Fiction: The Strange Case of the Unwelcome Visitors (for my_daroga) (PG)
Title: The Strange Case of the Unwelcome Visitors
Author/Artist: darkgondolier
Canon: Leroux
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Erik encounters a stuttering Brit, a clumsy, snooping sceneshifter, and a slightly inexperienced murderer. What he doesn't understand is why they keep coming back. Crossover.
Warnings: None
Total word count: 2,234
Original prompt number: 55
Author's notes: Enjoy!
It was nothing but a perfectly ordinary day. Erik was idly walking up and down the corridors by the dressing rooms, knowing no one would be here at this time of night, after all the performers had gone home. He’d been in Christine’s room for a while, verifying that the mechanism behind the mirror still worked. It wouldn’t do to have his plan go awry when the mirror refused to cooperate. But, really, after that was done, he didn’t have much of a reason to be down by the dressing rooms. So now he was simply strolling around, making sure nothing was going terribly wrong.
The darkened halls were silent, his quiet footsteps barely making a sound against the floor. He glanced into one or two of the larger communal dressing rooms for dancers and chorus singers, stopping to pick up a forgotten hair ribbon. He twirled it in his fingers briefly before pocketing it and was about to continue on when he heard footsteps around the corner. Suddenly a rather nervous-looking man came barreling into the hall, clutching a purple silk shawl.
“Bernadette!” he called out, an English accent obvious in his voice. “Bernadette, you left your…” he trailed off when he saw the empty, darkened hall. “She’s already left, hasn’t she? Oh dear. I suppose I could leave this in her dressing room…”
“Yes, your friend is gone. Nearly everyone is gone at this time of night. I would have expected you to be gone as well.”
The nervous man jumped at the sound of Erik’s voice, dropping the shawl in his surprise. He quickly scrambled to retrieve the piece of clothing, calling out, “Who’s there? I’m not doing anything wrong. I just… one of the singers left this backstage and I thought she might want it. I had hoped to catch her before she left.”
Erik, deciding this might be something to occupy himself with, stepped into the half-light coming in from the still-lit foyer. The other man dropped the shawl once more and shivered quite a bit at the sight of the intimidating dark figure.
“I… I…”
“Who are you?” Erik asked, cutting off the man’s stuttering.
“I… I’m Henry. Henry Jekyll. I, well I don’t work here, but I help out sometimes. It… gives me something to do, I suppose.”
“Why are you here?”
“Here in the Opera House, here in Paris, or here in this hallway? I’m sorry, but you weren’t very specific.”
“All of them.”
“Oh… all right, then. I, well, I explained why I’m at the Opera House, and I explained about the shawl. I… I’m in Paris because… I, I needed… a change of scenery. I’m on a holiday, of sorts.”
“I see. Do you often go sneaking about the Opera House at night?”
“No, almost never. I… just wanted to return Bernadette’s shawl.” He’d stopped shivering by this point, but still looked rather pale. Erik was sure he was afraid he was in some sort of great danger, with a frightening man in black interrogating him in the hallway. Really, though, he’d begun to tire of the man’s stuttering, scared answers. He was a bit of a boring fellow, and it was probably time to let him leave.
“I am sure that if you leave it in her dressing room she’ll find it tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes, I was thinking that.” Henry nodded eagerly, great relief obvious in his voice. When Erik said nothing, he hurriedly dropped the shawl on a table in one of the dressing rooms before coming back out to wait for Erik’s command like an obedient puppy.
“You may leave, if you wish.”
“Yes, thank you.” Henry walked quickly out of the hallway and disappeared around the corner once more. That little bit of entertainment done with, Erik decided to just head home and try to find something to do. He wasn’t in the mood to meet up with other late night wanderers.
***
Erik had been watching the sceneshifter for several minutes, most of them spent trying to figure out why the man had struck his attention in the first place. His appearance didn’t set off any alarm bells- he looked just like one of the many rough, hardened backstage workers, with the exception of being a bit smaller than most. He wasn’t doing anything unusual, perhaps getting a bit too close to the trap door down here in the third cellar, but he didn’t show any sign of knowing it was there. Erik wasn’t sure why, since he could find no logical reason for it, but something about the man just seemed wrong. Perhaps it was his appearance after all. Erik scrutinized the sceneshifter once more, and felt the same sense of something being slightly off, but found nothing to explain it. It must have been his imagination, perhaps he needed some sleep…
Suddenly the man moved decidedly too close to the trap door for comfort and if he didn’t move away quickly, he was going to find himself trapped in the middle of a rather unpleasant African jungle. Erik toyed with the idea of simply letting the oaf fall into the torture chamber, it would certainly provide him with a laugh or two, but eventually decided that he had better things to do, such as handing the managers his latest demands. The fools still hadn’t gotten it through their thick skulls that when the local ghost requested a box to be left open, they really ought to leave the box…
The sceneshifter tripped, apparently over his own feet, and went stumbling headfirst into the backdrop from Le Prophete. Erik cursed under his breath as he darted out from behind the opposite backdrop and pulled the grubby man away before he fell into the now-gaping hole. He dropped the shocked man unceremoniously on the floor, quickly closing the trap door and turning to leave as the man called out.
“When did the old backdrops get trap doors?” His French was rough and heavily accented with what Erik pegged as an English accent.
“When I chose to put them there.” Hopefully his comment would be cryptic enough that the man would puzzle over it, giving him enough time to leave for the managers’ office.
“You put them there? What are you, the Opera Ghost?”
Erik stiffened briefly, before forcing himself to relax, but deemed the question unworthy of an answer.
Receiving no reply, the man continued on. “Why did you save me?”
“It would have been too much of an inconvenience to me if you’d fallen through.”
“Oh, an inconvenience to you? What about to me? I think I would have been pretty inconvenienced.”
“I have better things to do than stand here and listen to you talk to yourself. If you don’t mind…” He turned to leave the room, but the man had sprinted across the room and grabbed him just as he was mulling over the sceneshifter’s insolent audacity.
“I do mind, actually,” he nearly purred, pushing a knife against Erik’s throat. “And you’re not leaving this room unless you promise not to tell anyone you saw me here. I have things I don’t want the rest of the Opera finding out about.”
“Everyone has secrets,” Erik replied as he easily disarmed the man and trapped him a vice-like grip. “I don’t share secrets. Not yours, and especially not my own. If you have any care for your own life, you will stay away from this cellar. If I see you down here again, I won’t hesitate to throw you down that trap door myself. And the next time you attempt to threaten my life, your own will be over before you can understand what is happening.”
He released the man, who scrambled for the door, glaring at Erik all the while. Erik ignored his angry looks, disappearing into darkness to head for the managers’ office. If they didn’t understand this time, he would make them wish they’d never set eyes on box five.
***
It was impossible to ignore by now- the loud thumping on Erik’s door. He’d tried to ignore it at first, but soon it became too bothersome to ignore. He still hadn’t the slightest idea who would be knocking on his door, but it would probably be best to find out. If nothing else, it would stop the knocking.
He opened the door on a vaguely familiar very frantic, very wet man. Erik was about to ask the man who he was, but that was quickly taken care of.
“I-it’s me, Henry Jekyll,” the man panted, wringing the water out of his hands and dripping all over Erik’s doorstep. “You’re the one I saw that night a couple weeks ago, a-after the show by the d-dressing rooms?”
Erik continued to stare silently as Jekyll caught his breath and a small puddle pooled around his feet.
“Do you remember me?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I just swam across the l-lake. I wasn’t aware there was a lake down here. I don’t remember how I arrived here, really. Can I come in, please? I’m in a terrible bit of trouble.”
Erik stepped aside wordlessly and Jekyll tripped inside, pulling the door closed after himself. As he stood shivering and dripping on the rug, Erik finally spoke up.
“In what sort of trouble are you attempting to involve me?”
“N-No, I wasn’t trying to… well, I… I-I think I killed someone.”
Erik raised a surprised eyebrow behind the mask. He wouldn’t have thought the man had enough courage.
“But it wasn’t like that,” he quickly explained. “I didn’t kill him. Well, I did, but I… I wasn’t myself at the time. I couldn’t control it… him. I… I suppose you’ll see in a minute or so. He’s coming.”
Jekyll laughed hollowly and Erik looked at him in confusion until his face was suddenly contorted with pain and he dropped to the floor. Now Erik watched with a sort of alarmed fascination as Jekyll squirmed and writhed and screamed on his floor. When he finally stilled and stood up once more, his appearance had changed.
The, still vaguely familiar, man now standing in front of Erik was smaller than the lanky Jekyll, and Jekyll’s clothes hung on him oddly. His hair was a bit longer and uncombed, his features were rough, he looked muscled beneath the loose-hanging clothing, and something about him seemed somehow wrong. It was then that Erik realized why the man looked familiar.
“Remember me?” the sceneshifter growled.
“Yes. The last time we met, you nearly landed yourself in my torture chamber then decided to make empty threats to the man who’d just saved you and confessed to putting the trapdoor there himself.”
The sceneshifter’s confident expression had wavered slightly at the words ‘torture chamber’, but he remained otherwise unaffected by Erik’s words. “Empty threats? I just killed a sceneshifter who got on my bad side. Or should I say my good side? Want to know something?” He took a few steps closer to Erik, leaning up toward his face with a crazed glint in his eye. “It felt amazing. I’ve never felt better.”
Erik shoved the man back a few steps. “I regret that you have a problem I cannot help. Did you have a reason for coming down here? I’m almost positive it was you who ran away down to the lowest cellar you could find. Fitting for such a lowly piece of society’s scum. Or did you come only to boast to me about your accomplishments? I assure you I have no interest in the subject.”
“I…” For a moment the man looked confused, struggling for words. “I’m Hyde, by the way. Edward Hyde.”
“A very important piece of information, I’m sure. Again, Monsieur Hyde, why are you here?”
“I… don’t want to get caught,” Hyde mumbled. “I knew you could do something about it. Perhaps the Opera Ghost could take the blame…”
“No,” Erik answered shortly.
“I don’t want to run again. That was too much work. I can’t be forced out of the Opera House. I could stay here…”
“No.”
“You could help me dispose of the body before they…”
“No.”
“There must be something you could…”
“No. I refuse to entangle myself in your affairs. You made the mistake of killing a man and putting yourself in danger of being caught. It is no fault of mine that you are an amateur who can’t cover up his work. You are the one who can deal with the circumstances. Goodbye, Monsieur Hyde.”
Erik picked up the man by his collar and dragged him back outside to the banks of the lake. Hyde protested and squirmed, but soon found himself kneeling in the chilling water of the underground lake. Erik dropped his collar and Hyde forced himself to remain upright and not fall face-first in the water.
“If you come back to my home, you will quickly find yourself cooking in my torture chamber, drowning in the lake, or being strangled by the Punjab lasso. If you are lucky, you may get to choose which of the three you prefer.”
Erik abruptly turned and began walking back to his house.
“Why do we always part with threats?” Hyde called after Erik’s retreating figure. He received no answer and was left alone in the lake, clothes seeping up questionably clean water.
Erik personally hoped he’d never see either of them again.
Author/Artist: darkgondolier
Canon: Leroux
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Erik encounters a stuttering Brit, a clumsy, snooping sceneshifter, and a slightly inexperienced murderer. What he doesn't understand is why they keep coming back. Crossover.
Warnings: None
Total word count: 2,234
Original prompt number: 55
Author's notes: Enjoy!
It was nothing but a perfectly ordinary day. Erik was idly walking up and down the corridors by the dressing rooms, knowing no one would be here at this time of night, after all the performers had gone home. He’d been in Christine’s room for a while, verifying that the mechanism behind the mirror still worked. It wouldn’t do to have his plan go awry when the mirror refused to cooperate. But, really, after that was done, he didn’t have much of a reason to be down by the dressing rooms. So now he was simply strolling around, making sure nothing was going terribly wrong.
The darkened halls were silent, his quiet footsteps barely making a sound against the floor. He glanced into one or two of the larger communal dressing rooms for dancers and chorus singers, stopping to pick up a forgotten hair ribbon. He twirled it in his fingers briefly before pocketing it and was about to continue on when he heard footsteps around the corner. Suddenly a rather nervous-looking man came barreling into the hall, clutching a purple silk shawl.
“Bernadette!” he called out, an English accent obvious in his voice. “Bernadette, you left your…” he trailed off when he saw the empty, darkened hall. “She’s already left, hasn’t she? Oh dear. I suppose I could leave this in her dressing room…”
“Yes, your friend is gone. Nearly everyone is gone at this time of night. I would have expected you to be gone as well.”
The nervous man jumped at the sound of Erik’s voice, dropping the shawl in his surprise. He quickly scrambled to retrieve the piece of clothing, calling out, “Who’s there? I’m not doing anything wrong. I just… one of the singers left this backstage and I thought she might want it. I had hoped to catch her before she left.”
Erik, deciding this might be something to occupy himself with, stepped into the half-light coming in from the still-lit foyer. The other man dropped the shawl once more and shivered quite a bit at the sight of the intimidating dark figure.
“I… I…”
“Who are you?” Erik asked, cutting off the man’s stuttering.
“I… I’m Henry. Henry Jekyll. I, well I don’t work here, but I help out sometimes. It… gives me something to do, I suppose.”
“Why are you here?”
“Here in the Opera House, here in Paris, or here in this hallway? I’m sorry, but you weren’t very specific.”
“All of them.”
“Oh… all right, then. I, well, I explained why I’m at the Opera House, and I explained about the shawl. I… I’m in Paris because… I, I needed… a change of scenery. I’m on a holiday, of sorts.”
“I see. Do you often go sneaking about the Opera House at night?”
“No, almost never. I… just wanted to return Bernadette’s shawl.” He’d stopped shivering by this point, but still looked rather pale. Erik was sure he was afraid he was in some sort of great danger, with a frightening man in black interrogating him in the hallway. Really, though, he’d begun to tire of the man’s stuttering, scared answers. He was a bit of a boring fellow, and it was probably time to let him leave.
“I am sure that if you leave it in her dressing room she’ll find it tomorrow.”
“Oh, yes, I was thinking that.” Henry nodded eagerly, great relief obvious in his voice. When Erik said nothing, he hurriedly dropped the shawl on a table in one of the dressing rooms before coming back out to wait for Erik’s command like an obedient puppy.
“You may leave, if you wish.”
“Yes, thank you.” Henry walked quickly out of the hallway and disappeared around the corner once more. That little bit of entertainment done with, Erik decided to just head home and try to find something to do. He wasn’t in the mood to meet up with other late night wanderers.
***
Erik had been watching the sceneshifter for several minutes, most of them spent trying to figure out why the man had struck his attention in the first place. His appearance didn’t set off any alarm bells- he looked just like one of the many rough, hardened backstage workers, with the exception of being a bit smaller than most. He wasn’t doing anything unusual, perhaps getting a bit too close to the trap door down here in the third cellar, but he didn’t show any sign of knowing it was there. Erik wasn’t sure why, since he could find no logical reason for it, but something about the man just seemed wrong. Perhaps it was his appearance after all. Erik scrutinized the sceneshifter once more, and felt the same sense of something being slightly off, but found nothing to explain it. It must have been his imagination, perhaps he needed some sleep…
Suddenly the man moved decidedly too close to the trap door for comfort and if he didn’t move away quickly, he was going to find himself trapped in the middle of a rather unpleasant African jungle. Erik toyed with the idea of simply letting the oaf fall into the torture chamber, it would certainly provide him with a laugh or two, but eventually decided that he had better things to do, such as handing the managers his latest demands. The fools still hadn’t gotten it through their thick skulls that when the local ghost requested a box to be left open, they really ought to leave the box…
The sceneshifter tripped, apparently over his own feet, and went stumbling headfirst into the backdrop from Le Prophete. Erik cursed under his breath as he darted out from behind the opposite backdrop and pulled the grubby man away before he fell into the now-gaping hole. He dropped the shocked man unceremoniously on the floor, quickly closing the trap door and turning to leave as the man called out.
“When did the old backdrops get trap doors?” His French was rough and heavily accented with what Erik pegged as an English accent.
“When I chose to put them there.” Hopefully his comment would be cryptic enough that the man would puzzle over it, giving him enough time to leave for the managers’ office.
“You put them there? What are you, the Opera Ghost?”
Erik stiffened briefly, before forcing himself to relax, but deemed the question unworthy of an answer.
Receiving no reply, the man continued on. “Why did you save me?”
“It would have been too much of an inconvenience to me if you’d fallen through.”
“Oh, an inconvenience to you? What about to me? I think I would have been pretty inconvenienced.”
“I have better things to do than stand here and listen to you talk to yourself. If you don’t mind…” He turned to leave the room, but the man had sprinted across the room and grabbed him just as he was mulling over the sceneshifter’s insolent audacity.
“I do mind, actually,” he nearly purred, pushing a knife against Erik’s throat. “And you’re not leaving this room unless you promise not to tell anyone you saw me here. I have things I don’t want the rest of the Opera finding out about.”
“Everyone has secrets,” Erik replied as he easily disarmed the man and trapped him a vice-like grip. “I don’t share secrets. Not yours, and especially not my own. If you have any care for your own life, you will stay away from this cellar. If I see you down here again, I won’t hesitate to throw you down that trap door myself. And the next time you attempt to threaten my life, your own will be over before you can understand what is happening.”
He released the man, who scrambled for the door, glaring at Erik all the while. Erik ignored his angry looks, disappearing into darkness to head for the managers’ office. If they didn’t understand this time, he would make them wish they’d never set eyes on box five.
***
It was impossible to ignore by now- the loud thumping on Erik’s door. He’d tried to ignore it at first, but soon it became too bothersome to ignore. He still hadn’t the slightest idea who would be knocking on his door, but it would probably be best to find out. If nothing else, it would stop the knocking.
He opened the door on a vaguely familiar very frantic, very wet man. Erik was about to ask the man who he was, but that was quickly taken care of.
“I-it’s me, Henry Jekyll,” the man panted, wringing the water out of his hands and dripping all over Erik’s doorstep. “You’re the one I saw that night a couple weeks ago, a-after the show by the d-dressing rooms?”
Erik continued to stare silently as Jekyll caught his breath and a small puddle pooled around his feet.
“Do you remember me?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I just swam across the l-lake. I wasn’t aware there was a lake down here. I don’t remember how I arrived here, really. Can I come in, please? I’m in a terrible bit of trouble.”
Erik stepped aside wordlessly and Jekyll tripped inside, pulling the door closed after himself. As he stood shivering and dripping on the rug, Erik finally spoke up.
“In what sort of trouble are you attempting to involve me?”
“N-No, I wasn’t trying to… well, I… I-I think I killed someone.”
Erik raised a surprised eyebrow behind the mask. He wouldn’t have thought the man had enough courage.
“But it wasn’t like that,” he quickly explained. “I didn’t kill him. Well, I did, but I… I wasn’t myself at the time. I couldn’t control it… him. I… I suppose you’ll see in a minute or so. He’s coming.”
Jekyll laughed hollowly and Erik looked at him in confusion until his face was suddenly contorted with pain and he dropped to the floor. Now Erik watched with a sort of alarmed fascination as Jekyll squirmed and writhed and screamed on his floor. When he finally stilled and stood up once more, his appearance had changed.
The, still vaguely familiar, man now standing in front of Erik was smaller than the lanky Jekyll, and Jekyll’s clothes hung on him oddly. His hair was a bit longer and uncombed, his features were rough, he looked muscled beneath the loose-hanging clothing, and something about him seemed somehow wrong. It was then that Erik realized why the man looked familiar.
“Remember me?” the sceneshifter growled.
“Yes. The last time we met, you nearly landed yourself in my torture chamber then decided to make empty threats to the man who’d just saved you and confessed to putting the trapdoor there himself.”
The sceneshifter’s confident expression had wavered slightly at the words ‘torture chamber’, but he remained otherwise unaffected by Erik’s words. “Empty threats? I just killed a sceneshifter who got on my bad side. Or should I say my good side? Want to know something?” He took a few steps closer to Erik, leaning up toward his face with a crazed glint in his eye. “It felt amazing. I’ve never felt better.”
Erik shoved the man back a few steps. “I regret that you have a problem I cannot help. Did you have a reason for coming down here? I’m almost positive it was you who ran away down to the lowest cellar you could find. Fitting for such a lowly piece of society’s scum. Or did you come only to boast to me about your accomplishments? I assure you I have no interest in the subject.”
“I…” For a moment the man looked confused, struggling for words. “I’m Hyde, by the way. Edward Hyde.”
“A very important piece of information, I’m sure. Again, Monsieur Hyde, why are you here?”
“I… don’t want to get caught,” Hyde mumbled. “I knew you could do something about it. Perhaps the Opera Ghost could take the blame…”
“No,” Erik answered shortly.
“I don’t want to run again. That was too much work. I can’t be forced out of the Opera House. I could stay here…”
“No.”
“You could help me dispose of the body before they…”
“No.”
“There must be something you could…”
“No. I refuse to entangle myself in your affairs. You made the mistake of killing a man and putting yourself in danger of being caught. It is no fault of mine that you are an amateur who can’t cover up his work. You are the one who can deal with the circumstances. Goodbye, Monsieur Hyde.”
Erik picked up the man by his collar and dragged him back outside to the banks of the lake. Hyde protested and squirmed, but soon found himself kneeling in the chilling water of the underground lake. Erik dropped his collar and Hyde forced himself to remain upright and not fall face-first in the water.
“If you come back to my home, you will quickly find yourself cooking in my torture chamber, drowning in the lake, or being strangled by the Punjab lasso. If you are lucky, you may get to choose which of the three you prefer.”
Erik abruptly turned and began walking back to his house.
“Why do we always part with threats?” Hyde called after Erik’s retreating figure. He received no answer and was left alone in the lake, clothes seeping up questionably clean water.
Erik personally hoped he’d never see either of them again.