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:

"You were so sick. You barely slept. I didn't know someone could be so sick and still live. I thought I was going to lose you." She shook her head to gather her nerve. "In your delirium, you shouted names. All these people I've never heard you mention. Occasionally, you would say something about how they died." She refused to voice her dark mind's unspoken question of did you participate in their death? She didn't want the answer.

"But you're better now. After five days, you came out of it. I could breathe because Dalir told me the worst was over. You had kicked the withdrawal. He did caution that you would be craving still. I put thought into it and thought I might stay a few more days until you're feeling better. You really shouldn't be up and about in your state." A shaking hand tucked a golden curl behind her ear. And I don't want to leave you alone. I'm afraid. Her other hand slid away from his and rested on the edge of the bed.

"But your work..." He trailed off, only then seeming to remember she even had a job that she had most likely abandoned to remain at his bedside for hours.

"I took this week off and told my boss a dear family friend was deathly ill with no one else to care for them. There was no complaint. I'll simply go back to work and drive from here every day." She could swallow the gas price. It would be entirely worth it to know that Erik would be safe.

"Erik couldn't ask it of you."

"You're not asking. Just say yes and I'll stay as long as you need me." His eyes remained locked on hers, a thousand emotions creating a tumultuous sea of molten gold. His hands creeped away from his side and shakily curled around her fingers, warming at her touch. She gave him the softest smile and joined their hands completely together, meeting him halfway in his attempt at touch. This seemed more intimate, more tender then her previous touches. It left sparks on her skin.

"Yes."

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In the future, Erik would say that those six days eclipsed all the other horrible days of his life and reigned as the worst because during those six, he had relived the horrors of his life over and over again. The only thing that had kept him from wishing himself to Sheol was the soft voice of a butterfly, who spoke louder than the damned souls he'd sent to hell.

That last day when he had finally regained some cognition of his surrounding, he spent hours wondering what she might do now. Her fine words had stood strong for this long. Would they continue to hold true even after the worst of it, into the longer years of recovery?

She promised to stay. Her words remained strong.

Will I ever be completely free of this addiction? Can I, in good conscience keep her here? She is young and beautiful.

Surely, she has a higher lot in life than caring for a creature like me.

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"Christine, I believe I need to bathe." Now far more aware of the goings on around him, Erik had quickly discovered that his body reeked. As low as he had sunk in the past week, he wouldn't allow himself to remain in such a disgusting pool of his own filth in her presence. He made the move to leave the bed when she quickly pushed his shoulders back against the mattress.

"Oh no, you don't! You are hardly strong enough." She frowned as she looked over his prone form. "I'll give you a bed bath," she declared determinedly. The moment the words sorted through Erik's brain, he panicked. His boney hands lashed out and grabbed her wrists, almost painfully, but not so tightly as to leave bruises.

"No! No!" His golden eyes went wide with horror. She almost laughed at his mortification but refrained out of consideration for his feelings.

"Erik, I've done this before." She could easily imagine his skeletal face going white at the thought. It brought her a moment of amusement before she felt his grip tightened around her wrists and saw an angry fire burning in his eyes. Caught off guard, she froze, trapped by his hands and boiling gold eyes.

"The mask," he hissed, rising up slightly in the bed. "Have you touched the mask?" She tried to pull away, hesitating about how to answer. I didn't actively remove it, but I saw beneath it... The hesitation whipped him into true fury.

"What did you do! What did you see!" he roared, finally drawing fear from her.

"When – When I found you—" Her voice shook and she leaned away from the furious figure who struggled to loom over her. "You weren't – you weren't wearing – I'm sorry!" He flung her aside, too weak to throw her to the ground but strong enough to cause her to stumble backwards from the bed. She cradled her tender wrists to her bosom and curled in on herself as tears welled up in her eyes.

"Get out." His voice turned cold, the melodic blast washing over her. She trembled before him, shaken and confused and exhausted. Desperate to find some anchor in the storm that had whipped up in the simple room, she whispered his name.

"Erik-" She reached out a quivering hand to calm him.

"GET OUT!" He bellowed.

Shaking, she sprinted from the room, tears beginning to run down her cheeks, glittering in the well-lit room. As soon as the door slammed behind her, the red faded from Erik's vision, and he realized what he done.

I made her cry. I hurt her. I made her cry.

Curling in on himself, he began to sob.

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Christine fled the room, her vision blurry with salty tears. She nearly fell as she ran down the stairs, holding onto the railing to keep herself upright. At the bottom, she latched onto the volute and tried to catch her breath while her throat choked on tears. I've never seen him so angry! No...so furious!

She half-heartedly wiped away the tears from her cheeks and blinked, her left eye stinging a little because an eyelash had washed into it. She scrubbed it out, leaving the one eye far redder than the other. Sinking to a seat on the lowest step, she buried her head into her skirts and rocked herself back and forth in the only method of self-consolation that she knew.

Dalir found her there some minutes later.

"Christine, what's wrong?" He knelt in front of her and laid a hand gently on her arm. "Christine?"

"He found out that I saw his face!" she whimpered, lifting her head to look at him. The tears had long dried, but her heart still bled inside her chest. "He threw me out of the room. He was so angry."

Dalir looked her over and sighed, moving to sit beside her, and pulled her into a hug. Five days of barely sleeping, barely eating, barely stirring from his side – only to be thrown aside for seeing his face. And by accident, no less.

"Go sleep, Christine. Your body is beyond exhausted. I will talk with Erik. Don't worry, I'm sure he will see reason soon enough and apologize." He paused, thoughtful for a moment. "That is, if you can forgive him?"

She nodded, her eyes already pulling downwards in their desire to sleep. She tried to stand, Dalir shook his head and scooped her up in his arms, the blonde girl weighing no more than a feather in his grip. By the time they reached a bedroom for her, she had less fallen asleep so much as passed out.

Falling asleep implied a certain amount of peace for the weakened woman. But, as Dalir laid her under the covers, he saw no peace in her rest.

"Don't worry. I need to talk to Erik anyway." He tucked her in and quietly left the room. I need to talk to him about what I found in his study.