Talk of Summertime

Rating: R

Summary: In the summer, she is his. It is a long road to redemption for both of them, until everything begins to unravel and she is forced to make a choice - again. Erik/Christine (eventually).

A/N: Takes place four years after the movie, and is true to Gerry Butler's portrayal of the Phantom. Because he's hot.

This chapter has mention of unconsentual sex and violence. And there's a lot of time flipping. And angst - lots of angst, folks.

The Rose

Summertime and the living is easy

Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is fine

Oh, you're daddy's rich and your ma is good-lookin'

So hush little baby, don't you cry

- Summertime, Billie Holiday

December 1919

The rose was mocking him.

Tied with black ribbon and adorned with an elegant diamond ring, the wave of realization that the bittersweet flower brought crashed around him with portent fury. He had been there all along.

Count Raoul de Chagny shook, not with the affliction of his age, but with fear. And anger. But just as quickly as it had washed over him, it was replaced by sorrow. Sorrow not for his dead wife, but for himself. Was this last reminder a token of his unrequited love for her? Or had he been there all along, watching, calling to her, cloaking her in his dark omniscience?

Raoul's eyes turned stony, for he knew. During their marriage, he had always bore a slight niggling at the back of his mind. It was in the soft sweep of her eyelashes as she turned her gaze away from him to somewhere he could not see. When she sang, her eyes pressed to the heavens, he had known. It was in the way she never spoke of him.

But he had dismissed it all as a foolish man's ego.

He felt insistent hands tugging on his coat and a small voice suddenly flooded his ears. It had been there all along, and as he turned to his nurse, he saw the sorrow glaze her eyes, a simple artifice of her pity. The small upturning of her mouth and words of, "There, there, Monsieur," fell flat and lifeless in his ears. He heard his body collapse into the wheelchair, heard the stubborn creak of wheels and heard the cooing of the matronly nurse. He heard the singsong of winter wind, harsh and merciless against his cheek. Snowflakes swirled hypnotically in the air, alighting on his face, his hands. He felt nothing.

A cool acceptance crept into his heart.

Christine.

Many years earlier

He lay inside, the bars encircling him like merciless steel fingers. The weight of their imprisonment crushed him with all the still-worn ease of a clenched fist. Incessant chatter drifted through the cold fingers, wrapping around his senses and lulling him into a false unconsciousness. He relished in the white noise of the crowd, knowing that the night would only bring him silence. Silence. Silence that would choke him with its unmerciless serenity. To be alone with his thoughts, oh, such torture!

The hot rash of the whip, the purpling swell of fists, the crushing steel of boots about his ribs was nothing compared to the silence.

The air was unbearably hot, striking down upon the land within unforgiving power. The air was thick, sapped in mosquitoes and dragonflies. Flowers wilted under the intense scrutiny of the sun. Even the bees, their tiny legs full of pollen, seemed to move in slow motion.

The creaky floorboards around him were littered with straw, soil and piss. In this muggy June, each disgusting piece of debris rose into a turgid, hot stink of fermented putrescence. He did not see the world outside his cage, only the cruel filth of his squalor. The heat made his skin sweaty and sticky, little pieces of straw clung to the bareness of his arms and legs. His shirt was a grimy shade of yellow, the yellowed collar a witness to the weather of the summer. His trousers were torn at the knees and tattered like strips of bacon. The callousness of his hands mocked him. They had once been perfection, bringing beauty and sound to his private world.

The gypsy who owned the traveling carnival only entered his cage to abuse him or fling buckets full of frigid water about him and his dwelling. Only then would the hot stink of excrement, sweat and despair be mildly lifted. But this only occurred when the cage became too repulsive for the crowds to stand.

"We will lose money because of your disgusting filth!" The gypsy would scream, the words rotting as they past through his crooked yellow teeth.

Of course, there was the show to put on. The gypsy would throw in a few punches and kicks before ripping the mask from his face. Little girls wept openly into their mothers skirts, clutching them with all the strength and passion he lacked. Little boys would laugh and toss rocks, taunting him with calls of "Devil!" and "Monster!" Mothers and fathers simply had one of two reactions: to draw back in fear or to whisper amongst them, pointing at his loathsome carcass.

The humiliation of the situation did little to affect him. The chains which bound his wrists trapped him to this manmade hell and the futility of escape overwhelmed him. He knew he deserved no better and this apathy swept upon him like the gentle lapping of ocean upon surf.

He did not desire to kill him, although his hands were already red with taken life.

The crowd drifted away and the gypsy collected his coins with all the greed of Judas Iscariot. There would be no repentance, however. No guilt, he was sure.

The low buzz of activity sang quietly in his ears and he closed his eyes. He did not sigh. He did not feel sorry for himself for no one had loved him. Especially not her. He would never - and could never - earn the love of the one whom he loved most and was supposed to love him. She had seen his face and the horror of it had flooded her eyes with tears. He had been told that his face, this aberration of disfigurement, was a sign of the devil.

When she had given him his mask, he had understood that no one could love him. Not even his music, which he played for her, could sooth the angry fever of his face. She had simply abandoned him and he had been captured and brought here.

Walking the streets alone, not caring who saw his face, he had faced the world unsheathed and bare as the ruined soul she had left him with. He had left his mask behind because it was not important to him how others reacted. Only her reaction filled his soul with the resemblance of his face.

Tears had warmed his cheeks where the sun couldn't. He had squatted at various squalid homes, slept in fields, wandering as aimless as the ghost he knew he was. While sleeping in a smarmy hotel room miles from Paris, they had taken him. Rumors of his face had spread throughout the town and the innkeeper had been made an honest man with only a few greasy coins. He had fought them as the shouts rose up around him and the lassoes ensnared him. He had been struck hard upon his head and dove into blackness. When he awoke he had been chained to this cage.

The pride which had once burned resolutely in his eyes had left a vacancy for interminable sadness.

Caged and imprisoned, he felt nothing for his fate. He almost welcomed the crass distraction that the gypsies brought. He would welcome it had he the heart to embrace anything. In the tents surrounding his cage, he dimly took in the cries of their passion as they made love. He was sure he would never know what that was. He knew it wasn't love when the gypsy unbuckled his pants and forced himself inside of him. That was the only time he ever felt anything. He had struggled, cried out with such feeling of rage and hate that he did not know he was capable of experiencing anymore. He seethed and gnashed his teeth and tears burned tracks into his cheeks as he suffered, truly suffered. The chains cut into his wrists and he bled tiny rivulets which did not compare to the bleeding in his heart. He could not scream out as he was gagged and his head was forced into the foul floorboards.

When the gypsy had spent himself and left nothing but blood and semen in his wake, he had curled around himself, the shame and humiliation and anger burning wickedly within him. But then he remembered the pain of her refusal and knew that nothing could take the place of the pain she had given him in his black heart. Again, he knew. I deserve this.

Erik whispered her name, a barely heard utterance that drifted soundlessly into the wind. With it, her name carried all that he had left behind and all the hurt that she had given him.

A cool acceptance crept into his heart.

Christine.