The Friend Shop (Phantom of the Opera)

Chapter 19

Author's Note:

Dear Readers,

I return! With another chapter! And, I will try to be better about updating. My first two semesters have been very busy but I hope everything will smooth out soon. Enjoy the chapter!

sarahlet2999

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Chapter 19

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Christine found her job far harder than she had anticipated. His withdrawal-induced nausea hit with full force soon after she woke up and stubbornly clung to him for days. Chills and muscle pain soon followed, determined to make his life too miserable to live. The pain spiraled him into anxiety and depression which led to insomnia. Dalir found some over-the-counter pain meds which Christine carefully administered to relieve what pain she could.

On the fifth night, she sleeplessly waited by his bed with a phone in her hand in case he took a turn for the worse.

She heard his heart trying to beat out of his chest. She saw his glassy eyes scanning the room in their disorientation. In the middle of the night, he would call for strangers, convinced he saw them at the edges of his vision. Names of people she didn't recognize and, at his reaction to their presence, hoped never to know. Dalir remained close by but silent, almost sullen in his disposition. Christine felt something bothering him but kept her mind too focused on Erik to worry about the quiet Persian gentleman who spent most of his days in Erik's study.

On the sixth day, his fever broke. The nausea faded, leaving him a weak shell of a man, shaken to the core of his being. For a day, he wouldn't speak to anyone, his eyes still golden sparks of glass locked behind a porcelain cage. As the evening wore on, Christine reached out, trying to talk to him.

"Erik? Erik?" she quietly called, stretching her hand and lightly brushing his bare knuckles with the pads of her fingers. They twitched in response to her touch but nothing more. Encouraged by the twitch, she curled hands around his and lightly traced the blue blood vessels, running just beneath the gray skin. If I didn't know better, I would consider this the hand of a dead man.

"Erik, can you hear me?"

Slowly, as if made of broken machinery, his head turned to face her, his golden eyes blinking once as he took in her face.

"You're so beautiful..." he whispered, his heavenly voice like gravel from disuse. "The most beautiful white butterfly."

Christine knitted her eyebrows together and looked down at her outfit, a simple white dress that loosely draped over her figure. As his words settled in, she laughed, remembering how she had looked in the mirror that morning with gray bags under her eyes and without her makeup.

"I beg to differ." She tucked a tangled lock of hair behind her ear and sighed, emotionally and physically exhausted, hardly feeling the beauty he claimed she had.

"No, you're always beautiful. Always. You are so kind. So kind. I'll tarnish your wings. Your beautiful white wings." His rambling ended with a sigh, his lungs shuddering and rattling within his ribs. "What did I do this week? How did I act?"

Christine shook her head, golden curls quivering around her drawn face.

"Wouldn't it best not to dwell on that? Those days are over. Let's look towards the future."

"Christine, what did I do?" His trembling voice rallied and filled with power to deliver the words. Reaching out to take his hand, she smoothed the wrinkles in his gray skin. He seemed to forget momentarily about his words and focused solely on her touch. Gathering herself, she wrapped both hands around his and began to speak: