation means something to me when it really means absolutely nothing," Nadir said, all of his words coming out in a jumble in order to get his statement across before he dissolved into tears. It had become too much to try and hold it in anymore, and he knew that if he could be vulnerable around anyone, it was Erik, so he didn't even bother trying. "Besides. You aren't the one who let him die."

"Don't," Erik said, a firm tone to his voice as he stepped over to Nadir and set a hand on his shoulder. "You did that child a favour."

Nadir looked up at the masked man with a frown as he pulled away from him. "I let you kill him, Erik, how-"

"You spared him so much pain, Daroga. You have to stop convincing yourself that this was a wicked act when it was one of mercy. I know that, deep down, you know that to be true."