All the Rules Rearranged - Chapter 2

[igenlode]

Let's face it, "Beneath a Moonless Sky" is not what happens when you put two complete sexual novices together without a knowledge of the basic mechanics. And the sheer amount of stamina implied would only be likely in the absence of actual culmination...

Credit goes to butterflydrming for this particular aspect of the plot, though I've written it here as angst-ridden drama rather than comedy.

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Chapter 2: Fathers and Sons

He’d taken insane bets before. Bets that she could neither understand nor forgive; bets that no amount of desperation or bravado could condone, that no man with a wife and child had any right to risk. He’d taken them, sometimes, because she’d begged him not to — just as he’d drunk himself into sottish fury in some schoolboy fling of defiance against his own conscience and all nagging wives.

But this bet... hurt.

Hurt all the more because she’d let herself believe in all those promises, those kisses — it was as if he’d known just how much of a fool she was, just what she wanted to hear, and gambled on that: on the idea that he had only to whistle, and she’d come fawning back to heel like some dog left by the wayside at her master’s whim.

And he’d been right. That was what hurt the most; tears, sudden, unwanted, blurred across her eyes. No wonder he’d shrunk from telling her. No doubt they’d laughed together, he and that other — and of that betrayal, she would not even think — at just how easy it was to win a woman’s heart. A moment of kindness, a few words of flattery, a tender kiss or a sweep of melody, and they could toss her back and forth between them in some jeu de paume, and stake her future on the outcome as if she were just one more sop for a man’s wounded pride.

How dared they? How dared they? And... how could she ever trust in her marriage again?

Raoul had given her the whole sordid encounter as briefly as he could, without excuse or evasion, like a man facing court-martial. Now, in the silence that had fallen between them, he would not meet her eyes.

“You did what?” The plea was a stupid ghost of hope that somehow she had misheard; that all those promises had been more than just manipulation.

“We made a bet on whether I could keep you from singing tonight,” Raoul said again, the words drained of tone or meaning. “If I won — the contract would be paid in full, all our debts wiped out. If I lost — you would be his and our marriage at an end.”

His gaze met hers at last, halting before her pain. “I gambled your love for money, Christine. I was drunk, and... too afraid to admit I could lose.”

“And you thought—” She hadn’t meant it to come out on a sob; but her lip quivered, the tears spilling over, and before she knew what she was doing her hand had flashed out to strike him across the face. She stared at him for a moment, tears on her cheeks, breathing hard. Raoul made no move either to stay her hand or to defend himself, though the sound of the blow seemed to echo between them and the mark of it was rising livid along his jaw.

He only looked at her, braced and unflinching like a child awaiting the tutor’s cane. His eyes were hopeless and hurting and human in acceptance and self-condemnation; and she understood at last that her husband was waiting for her to hit him again.

“Oh God — Raoul—”

She put all her strength into it, everything that either of them had ever deserved, and watched a trickle of blood start from his mouth where her ring had caught him on the backhand blow. Then her head went down into the refuge of his shoulder, as the storm of weeping swept over her for all that had been lost and ruined and won this night, and she hid her face against his coat, clinging like a child.

It seemed a long time later that he freed himself gently, easing her down to sit once more. But his arms had come around her hesitantly, and the bruised mouth was buried in her hair.

Christine leaned both elbows on the dressing-table and let her head sink there, groping in her reticule for a handkerchief. A litter of overturned pots and spilt powder bore witness to the blind haste with which she’d once meant to leave; it seemed a lifetime ago now, when choices had been simple and love so easy...

The mirror showed her a face in clownish ruin where her stage-paint had smeared and run. With hands that she did her best to keep steady, she began to wipe away the worst of it, concentrating on the immediate task. Voices at the door went at first almost unheeded.

“She’s in no condition to sing now — even I know that much.” Raoul’s voice, on a wince of breath. “They’ll have to wait. Can’t some other—”

“Tell Dr Gangle to announce a delay.” Cold, commanding tones overrode the Vicomte, and the door closed. No need for notes or threats in this place, she remembered as if from a great distance; as Mr. Y, he was master of Phantasma. He owned everything here — everything, and everyone...

“Christine.” He was closer now, and for the first time she heard him uncertain. “Ah, Christine—”

“Don’t!” She was on her feet in an instant, whirling round to face him. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare. What— what makes you think I’d ever sing for you again?”

Had he expected a welcome? Did he think she would fall into his arms with her anger all spent on Raoul? She could forgive remorse, but he— would he ever even understand the betrayal in what he had done?

He had stopped short, the carapace of confidence cracked open for once, and yesterday she might have felt pity for what she read there. But yesterday he had forced her deepest secret from her... and given her in return a vow he’d never meant to keep.

“It was a very different tune when last we met, my Christine.” The words curled smoothly round her with all their old possessive power, promising unspoken delights — but it was an intimacy that meant nothing to her, and never had at all. It was his need and his pain that had spoken to her heart, always, and if he had not understood that then he had learned even less of humanity than she had thought.

“I thought you were changed — redeemed.” It spilled out of her before she could take back the impulse. “Raoul called you demon, and I thought it was only his hatred speaking. But you took my promise and you tried to trick me. You drove my husband into mad folly, and you tried to steal from him what he had no right to give — what you knew full well you would never get from me!”

Was it true? She didn’t even know: if he had come to her first, if he had pleaded as Raoul had pleaded in that foul false game of theirs, if he had held out his hand to her and drawn her to the glory of the music that they shared.... would she still have refused him one more time? Or would she have stepped out of her life forever into that great unknown, and counted the world well lost behind her? It was the knowledge of how nearly that lie had succeeded that scared her now. She had trusted him... blindly.

“The dear Vicomte needed no help from me in his folly, Christine. He leapt at the chance — drunk on his own self-pity, reeking of the liquor that bolsters his courage...” A contemptuous glance at Raoul, standing silent with his collar smeared with her face-paint and a drying trickle of blood from his lip. “For once that pretty mask slips—”

“This isn’t about Raoul!” She had flinched, unprepared, from the half-glimpsed horror of his face yesterday and been ashamed; but did he truly believe it was merely a question of masks between them? “The whole thing was your idea, your scheme to get what you wanted. Did you think I wouldn’t realise that? Did you think I wouldn’t care? Didn’t you feel even one moment of guilt — one moment’s regret?”

For an instant she was so angry she could hardly speak. “When last we met, I gave you my word to sing... and to leave you in peace. And you— you took that promise and made it into a trap. I believed in you, in all your talk of renunciation, of salvation in Gustave, and then before the night was out—”

“In Gustave?” Raoul’s voice cut across her sharply in disbelief, and words dried in her mouth.

No. Oh no. Not now. Not with anger and accusation tinder-dry around them, and the wounds of the past so raw.

“Please...” But one glance up at the white mask told her it was useless; she had flung too many hard words too soon to beg silence from that quarter. She cast a last imploring look: please...

“In Gustave,” the Phantom said with a bitter clarity. “My son”—his hand caught her shoulder, compelling her close—“our son.”

“That’s not true!” Raoul’s face flamed in hot challenge, a defence she did not deserve — but meeting his eyes, she understood with a shock of her own that he’d known. When he’d come to her tonight to beg her to flee with him he’d already known... and chosen not to believe.

“So you still deny it?” Tension lay tight-strung beneath the mockery, and she could sense the coiled tremor in the grip that claimed her; old hatreds and a newfound passion of belonging that mattered to him more that anyone could ever understand. “Perhaps you’re still drunk, Vicomte. Or perhaps you can’t perceive the talent, the potential, the strange power you’ve neglected and discarded in a boy who is no child of yours.”

The words bit home, laden with scorn, and Christine watched Raoul’s face whiten under the lash and felt her heart bleed for both men. She hadn’t meant this. She hadn’t ever wanted this...

“Your dark dreams have turned your head, it seems, like the ravings of some childless crone — brought foulness into light, shame to what you feign to hold sacred—” Raoul broke off to take breath, wincing unconsciously where his mouth pained him, and she twisted free and ran to him, unable to bear it. His eyes were blazing like those of the boy who’d flung himself into desperate defiance to defend her honour, and it was all for her and all for nothing.

“Please, Raoul, it’s useless. Don’t—”

“Useless to heed the delusions of a madman — I know.” He was breathing hard, hands clenched at his sides, but his face had softened a little at her plea. “But when his fantasies touch on you — when that vile lie is repeated in your ears—”

“Raoul, it’s the truth!”

She’d silenced him at last. Sick shame rose in her throat as she saw that he truly, truly had not believed, had never doubted her... until now.

“No,” Raoul said softly. But it was not the same as before; protest, not conviction. “No. It’s not—”

“Before we were married.” It made it worse. Everything made it worse. He’d been so young, so eager, so protective — so glad. And she’d been torn with the knowledge of what they’d left behind them, of the fear and the horror that had taken all the dark magic that sang to her, until she couldn’t sleep at night. She’d had to know. In the end, on that last night before her wedding, she’d had to find out.

“I went to him. I had to go, Raoul. I couldn’t bear the thought of him down there in the dark, like a stag torn by a pack of hounds, hiding... bleeding... dying. And—”

“And Miss Daaé found me very much alive, monsieur.” It was the cruelty of triumph — of one who had been too often the object of contempt. “We wept together. Rapturously, as I recall. And then, in the dark... she gave herself over to the power of music. Again, and then again. And then again—”

“Enough!” It was torn out of Raoul like the sound of something dying, and for a moment there was a terrible silence. He’d closed his eyes. Opened them again with a brief hunted look as if worse things lurked in that private dark.

“And then you married me. Believing that you carried his child. And I...” He let that trail off. “But that doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“I didn’t know.” She hated the way her voice shook. “I couldn’t be certain. I was never certain, until—”

“Until you made it so. Until you started to keep the boy away from me, shut him up because I wasn’t fit company for him, began to tie him to your apron-strings and bring him up as the son of that father so that what you wanted could come true.” Behind the bitterness was the old inward-turning rage; but behind his eyes, there was nothing — nothing but a queer dead blankness that was more frightening than any anger she could have dreamed. “You must have wanted it very much, Madame my wife. For you know the worst thing? It was never even real.”

“Our marriage? Raoul, I swear—”

A sound that should have been a laugh. “Whatever ecstasies the two of you enjoyed in that night before your so-reluctant wedding — and you’ve made it very clear the frenzy was mutual — there was one thing at least that neither of you knew enough to manage. Whatever you did together, whatever profaned intimacies you let him take, he never engendered a child on you. God knows I was no libertine when I came to your bed, Christine, and you were an innocent — you knew no better — but it seems he... the great seducer, the honeyed Don Juan...”

She never even saw the other man move. Long white fingers had closed around her husband’s throat, relentless as a vice, and jerked him off his feet to dangle in fading spasms within the grasp of his rival’s rage. Raoul moved weakly; hung still, and she understood suddenly that she was witnessing murder.

“No, don’t, please don’t—” It came out as a gasp, everything set aside by sheer terror. “If it meant anything to you — anything that we ever shared — please don’t do this!”

“You still plead for him, this popinjay you married who befouls our son and that one precious night of ours with every lying word?” His rage swept over her and she shuddered, flinging back urgency in her turn.

“He wants this — don’t you see? He wanted you to lose control, to kill in my presence, to make a monster of yourself!” Her own lungs were heaving; how long — how long since Raoul had drawn breath?

“He wanted to die,” she said at last, very low, and saw the long fingers twitch in hatred and reluctant belief. Saw her husband cast floundering aside, to lie gasping and helpless with his face among her spilled powder and the marks of that failed attempt darkening upon his neck.

“Come, my Christine.” Words slid around her, certain of her and warm with promise like the brush of furs around her shoulders. “Tonight is yours... and every night. Phantasma awaits.”

“No.” It cost an effort; but the old enchantment was no longer so easy a fit. She had lived and seen too much. And Raoul— “No. I need to understand. I need to know— the truth.”

“I am your truth. The truth that comes in the dark and the stillness. The truth that we can know for a lifetime and never admit. The truth that has waited ten years to be heard, my Christine, that neither of us can resist—”

“No!” It was almost a cry as his arms came about her, power stealing over her senses, and she thrust him off, fighting to remain herself. “I— I need to know what he meant... about Gustave.”

“Lies. He meant to hurt you, as he has always hurt you, as he has destroyed everything he ever promised—”

“The joys of the flesh.” Raoul’s voice was a mere rasp; he coughed, thrusting himself upright. “What did he know, after all? Two novices grappling in the dark... again... and then again...”

There was no scorn in that thread of speech now; only weariness, and a bitter underthread at his own expense. “But I was there on your wedding night, Christine, and so were you, in body if not it seems in spirit”—the bitterness deepened—“and you came to me a maiden. Whatever acts of passion passed between you, or you believed to have passed... he sired no child on you. I swear to you I would have known.”

“But— Gustave—”

She’d watched for so long. Seen that wild musical talent dawning in her son, the quick intelligence, the gifted touch and that childish taste for the dark...

A snarl of inhalation at her side.

“I’ll kill that drunken fool—” Anger slid to something more raw as he caught sight of her face. “You... Don’t tell me you believe him... you trust in that?”

Her own anger was still unacknowledged; forgotten now that something more important, something that mattered to him was at stake, Christine realised at last, as if watching a stumbling child. He’d tried to make it all about Raoul, tried to make it about Gustave. Tried raging, seduction, everything... save regret for staking her in a game. For not having the courage to ask.

Memories swirled around her, unbidden, of those two nights that she had shut away, ashamed, and tried so very hard to forget: memories of music surging in her blood that left her shaking with desire, of hot uncertain flesh against her own; moments of stiffening panic, the night after in her young husband’s arms, when she had been so afraid that he would somehow know. He’d been clumsy and hurt her, and tried to comfort her afterwards. It had been different, utterly different, halting and human and shy, and she hadn’t known then...

With a cold sensation, she allowed herself for the first time to think back to those forbidden hours with the knowledge from years as a wife: could remember only dream-like quivers of constantly renewing need. Oh God; no wonder— no wonder the reality of consummation had followed as so harsh a shock, no wonder that night had seemed insatiable, unending.

There had been — could have been — no child from what she had done with her lover. All that fear. hope, promise of light amidst the darkness... had all been born, as Raoul had claimed, from what at heart she had somehow wanted to believe: that the Phantom’s son was entrusted to her care. But he was her son — Gustave Daaé’s grandson: a bright, musical, beautiful and quite ordinary little boy.

Raoul’s son. It hit her with a jerk almost of betrayal. She’d tried to shield Gustave from the man who was not his father. Tried to cushion him from the oncoming blow as the two grew inevitably apart. And yet... how inevitable had that been?

“Gustave...” Raoul’s voice dragged tired and hoarse as if in echo.

Then he was on his feet, the words sharpening into sudden urgency. “The boy, Christine — he was to come back here—”

After she had sung — but she hadn’t sung. Christine bit her lip, quelling a sense of panic. “Gustave? Gustave!”

If he had wandered off again... got underfoot, got into the machinery, or into bad company... “Where’s Gustave? He should be here—”

“Here in Coney Island. In Phantasma. In my domain, Christine... where he belongs, where people disappear — so easily disappear...”

The jolt of it drove air from her lungs. He couldn’t mean it: couldn’t claim her son back as his own by force. He couldn’t be so desperate as to take him from her. He could not.

But the words wouldn’t come. And Raoul had reached the door and turned, watching them both with that drained, bitter set to his face.

“It seems my blindness at the Opera ruined both our lives, Madame. What fools we once were... Believe what you like then of me — and of him. Be happy if you can. But Gustave at least has deserved better of us both!”

The door opened; closed behind him, and he was gone. Gone, leaving her behind. Leaving her.

She understood that slowly, as a spreading numbness. Raoul...

“He’s gone after the boy. If he dares—”

“Dares what? Dares to take the hostage you hold over me?” She freed herself from the arm that sought to claim her waist and felt fresh tears fall at last. “I never asked for this, not any of it...”

“Christine, Christine, how can you think that? The boy is safe here backstage — I’ll see him found at once and brought to us—”

Warm, insistent comfort, lapping her in reassurance. What else was there now, after all?

His tone hardened. “And see the Vicomte escorted off Coney Isle — permanently. Oh, not a hair on his head will be harmed, since old times mean so much to you—”

Mercy begrudged, and hence genuine. It was the easy gifts that were to be feared.

More tears spilled, and Christine sank down in the midst of the dressing-room that had become hateful to her, waiting as the commands were given. Her son would be brought to her: her ransom. Raoul would be safe. And... and beyond that she could not think.

One song. She had come here to sing one song, to end the turmoil and go home. But she had not sung... and yet somehow it had ended, and she could not go home.

She still wore the coat she had pulled on so hastily. She unbuttoned it slowly. Love brings you pleasure, and love brings you pain... and yet when both are gone, love will still remain...

Angry, frightened voices outside in the corridor were becoming all too familiar. She did not look up.

“Christine — I gave no orders, I never meant for this, you have my word.” The mask was askew. He was in the room, kneeling at her feet, urgent— desperate for belief. Fear lurched into her heart and twisted there in one sick movement. “It was none of my doing — he’s gone, they say there’s no trace—”

“Of Raoul?” It was torn from her without thought, as if, on some level, she’d known all along.

Absolute silence. For the second time that night she saw how a man looked when she had struck him across the face. But it was too late to take back her words... and her hand had never moved.

“No,” the Phantom said quietly. And beneath the flinching pain and the marks of age that had come upon him in that moment of final understanding, she read a terrible pity. “No, Christine, not Raoul. Gustave.”

Comments

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeeesss! So much tension, glorious tension, in this chapter! Your mastery with words had me holding my breath.

Such a fine line between the comic and the tragic. I love that you've taken the idea generated by our conversations and developed the inherent tragedy.

[igenlode.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you saw this - I meant to leave a follow-up note on that thread where you mentioned the "Romantic Idiots" concept, but never got round to it. (Does LiveJournal notify people if you link to their profiles?)

The last time I tried to write a comic plot-prompt (for Teach Me to Live: Raoul's attitude to Gustave is revealed to stem from favouritism towards his own daughter by Christine) it came out as almost unrelieved tragedy, so I'm afraid it looks as though comedy simply isn't my strong point! Your suggestion about Erik and Christine's mutual ignorance actually dovetails in very nicely with a discussion I was having with someone else about how Raoul could apparently have failed to notice that his virgin bride was nothing of the sort -- I still think that my original answer there (it was messy and awkward and he didn't know exactly what was supposed to happen either) is probably the correct one, but it does bring to mind the Occam's Razor solution that Christine actually *was* technically virgin on her wedding night :-p

Ironically, in this chapter everything changes, and yet, in the end, the outcome is still the same... the parallel outcomes weren't intentional, but it produced a satisfying technical neatness of construction :-)
But as you may have realised, in this version Raoul (who gets 5-10 minutes' start over the others, by the time the Phantom has got his head round the horrible realisation that the woman he loves is busy breaking her heart over his defeated rival) is going to be the one confronting Meg, which rearranges all the rules again....

[butterflydrming.livejournal.com]

Swapping roles what-if is one of my favorite things!

LJ doesn't notify when there are mentions, but I still do check in, and the timing simply worked out well!

With the PoTO events, I image there was a lot of gossip about Christine's purity. That could have put the awareness in Raoul's mind, so that he noted the signs of C's maidenhood on their wedding night and maybe even looked for them.