Yes, okay. I get it, hi.

Inspiration hit me at the weirdest of times so now I'm taking this small plot bunny and making it a semi-plotted fic, which I plan to keep at a rather shorter length than my usual works. This one is an experimentation of a style that I'm not used to, a very grounded fic with a tongue-in-cheek writing style, which I hope fits the tone and the setting.

Enjoy this first chapter, and tell me what you think. Had a lot of fun discussing this with a dear friend of mine who cries over E/C as much as I do, and whose headcanon that Christine likes Gabriel the chorus master showed up in this one. Winks cheekily at the screen.

At the end of the long street leading out of town was a store. She couldn't remember what it was before it was a store, but she did remember a time during its interregnum where it was just a building, and nothing but. It swallowed the entire ground floor of a six-story apartment complex, made of brick and plaster older than the concrete of the street itself, and boasted of an endurance that reminded her of what she should have had.

She was so trapped in her own thoughts through the days, through the weeks, through the month that she didn't even notice the change until Meg pointed it out for her.

It was during the ballerina's weekend visit from Paris when they crossed the main street stretching like a wide, withered arm across town. As they were waiting for the stoplight to switch (even with the lack of cars, she was always telling her young friend to be careful about that sort of thing), it was the movement that caught her eye. There was a truck parked in front, blocking traffic that wasn't there. Boxes that could have been as tall as skyscrapers piled up against the windows as staff worked to clear out its contents and dump them in neat piles out onto the sidewalk.

"What's going on there?" she said absentmindedly, and more to herself than to Meg.

"Someone's moving in," Meg answered, and it was so like her to assume that she had been spoken to. A pink bubble inflated by her lips and popped ungracefully with the click of her tongue. "At least, that's what I heard from Maman."

"Here?"

"Apparently. It's like a shop opening or something. Haven't got much to go on, though."

She squinted, pushing her glasses higher up her nose bridge in an attempt to read the lettering painted on the windows, but the boxes had done their absolute best to obscure her view. And even if she could read them, she had no idea of confirming whether or not the words were there before the move.

"I actually thought you would know more," Meg continued, pocketing her hands into her jacket. "You know, since you live here and all."

She shot her friend a look. And she was grateful Meg didn't look back at her, distracted by whatever the midmorning provided.

A sleek, black Cadillac silently slid past the main street just before the light turned red and the walking said go. Though the pair of girls crossed, she couldn't help but let her eyes follow the car, stifling a blinking surprise when it pulled up on the curb right behind the truck. Out from the vehicle emerged a tall figure, clad in black from head to foot like the width of his shoulders and the length of his coat swallowed the sunlight. He approached one of the movers and began talking to him.

"Christine!"

Meg called, about a few strides away from the opposite direction of the shop. Christine didn't even notice she stopped in her path to stare.

"Right, sorry," she said, quick to apologise and hasten her stride to catch up.

She avoided the main street for quite some time since then, and waited for a week to pass. That should be enough time for the shop to accustom itself, she thought, and then find out there's nothing here for it, and then move on, if it still can. But she knew that the townsfolk would simply check into whatever it sold, be uninterested in it (for really, they were interested in so little and so much at the same time), and then ignore it out of business. That's how it usually went. She couldn't remember if another store used to sit where the new one did, but there should have been a reason why it was abandoned for so long.

Meg went, then arrived, then went again. It was Monday by the time she put her contact lenses in and convinced herself to take a small detour just to check it out; she was already downtown anyway, might as well.

Retracing her steps, she crossed the street and went the opposite way from where Meg called her. But even approaching the store, she noticed it was… isolated. Even more isolated than she thought. It was the sort of building that she used to believe had the lights above the first floor on after eight, but it didn't have that sort of air this close. There was no sign above the door, and whatever the paint on the old windows used to be definitely wasn't its name either, because it had been wiped off. The windows didn't offer so much as a peek into the interior because of the darkest curtains she'd ever seen blocking the view. On the display set sat a simple phonograph that wasn't spinning, and a paper with unintelligible writing that appeared as if it was asking for staff, aged twenty or above, good with handling antiques.

But the lights were on inside, that much she could tell; they were bright against the dusk. And the store sign indicated it was open in a neat, printed font. She steadied her breath, held the handle and stepped inside.

A chime played first before she saw it, like it was a spell that would have helped reveal the store itself. Turning her head immediately to see it, a wind chime that looked far too interesting for the rest of the knick-knacks she'd seen hung by the frame. Then the shop… didn't so much exist as opened to her. Something clicked inside her, like a switch.

It was a record shop.

Rows and rows of alphabetised vinyl shelves stretched out in front of her like hundreds of roads, even though she only counted two. The walls were half decorated in posters of artists she knew, didn't know, could have known, or Father could have known. All of it was far too well lit in a warm, bright glow from a rather sophisticated and chic chandelier set that hung in the centre of the place. A large counter barred two of the four walls of the store, with which she was sure collectors items hung on the frame display behind them. In the distance, a phonograph was playing a song she didn't recognise but found beautiful all the same. It had enough of an swing that made her want to snap her fingers and match her stride to the beat, sung by a man in English.

She let her feet guide her through the centre aisle, fingertips brushing the records like blades of tall grass. Not only were they alphabetised, but arranged by genres that scattered every inch of the store. And what a collection it was, truly. She'd never seen something so neatly organised or extensive; not even the town library had catalogued its contents like this. Her hands managed to find something, as if she knew it was going to be an item she found interest in. Sliding it from its shelf, it was a Yves Montand, one of the artists she was familiar with through Father.

The emotion that welled in her throat disappeared as soon as it came when she heard the click of a backdoor. Synchronised clicks of Oxford shoes accompanied the figure that moved to the counter, and her eyes found him. He was tall, impossibly tall that she was so baffled with how she missed him before, and he was fitted with a dress shirt that disappeared into the hunger of his black jacket. His face was austere, attractive yet gaunt in the way older men usually were, with sunken eyes and a permanent frown.

Definitely the man she saw that week ago, from the Cadillac, just when he was unpacking the place from its boxes. A man as tall, dark and elegant as his store. Maybe kind of eerie too.

She attempted to pay him no heed and picked up another record filed under Montand's name to bring her mind back, knowing it would be rude to stare for too long.

"Not his best, personally."

Wait. That was a voice that was… oh, God, that couldn't be real.

"Pardon?" she managed.

From the corner of her eye, the man pointed at the shelf she was perusing, and she noticed absentmindedly his hands were gloved in a leather material as dark as his suit. "The one before it, Étoile 58. The more superior, if you're to ask me."

Oh. So that really was his voice. His lips moved then, didn't they? As did a flinch of chagrin on his end, maybe.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be a disturbance to you. Carry on."

Definitely.

She was so lost in adjectives to describe it as (rich, sonnant, so terribly, terrifically baritone), that the silence she left in their wake made her go red almost immediately and forced her to grasp for a reply.

"I'm not really that familiar with Yves. I was just looking, someone of mine knew him."

He leaned over the counter, watching her hands. "Whoever you knew certainly had good taste."

A wave of sadness rubbed her shoulders tenderly, like an old consoling friend would. But it felt like neither.

The song on the phonograph, which she realised sat on the edge of the counter where it turned to meet the wall, opened into a brass solo that tempted her to tap her feet to the tune.

"That's a lovely song," she started again, eager to change the subject.

"Ah." He moved to the phonograph, staring at the rotating disk with the fascination of a student towards a novel. "'The Way You Look Tonight,' from Sinatra Sings Days of Wine and Roses, Moon River, and Other Academy Award Winners." He scoffed before lowering the volume through a knob she couldn't see. "A mouthful of a title."

She blinked, and her eyes gravitated instantly to the spinning record. "Sinatra?"

"A favourite." His hands drummed the beat of the horns on the tabletop, and his scowl deepened more in curiosity than anything. "Did you come for the job opening?"

"Oh, I'm afraid not, Monsieur, I was just perusing."

"That's nothing to be afraid of." Without hesitation, he stopped the record with a shatter of a scratch and removed it from the turntable with an ease that shouldn't have existed. "If I may bother you for a few moments, then. Why not take a few Montands that catch your interest, and let us hear them out?"

She had absolutely no reason to stay. It was too easy to come up with any reason to say she couldn't linger but her heart had already cast a part of itself into the shop, lost to her forever.

She picked Étoile 58 and something else. The something else didn't really matter, she was only humouring him. And she didn't miss the keen look in his eye either when he spotted the cover in her hands once she gave it to him.

"Shall we start with this one, then?" he said, sliding the vinyl disk out of its sleeve with the grace of a professional. It was the other album, a yellow, blue, and red rectangle-splattered cover with a man in black dancing across its side. The title Dansez avec Yves Montand sprawled out in wide letters across the top.

"He's a better actor than he is a musician," he continued, setting the needle on the disk and cranking it, and once it spun the music cascaded out of the horn in upbeat, trumpet-filled waves.

"Really?" she disagreed, swaying along to the music. "I think he's quite good."

He shot her a look of obvious feigned disbelief she couldn't help but smile back. The tune spewed itself into the air as they both listened to it with the care of unqualified critics. Well, at least she had been. The owner of a record shop this meticulous should have known a couple of things.

The needle scratch of the record violently pulled her from the garden ballroom daydream that the horns and the snares were painting for her.

But he didn't need to indicate that he was playing the second one. This one clearly had strokes of the first: that deliberate, professional control of the key and the notes that Montand seemed to have (and that Father must have admired in the artist, surely), but it was nothing like the jazz tune of the first. It was slow, with softer drums and the cascade of the guitar notes trickling down with the gentleness of a watering can. Montand's vocals immediately caused the room around her to shift, until she was sitting at the edge of a cafe table in the midmorning, vines and other quaint greenery painting the building on the opposite to her. Montand had the stage, singing lowly into a microphone that he was bending like a lady in his arm.

"Quaint, isn't it?" a voice spoke.

Suddenly a tall, dark man in a tall, dark coat sat next to her at the table, removing his hat and groaning with the weight of years when his back met the rest. His eyes flashed yellow, for a very brief moment, and suddenly she was back in the record shop.

There was a very brief but stretched-out silence when her eyes met him. They weren't yellow, but one side was dark hazel and the other was a frighteningly bright blue.

She pointed at the record player. "How much for that one?"

He scoffed in triumph. "Étoile 58?"

She gave him a victory in a leisurely grin; she had always known, anyway. "Why not? The owner's recommendation must be worth it."

He slid both disks into their sleeves, and then into their plastic, sealing them as good as new. "11.60 for the mono, 25.25 for the stereo."

She reached into her purse for the mono.

"I didn't say you had to pay for it."

That stopped her.

He wrapped Étoile 58 in its packaging, then handed it to her with both of his fingers delicately wrapped around the edges. "Consider it a gift. Not many customers are willing to indulge themselves in such an experience." A brief look of disappointment crossed his odd eyes before masking themselves again. "Not many customers, regardless."

She took it from him gently, careful not to brush the gloves once she did. A flick of her wrist tucked it under her arm as she shuddered to recall that scene at the cafe again. Perhaps it would come back.

"What was the name of that track?" she asked.

"'Planter Café,'" he replied simply, far too close to the manner in which Montand said it that she couldn't resist but tilt her head. "Give the entire thing a listen, and I would like to know what you thought of it."

"And if my opinion contradicts yours?"

"That simply means the music did its purpose to stoke within you thoughts, imaginations, fantasies that should not necessarily coincide with mine, indicating good music." He placed a gloved hand on his chest in a firm but sarcastic gesture. "And it also means my opinion is better."

She laughed. She couldn't remember laughing like that in a long time.

It was a funny sight when she tried to recreate the sliding motion that the shop owner did with the vinyl and nearly dropped it. Mama said that it was alright, and that she should take her time trying to accustom herself to the dreadful old phonograph.

The one Mama owned in her quaint home was quite old, but she liked seeing it anyway, and now she had something to give the machine meaning.

"Where did you find something to play, Christine?" Mama asked, blanketed by a cutely knit duvet that curled upon on her lap like a pink, yarn cat. Her first attempts at knitting had surely been crude, but they improved over time.

"A record shop opened downtown a few weeks ago," she replied, taking the seat next to the phonograph.

"Oh, how lovely. Your father would have loved that sort of thing."

'Planter Café' filled in the space where they both should have talked about Father.

She had a crush on Gabriel, the bartender, but didn't want to talk about it. It probably died long ago, and that was most likely the case, but she still found him cute regardless, the same way her head turned at new folk passing through the town to get to wherever they needed to be. This place was never anyone's final destination.

She only intended to sit in at the bar for a few and it managed to loosen her tongue just a little that anything he would say instantly became funny. Carlotta's voice filled the stage in a calm, fantastic air, captivating the audience who watched. (And she knew it was Carlotta, because she sang the same song every night.)

"Did you see the sign?" Gabriel asked after he cracked another joke.

"What sign?" she asked.

He pointed past her to the slip of paper tacked onto the corkboard near the entrance. 'Asking for new nighttime performances,' it read. Well, it seemed to plead more than ask.

She sighed blue. "Gabe, you can't ask me to—"

"Too soon?"

She sobered up considerably and stared.

"I know, right, I'm sorry," he apologised immediately, but the damage was done.

"I'm going home."

"Chris, you—"

She stood up properly to prove her point, ignoring how her head spun just a bit there.

Gabriel let her go. She still had a mind to walk home in a sort-of straight line and open her door after only two tries, and had that same mind to worry over the record cover she felt she lost.

After a long bath and a couple of wine glasses, she laid on her couch and listened to Montand sing 'Planter Café' for the hundredth time. But as hard as she tried, she could only remember the brick cafe and the vines next door and the corner table she sat in, and never the tall, dark man with the glowing yellow eyes, who only emerged at the door of the cafe right on the cusp of her sleep.