Say You'll Share With Me | Phantom Oneshots

POTOber Day 11 - "Lake Under the Opera House"

day 11 prompts: drowning/the underground lake/the Siren

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Everything was supposed to be fine after that monster had let them go, or so Raoul had thought. He had imagined that he and Christine could simply go free, taking refuge in his family's home so that they could unwind and start preparing for their long-postponed wedding, but it seemed it wouldn't be that easy.

His brother was missing.

Philippe was supposed to escort them home after the performance, after the Phantom's death, but everything had gone awry so quickly that they hadn't gotten the chance to speak before Raoul made his way below the Opera House. He had no clue where his brother was, and he suspected Philippe didn't know his whereabouts either.

"Christine, wait in the carriage. I must find Philippe before we leave," Raoul said, giving his fiancé a small smile and kissing her cheek. "I promise I'll be right back."

Christine nodded, but she seemed rather quiet and distant. With the night she had had, though-all that monster had put her through- he couldn't say he was surprised.

With a quick kiss, Raoul stepped away from her side and nodded to two gendarmes standing close by. "You two, with me."

He asked around, trying to see if anyone had any clues about his brother's whereabouts, but with every person that said they had no information, Raoul could feel his anxiety starting to grow. It wasn't like Philippe to just disappear, and people always knew where the Comte de Chagny was. How could he possibly have disappeared? With so many people watching?

Just as he was beginning to think he would have to ask the gendarmes to launch a wider search, a familiar woman came hurrying towards him, cane in hand and her black hair starting to pull out of the intricate braids it had once been woven into.

"Madame Giry, please tell me you've seen my brother," he said. "If you haven't, I don't know what I'm meant to do."

"Monsieur, I didn't know he hadn't reconnected with you," Giry said, signing and shaking her head. "He went down beneath the Opera when he found out where you had gone. Others directed him there after seeing us leave, I would never have let him go."

Raoul tried to ignore the knot forming in his stomach as he nodded. "Then I'll go find him," he said. "Please, go and wait with Christine. I don't want her to be alone."

"Of course, Monsieur," Giry replied. "Go, go quickly."

With another nod, Raoul gestured to the gendarmes and began his march, yet again, down into the catacombs of the Opera House. He could only assume that the Phantom was gone; after all, he had an angry mob on his tail, he couldn't have stayed put. They would be safe, he would find Philippe having taken a wrong turn, and they would leave the catacombs just as fast as they had journeyed down into them.

The catacombs seemed darker and more damp and dingy than he remembered, but he figured that could be attributed to the sheer adrenaline rushing through his veins as he had hurried to find Christine and free her from the Phantom's grasp. The setting was fitting for a man such as that; cold and dark, a lake surrounding where he had been living to keep him away from the public. He was glad for that lake, but only wished it had done a better job at keeping the man isolated. Or had drowned him, come to think of that.

Raoul sighed as he and the pair of gendarmes continued their search along the lake, beginning to think that his brother had already found his way out and that he could call off the search, only to pause when he saw a form on the bank of the lake a few feet away. As he looked at it in the light of their lanterns, he believed it initially to be some sort of debris that had washed up from the lake, but as he took a few steps closer, his stomach dropped as he realized that he was looking, not at debris, but at a person.

One that he would recognize anywhere.

"Philippe," he breathed, practically tripping over his own feet in his efforts to get over to his brother, only turning back to the gendarmes briefly. "Go get someone to help! An ambulance, something, quickly!"

Once he was sure they had hurried off, Raoul only doubled his pace to get over to his brother, falling to his knees next to him. "Philippe? Philippe, it's me, it's Raoul," he said quietly, his heart leaping into his throat when he saw how pale his brother's face was, the blue tint to his lips. "Philippe?"

As gently as he could manage, Raoul lifted his brother's head into his lap, smoothing his hand over his thick blond hair, the water soaking it having slicked it back a bit. "Philippe, please," he whispered, tears quickly filling his eyes and spilling over onto his cheeks as he realized how unresponsive the Comte was to his voice and touch.

His drenched clothes and body made it obvious that he had fallen into the lake and been unable to escape in time. Raoul had thought that his brother was a strong swimmer, he had seen him swim on their family vacations to their summer home before. It didn't make sense, it was like he was...held in the water by something, though he couldn't even begin to guess what that could have possibly been. The Phantom had been too occupied with trying to throttle him to have done it himself, so he saw no other explanation besides it being a horrific accident.

"Philippe," he whimpered, his voice breaking and a sob escaping him as he hunched over his brother's body, cradling him close to his chest, and pressed their foreheads together. "Philippe, I'm so sorry."