"I fail to see the issue, Nadir."

Nadir Khan looked sharply over at Erik. It was hard to believe the man across from him had once been the feared Phantom of the Opera. The years were now creeping towards centuries of life together and sometimes Nadir thought he was simply desensitized to Erik's eccentricities. Today was no exception, save for Erik's announcement.

"You want to audition to play yourself on Broadway," Nadir said slowly. He was fighting with every fiber of his being to keep his voice level. "How do you not see the issue, Erik?"

"Ah, yes, well," Erik said. He reached for his teacup and took a sip. The rim barely touched Erik's withered lips and he lowered the cup. "I quite agree with you. I think it's absurd I have to audition to play myself, too. There. I said it. Happy?"

"No."

"You never are," Erik said. "But I'll humor you: why are you so upset by this?"

"Because- because-!"

"Such a compelling argument, but your eloquence has not convinced me to give up my notion to at the very least audition…"

"You'll get us discovered, you ignorant, egotistical man!" Nadir spat.

Silence descended upon the apartment. Even Darius, who was doing dishes in the kitchen – doing dishes and eavesdropping – shut off the water and excused himself to his bedroom. Erik cocked his head at Nadir. Nadir, meanwhile, put his face in his palms.

"Discovered?" Erik echoed after a long moment. "We are hardly new…"

"You know as well as I that we've lived the last several centuries in uninterrupted bliss-"

"I'd hardly call it bliss-"

"- all because no one knows who we are."

"But don't you see, my dear Daroga?" Erik asked. "No one will know who we are. It'll be the best disguise: disguising the Phantom of the Opera as the Phantom of the Opera. Never mind the fortune the production company will save on stage make up and masks…!"

"You can't be serious," Nadir said.

"Well, that last bit was a joke, yes," Erik said. "I would have thought all this time would acclimate you to my sense of humor…"

"Allah, preserve me," Nadir murmured before taking a sip from his teacup. He seemed to let it linger longer at his lips than strictly necessary, as if using porcelain and tea to keep himself silent.

"I'm certain to secure the role after the audition, of course," Erik continued. "Once they hear me sing…"

"Are you certain?" Nadir asked, nearly slamming his teacup back onto its saucer. "What if you don't get cast-?"

"Your confidence in me is truly overwhelming," Erik said dryly. "Were you not the one who once – more than once, actually – said 'I believe with Erik that all things are possible'?"

Nadir sputtered for a moment, but settled on silence. He looked out the window, which overlooked a park and a busy New York City street. He followed the brightly clothed pedestrians with a policeman's watchful eyes, but Nadir's mind was elsewhere. So far elsewhere, in fact, that there was no neat way of tying up his conversation with Erik if he pursued his thoughts aloud. Nearly two hundred years he had known Erik; nearly two hundred years he'd harbored the most mixed of feelings for the masked man. And for those nearly two hundred years, Nadir kept his mouth shut.

"What if history repeats itself?" he asked softly, not daring to look back at Erik.

"You'll have to clarify," Erik said.

Nadir took a deep, bracing breath before turning to face his permanent flat-mate. He wanted to ask: what if you take the role so seriously you think the actress playing Christine is Christine? But he didn't. He couldn't bring himself to. Already, he could feel Erik's temper bubbling like a volcano across the table. One wrong word and Erik would surely explode.

"You will be immersed in your story – your tragedy – every day," Nadir said. "Is that truly something you want to relive?"

"You don't think it will be therapeutic?"

"No, I don't," Nadir said. There was something heavy and sad in his voice that even he couldn't quite place. "I don't think it would be therapeutic at all. I think the peace you've made with Raoul de Chagny and Christine Daae would unravel."

"I'm not so unstable, you know," Erik said waspishly. "I haven't killed anyone since we left Europe."

Nadir made a muffled noise that did all the talking for him: that wasn't so long ago for a pair of immortal men. Erik huffed and began collecting the tea set to take into the kitchen.

"I'm a performer at heart, Nadir," he called out from the kitchen. From his vantage point in the dining room, Nadir was forced to see Erik. Even looking out the window, he couldn't help but see Erik's reflection in the glass pane. "Do you know how it has pained me to keep my genius confined to whatever flat we're living in for all these decades?"

"You did it before," Nadir pointed out. "You willingly shut yourself away under that opera house of yours."

"It was to be my tomb," said Erik. "But, thanks to some foolish man and an even more foolish journalist, I was forced to live on."

Nadir rolled his eyes up into the back of his skull. He could always tell when Erik really wanted something. When Erik really wanted something, he'd make Nadir feel guilty, whether for withholding the thing Erik craved or – more often – for relaying their story and effectively immortalizing them for all eternity. As if Nadir had known at the time that telling Gaston Leroux the truth about the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera would sentence every character within Leroux's pages to eternal life. Sometimes, he wondered if Erik really would have been happier dead. And sometimes, like now, he wondered if the strange requests – requests like this – were truly the only way to ease Erik's misery.

"Audition if you must," Nadir said quietly. "But if you do not secure the role, I'll have none of your sulking and absolutely none of your murderous rage."

"I knew you'd see things my way," Erik said. "At any rate, I've already auditioned and have a callback next week. Really, I find with you it's better to ask forgiveness than permission…"

A/N: It's been a long time since I've written these characters, but this idea has been knocking around in my head for years. I hope you enjoyed it!