Acceptance(Part I)

In the small market outside an abandoned Opera Populaire, the sun of the morning was just still not above massive lengths of the house. The morning chill still stuck to the air, and all the surfaces of the leaves were wet as though it had rained.

There were a few early birds on the streets at the market, a man in a black cloak, a young woman with striking blonde hair and grey eyes, and then a couple that seemed to be traveling soon as they collected fresh fruits into a small basket. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," the young blonde said as she bumped into the cloaked figure, breaking the morning's silence. His hat tipped down in agreement to the silent acceptance of an apology.

"Monsieur..." She said timidly, trying not to bother the poor man who was cloaked in shadows. 

"Yes?"

His voice is what caught her and made her completely forget the item on a high shelf of one of the stands.

She stuttered as he still didn't meet her eye. Blinking a few hundred times, she looked at the fruit stand and remembered.

"The, uh, apples are a bit out of reach," she said ashamed that she'd kept him that long.

"How many are you looking to grab?" His voice asked her smoothly. 

The woman blushed.

"Just three. I'm by myself," she laughed, "quite literally."

The small accent that boarded away from French made the man turn to her once he'd obtained her fruit.

"All alone in a big city? No suitor?"

The woman looked up into the face of the man, his hat no longer shading him from her view.

Within a second the shock wore off, "No, Monsieur..." She paused in hopes he'd give her his name.

"Erik Destler," he said and stuck out his hand, though that was the only clear part of him. The rest was resting behind the fogginess of the morning shade.

The woman smiled with a distinct blush, looking at his hand as she laid hers in it gently. He took it to his lips as customary and kissed her gently. This allowed the young woman a sight into his features, though they still seemed quite fuzzy. 

"Elaine Jepsat."

"Elaine..." He seemed to drawl her name. It wasn't affectionately, or with any type of attraction, but there was an interest in her lack of reaction to the man standing in front of her. Well, the lack of what she could see anyways. 

"Yes... Would you possibly want to join me for breakfast..." she rambled like an eager girl as he made her flustered beyond belief. Elaine had no clue as to why she was being this way. 

The man was undoubtedly raising a confused eyebrow at her, but she didn't care when his voice nearly made her fall over. There had been no attraction in his voice, but the mystery of him allured her. This was what induced her to invite a stranger over for breakfast. 

"Possibly. What do you need the apples for?" Erik asked as he followed her back to the vendor, his curiosity and the possible answer practically agreement for breakfast.

"I'm making an apple pie," she said as if it would be the greatest thing he'd ever tasted. Her confidence was intriguing. 

"With three apples?"

"Why would I make a larger one when it is simply me?" Elaine replied with a bit of sarcasm in her voice, teasing the man she'd just met.

Erik already liked her as he smirked and followed her past the vendors.

"I'll need to taste this pie..."

"Oh, no worries, you will. I make the best apple pies in the whole of France," she boasted, noticing his playful smirk underneath the brim of his hat. She was able to catch a white glimpse next to his smiling mouth, but Elaine wasn't sure if what she made out was true until their walk continued.

"We'll see about that."

Erik and Elaine talked and chatted as they walked along the streets, and she confirmed her odd suspicion. She had only just moved to France from the Western Italian border, but even in her short time there, she was sure masks weren't a fashion in Paris. Regardless of it, by the time they'd gotten to her home and settled in, they were both easily comfortable around one another.

"Alright, I want a taste of that pie," Erik demanded as she placed it in front of them, not caring that it was still a bit warm.

"You have no patience, Monsieur."

Erik smirked.

"You've no idea."

-

"Erik!" Elaine called to him through the catacombs.

He emerged, happy to see his friend of four months. Now, the relationship had escalated far past what he ever intended for it to be, and this had put him into quite the odd position. They'd gone from friends to lovers at the tail end of those months. Though the only reason for it was because she had convinced him that life might just be worth living. He'd been so close to not believing her that she'd almost guilted him into their current status. 

"Hello, love," she muttered with a perky smile. She kissed his lips, not noticing the void of response when hers made intimate contact with his.

"Elaine, you look wonderful," Erik replied with the façade he kept up. 

He felt like a truly awful person, something that really had to dig into his heart to make him feel such a way. But he was playing with a woman's heart, something he hadn't even done to Christine. Or any other woman. He drug her along with false smiles and joyous dates. Kissing her as if she were the only woman who ever mattered to him, passion flooding his veins only for her. He kept her with him, feeling selfish for the attention he got from her. But he'd never been selfish before, so the only harm was in his lie.

Yet seeing the joy on her face when he reciprocated such niceties made him happy anyways. It wasn't an affectionate happy, but it wasn't necessarily far from it. The man had grown attached to the woman who was his friend. She was attractive, that was very true. Her figure was something men ogled at when they were on the streets of Paris, and yet he possessed it, it was just too bad she never saw any of it. Elaine only saw him.

Erik felt a different type of horrible that day since there was something in his heart telling him to divulge his secret to her. It was the oddest feeling, but it was as though his guilt had finally turned into pity. Erik hated pity. 

"Thank you! I like this dress rather much," she replied with a grin and then kissed him again, her hands threaded around his neck and kissing him solidly.

Erik pushed her away, not the first time he had, but also not the kind way he usually did. He usually eased her off of him, but this was fervent, and almost rude. 

"What's the matter?" She said with a sullen tone. The look on her face was pure white. Sheer horror crossing over her features as the gray orbs traveled all about Erik's face. They had only been truly together a month. 

"I think we should sit down."

Elaine nodded and tried to steady her breathing as Erik sat next to her. He was just out of reach, though. 

"Elaine, this has been biting at me since you changed the part of our relationship a month ago. I... I don't love you. And I'm not sure I will ever be able to because my heart lies with another. I love her, and that cannot be changed. Elaine, your heart and your soul do not deserve a man like me. I don't deserve to be loved when I cannot— do not love you."

Erik hadn't looked at her the whole time he was speaking, not wanting to see the despair or heartbreak. He had ignored her hands holding together tightly and the thin line her lips had pressed into to keep her from interrupting him.

"I know...."

Elaine wiped away a tear and sniffled a little as Erik looked up at her with astonished eyes.

"I have felt like the other woman... The mistress for our whole relationship. The guilt, the forced happiness, Erik I'm not daft." She spoke this last part quickly, but even with the fluttering Italian left in her, he caught it regardless. 

Elaine smiled hollowly before she had the will to continue with her heart-breaking assumption.

"I know you do not love me, yet I do so very much love you. And... Well, is she supposed to be back any time soon?"

Erik clipped away the growl arising in his throat and tried his best not to menace his response, "No, she married the Vicomte de Chagny."

"Then I will love you. You don't have to do anything but agree, Erik. I don't expect your love... Your affection or any type of consummation. The only thing I want is for you to let me love you and accept that."

"All you want is my acceptance?" He asked, curious as to why a woman would give up such a thing for love... then his mind traveled to Christine and he accepted marrying her with just the love she had remaining for her angel. Not for him. 

"Yes..." She whispered with a silent promise. If she ever did come back to reclaim him Elaine would step away. She did not ever want to be that woman who stole another's husband. Especially when he didn't truly love herself.

"I can't take your love... I feel so guilty," Erik confessed as he grabbed her hands and tried to hold on to her to assure he was hearing it all correctly.

"Do not, Erik, for you taking my love is all I want. It's everything I want."

He looked at her placidly this time, with no reserve or hold back on his wandering eyes fueled by the scientific attraction of a man to a beautiful woman. She had a petite bust, but on her it was enough. Her skinny waist was taught, moved in by a corset that somehow still looked loose. Elaine's gray eyes were a beautiful addition to a perfect nose and clear, alabaster skin. Her neck was perfect as well which led Erik back to her bosom, and then he remembered their swimming escapade in the lake. Her legs were long, lean, and her hips matched the swell of an hourglass to the tee. The damn woman was attractive, and he couldn't help but find himself lost in the beauty of her.

"What else will I be taking?" He growled out possessively, suddenly clutching her waist and pulling her forward, the space between them occupied by their heat.

"Everything," she answered simply.

Erik kissed her neck and porcelain skin, trying not to imagine Christine under him, and also trying not to imagine the woman as Elaine. Elaine was his friend, and the woman he was kissing was a beautiful parcel, something that was given to him though that thought of possessiveness almost repulsed him more.

"I love you."

Erik ignored the sentiment as it came from dry lips, lips he kissed to make smooth again. They responded wholly, her hand ghosting over his mask and then the other put to his un-masked cheek.

She'd never asked, pried, or insisted about it, and for that she deserved an award. Erik thought it was amazing her curiosity hadn't capped off his horrid behavior towards her.

She just ignored it as he began to ravish her.

Elaine didn't stop him, probably never would. Her best friend could be dying right now and she couldn't care any less as his lips made her spine into gelatin, and his hands made her skin hot and persperated.

-

"Erik?" Elaine asked one day.

They had just gotten done with one of Erik's sudden lust-filled needs, and she had happily obliged to his want for her body.

Though she liked the times where he treated her as a woman and kissed away her angst, sometimes she liked the talks they had after that much more. They would just ramble on about this, that, or the other. It wouldn't be specific, sometimes it was. They just talked because Erik needed assurance he hadn't ruined her, he'd told her one day. She'd assured him every time.

"Yes?" He said, drawing small circles on the beautiful woman's back. She was lying down, and he had a full view of her whole back. Everything from her neck to her arse was visible to his yellow eyes.

"You don't think that maybe we could..." Elaine trailed off, "Never mind, it's foolish."

The beauty turned her head away from him and let him continue the intoxicating circles.

"No," Erik said and rolled her over, her front facing him though she'd dragged the sheets to cover her upper body. "Tell me. Ask me. Demand what it may be."

They had moved into a home together at that point. Something small and luxurious. He'd picked everything she purely glanced at, and the whole thing was just perfect. It was too bad they were not. She made meals, and he did everything else including the mundane things that sometimes she just couldn't fit into a single day of work.

"Well," she bit her lip. Elaine wasn't sure how such a question would go over. "Could we marry?"

Erik hadn't been affected by the request as Elaine imagined he'd be. He had actually been wondering when the proposition would be proposed, and he'd even been prepared for such askings.

"I'm not sure," Erik teased as he got up and reached into his drawers, pulling out not only a pair of underwear but as well a small, velvet box.

He slipped the pants on so she couldn't see the contents in his hand and then made her sit up.

"I expect to be shot down, not sarcastically mocked."

Erik looked at her with disappointment and then leaned over the bed and kissed her. 

"Elaine, you don't deserve this," Erik rasped, though he tried to sound something other than dread. 

He knelt down on one knee and removed the box despite their lack of decency.

"Will you marry me?"

Elaine looked broken.

Erik looked like he was going to throw up.

"Yes," she said with a smile that turned into a frown immediately. "You don't have to do this," she insisted as he slipped the ring on her finger. "Don't do this if it makes you unhappy."

Erik kissed her quiet.

"Making you happy in return for your love is as even as I can possibly make this situation. Doing this makes me happy."

Elaine cried thoroughly and then clutched to Erik like she would a child who had been harmed. She held his neck and his head, stroking him for her life. She sobbed desperately into his shoulder and let the cries rack her body. They hurt so much, and when she felt hot tears on her own person, that was when sobs turned into hysteria.

A normally happy moment was filled with sorrowful sobs and mournful tears.

-

"Darling?"

It's what was normal.

They'd taken to such niceties when anything else sounded far too automated for her taste. Darling was Erik's form of "Love" or "Babe". He couldn't really call her anything but darling, and even that sounded foreign until he was completely used to it.

They'd married, and that was when he changed a lot. Mostly everything went by with ease instead of the mechanical guilt that surfaced when they acted as a couple. He and her lived in a seldom harmony, something that they both seemed to enjoy. One more than the other.

Often enough they indulged into the other sides of their marriage, the intentions to join as one and possibly even conceive. After a couple failing tries, they stopped, and Elaine thought it for the better.

She didn't want her to return and have Erik stay with herself out of guilt and obligation, they stopped trying, but they didn't stop the actions that could lead to such an outcome. Erik found her far too irresistible. He didn't know that they'd stopped trying for a child though, for Elaine's bad feeling that his true love would return.

When she'd finally seen behind the mask, it wasn't much of anything, really. They'd been doing what made them both feel better and it sort of fell from his face during the act. She hadn't said anything, just kissed both sides and continued to feel him on top of her and inside of her. 

"Yes, Erik?"

"This came in the mail," he muttered and handed her the only parcel that had been delivered.

"Thank you," she said and didn't bother for a kiss.

The man had been more solemn than usual lately, and it was to her chagrin that she realized it was approaching a year since she had left him... and ten months since they'd met. 

"It's addressed to me, yet I do not recognize the handwriting."

Erik shrugged and motioned for her to open it as he stood behind her, massaging her shoulders with more force than intended. Elaine thought it truly felt amazing.

"Oh..." She muttered with a blush as the envelope opened and out fell a beautiful necklace.

"I had to do something with my irrationality. I went on a walk to cool off — about of which I'm sure you can guess — and while in town I glanced upon this. The last thing I wanted was for it to end up on the wrong neck."

Elaine giggled as the uneasiness from her husband faded just a little and she handed it to him so he could clasp the metal.

"Silver—your favorite—and then red rubies to compliment your gray eyes."

She stood up and kissed him this time.

It was sweet moments like those that made hard moments such as their engagement worth everything.