The Phantoms of the Opera And The Things They Do To Annoy Nadir.

A Magical Christmas - Cherik Phic #4

He'd overdone it with the tinsel, he just knew it.

Erik stood back to study his normally tidy, organised living room. How he'd managed to convince Gerard to help lug that miniature fir tree in that corner over there all the way from the market to the fifth cellar, and then across the lake no less, he had no idea. But there it was, standing in a puddle of its own needles, barely visible with the amount of tinsel he'd wrapped around its branches.

Underneath it, the little boxes, which he'd spent that long, terrifying evening wrapping, sat precariously arranged as in the little display he'd oggled in the shop window this very morning.

He checked his pocket watch for the hundredth time that afternoon and tapped his foot - he'd need to change out of his tap shoes, wouldn't he? Put these ones in the conservatory before Christine realised he was still very much attached to the clickety-clacks they made against the stone. He had a proper pair somewhere, didn't he?

"It looks fairly good," Gerard commented from the armchair. Erik glowered at the tree as it began to bend from the weight of his decorations, and dared it to topple at its peril. "If the trunk holds up."

"Do you think it's strong enough?" The baubles alone were quite heavy, and glass at that.

"It certainly felt strong enough when you made me haul it down here at four in the morning, Erik," Gerard said, his voice low in his throat. Erik shot him a look from the corner of his eye. Gerard cleared his throat. "It will hold."

The tree groaned and leaned further to the side. Erik bounded over before it could take him up on his bet and hauled it upright.

"On second thoughts, I hope you didn't put absolutely everything on it, did you?"

"The silver was rather becoming with the gold!" Erik protested, his masked face pressed into the needles and pile of tinsel. He wrapped his arms around the tree further and cradled the top with one hand.

"Take some off."

"Never!"

"Erik, it's going to fall when you let go, and you know that."

A silence.

Erik blinked.

"You must let go at some point. Won't you?"

Erik said nothing. The tree groaned and sagged against him. He nudged a box away and stood upright, bringing the tree with him.

"What will Christine think when she sees you?" Gerard ambled over and lay a hand on Erik's shoulder, as if that could tempt him away from saving his handiwork from a loud and messy demise. "Her respectable, kindly Maestro, in some sort of amorous embrace with a little fir tree!"

"I'll tell her I simply like trees."

"Enough not to let go of one for an entire holiday?"

Erik rolled his eyes. "Of course not!"

It was a silly tradition anyhow. German, he believed, although it seemed to be the British to show him the extravagant ways of dressing a tree. A tree, he'd spluttered last year! How would one go about dressing a tree, hmm? Give it a tailored waistcoat and hat? Perhaps a cane to wave in greeting when it saw other trees? Dressing a tree, indeed!

Yet here he was, with more tinsel and baubles, fitted snugly on the sharp branches, than actual tree, in the corner of his little living room. And for what? His own embarrassment before the lady he'd insisted he didn't need to impress?

Denying he loved her, however he looked at it, was futile by now.

"Erik." Gerard tugged lightly at his shoulder. "I have the tree. Come away and we'll simply take a few things off."