[31.00//Locked to Christine]
Haven't seen you for a few days. All's clear on this end.
Respond to this so I know you've not run into trouble, hm? There are a lot of newcomers and not all of them are trustworthy.
Respond to this so I know you've not run into trouble, hm? There are a lot of newcomers and not all of them are trustworthy.
When he started this he'd have agreed without a second thought, but it's not second thoughts that make his eyes flash now. No, it's his first reaction, his gut reaction.
He grabs her by the arm and hauls her close, heedless of his own strength. His voice by contrast is low and steady. This is a dangerous sign.]
Just a whore.
I saw your dead body and I took on a nine-foot tall walking monstrosity of death and decay because he'd killed you. I slit his foul belly open before he sliced me in half. I died because he DARED to touch you.
I told you everything about me. I told you about my parents, about my childhood, about where I learned to be what I am. Things I've never told or had reason to explain to anyone.
I trusted YOU for backup. I keep in touch with YOU when there's danger afoot. Even though you're not capable and you're not a killer, because I know YOU will stop at nothing to aid me, and you can get the resources needed to do so, where one of the other killers on this boat might let me rot, because they don't give a damn.
And you think you're just a whore to me. Because I don't act like something I never told you I was and never pretended to be.
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And yet something about his words rings true, and it only takes one glance into Erol's eyes, one moment to really feel his powerful grip on her arm, to realise that he actually means what he says. How odd.
One part of Erol's speech sticks out to her. He had died for her, tried to kill for her, had taken on that monstrosity to avenge her death. In a strange way, it's touching, almost romantic, in a gothic way. It's impossible for her not to think of fairy tales, of dashing princes slaying monsters for their princesses.
No, focus. This is quite possibly the worst time to be thinking of stories.
Part of her - quite a substantial part - wants to apologize and beg for forgiveness, but her common sense argues that she shouldn't apologize for expecting what anyone with her upbringing would expect. Is it such a big expectation? She would do anything for him, absolutely anything. What do those others give him that she cannot? Is there something wrong with her, has she been doing something awful without realising it?]
Where... where I live, things very different. I tell you that.
[She's going to have to phrase this very carefully, taking into account Erol's obvious anger, and how own habit of saying precisely the wrong thing.]
I brought up to expect fidelity. It just how things done. There mistresses, yes, but...
[But not when the sex is as good as theirs.]
I... I not know anything else. If that not how you do things, then I try to accept that, but it not be easy.
[Like it isn't easy for him to reign himself in around her. Surely he'll be able to understand this, realise why she reacts the way she does to betrayal! And by God, the look she's sending his way now is not pleading, not one tiny bit.]
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But their world backgrounds weren’t really at issue here, were they.]
Things aren’t so damn different where I come from either. I just...
[Just what? Never had anyone ask it of you? Never had a non-dysfunctional example to work from, insert sob story here? Never had anyone around long enough after they got a taste of what he was about to start expecting this shit?
He sure as hell didn’t want it. Erol wasn’t someone who could be tied down, who would ever let the yoke of domesticity settle on his shoulders. Forget it. If that’s what she was after -
But somewhere along the line, between toying with her and encouraging her to give him the reactions he found pleasing, she’d gotten the impression she could expect that. Was this his fault, for treating her gentle, giving her the wrong impression?
He could remedy that right now. Beat the hell out of her. Leave her bloodied and sobbing...
The idea just wasn’t as appealing as it should have been. He wanted her trusting touch, her adoring gaze, the way she hung on his every movement. That wasn’t something he could get just anywhere, and by letting himself like what she had to offer he’d limited his own options. Presuming he wanted to keep that, and he did
Dammit.]
I’m the wrong sort of person to do that. Don’t understand it, never will.
Besides. You wouldn’t thank me for keeping myself only to you. You like being in one piece, yes?
[Roughly he released her, ignored the marks he left. Her fault for angering him. And she got off lucky, as always.]
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As for his words... Oh, how could she explain to him that yes, she loved being in one piece, but she was already broken, in so much pain from her poor broken heart.
Such a silly girl, with such silly notions.]
I not been whole for long time.
[Shattered soul, broken heart, mangled mind... on occasion, all three at once. She realises this isn't what Erol means, but she hadn't been able to stop the words spilling out anyway.]
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“Not whole,” she said. She wasn’t cut, her bones weren’t broken, hell nothing was even dislocated. He’d treated her better than he’d treated anyone in his life, and she complained she wasn’t whole?
Idiot, innocent little girl had no fucking idea, did she.
Time to show her wreck those good looks make her cry and bleed
Gnnnnn NO. No dammit. He liked her this way, he’d worked hard for this, he WASN’T going to throw away the rush he got from her complete and utter adoration by giving in to temptations he could fill elsewhere. Even if elsewhere was difficult to come by these days - even if it made him ITCH...
Violence hung in his eyes as he forced himself to step away from her. Mar dammit. Mar dammit Mardammit mardammit. It was like trying to make a Swiper leave a bleating Yakkow calf on the field. Just a little taste~ it’ll scream so nice
He took a deep breath, forced himself to take it slow. Need and anger and pain burned and twisted inside, and normally he would revel in setting it free, but this time he wrapped it up tight and promised it free rein later.
Later.]
In what sense.
[Stalking away to take a seat, he leaned back and closed his eyes, willing a superhuman amount of patience should she say anything that tempted him further. Bleat a little more, yakkow...]
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You remember I tell you about Erik?
[Damn it, how does she manage to land herself in these situations? True, Erol deserves to know about her past after revealing his own, but the more she reflects on her mistakes, the more foolish they seem, until she grabs at any excuse not to tell anyone about them. The only person who really knew anything was Amaria, and Christine had only told her because she knew Amaria wouldn't call her on those mistakes.
Now, she would have to think of a good way of explaining the whole mess to Erol, and quickly.]
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ERIK. He knew the name, recalled it as someone Christine was afraid of. But why and what the story was, he didn’t know and never cared to ask.]
He hurt you?
[Amber eyes shone almost ruddy in the warm light of Christine’s room, as though tinted by his bloodthirst. It was clear he’d rip the man to pieces at the slightest opportunity if he had, and neither hell nor high water could get in his way.
He’s less angry at something specific than he is merely angry, and Mar help whatever catches his attention as a suitable objective. His mood switched targets from Christine herself to her potential tormentor with unnerving speed and complete single-mindedness.]
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[Hesitance creeps into her tone. Christine still wasn't sure what exactly she felt towards Erik, and were he to appear on the ship, a wrong word now could condemn him to a terrible fate. Yet on the other hand, Erol deserved the truth.]
For nine years, he make me think he an angel. He deceive me and betray me and... he control me. I had do whatever he say.
[Christine had done a lot of thinking in the time since coming to the ship, and she had come to wonder just how much of her life at the Opera Populaire had been controlled by Erik. How much - if any - free will had she had?]
I like... a pet, almost. A project. That not so bad - in a way, he help - but...
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She had been Erik’s pet project, then. Much as she was Erol’s now. But Erik had told her he was an angel, while Erol had never claimed to be anything but the opposite.
Interesting.
Nine years, eh. So she would have been... damn, young. Even Erol didn’t start in on them that young. The man was sick, even by the elf’s standards. Psychological games on a 7-year-old girl. Erol had few lines of age he wouldn’t cross (mostly related to whether he actually found them attractive or not) and even less sense of how to behave appropriately around children, but targeting a child that young with mental brainwashing?
It was less that Erol had moral qualms about it and more that he didn’t see the point in embarking on an obsession that would take so long to show results he could appreciate. That kind of focus on one person for so long spoke of sickness even he could recognize.
Excess energy diverted towards fitting this into his psychological profile of her, the worst edge of tension slipped from his arms and shoulders, though he remained visibly high-strung even as he closed his eyes and leaned back. He wanted to hear her voice as she spoke, the stress and nervousness and self-consciousness as she revealed herself to him. It was like a delicate wine.]
Go on. What did he... “help” you with.
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[Which was exactly why she can't bring herself to completely hate Erik. Without him, she would never have been reunited with Raoul, never have become prima donna, never have accomplished what her father would have expected of her. Yes, she owed Erik a great deal, and she resented that fact - or, rather, she resented what he expected in return, and her own weakness in the face of it.]
That good, in way, but... he ask so much.
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What did he demand in return for helping you hone that voice of yours.
[The anger still churns impatiently, but he has it focused elsewhere now. Go on, chew on those bones, leave the calf to me, yes? She's not bleating quite so much anymore...]
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[So he'd never specifically said that, but dumb though Christine may occasionally be, even she can glimpse a man's intentions when he has life-size figure of her in a wedding dress.]
And I leave everyone, that I give up everything but him and music. That I give up Raoul.
[Without realising it, one hand goes to where her engagement ring would rest on its chain, had Erik not stolen it.]
I belong to him.
[Almost in a very physical way. Christine fails to repress a small shudder as she once again remembers just how easy it would have been for Erik to rape her the night he kidnapped her.]
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He beckons her close with two fingers. Erol might be dangerous, with anger and violence lying just beneath the surface, but damn if it wasn't more dangerous not to do what he said...]
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[He pulls her close and leans her up against him, wraps an arm around her possessively.]
Anyone else tries to stake a damn claim on you I'll have their skin for boot leather. Don't care if they were there first or not. Anyone HURTS you, anyone but me, I'll make them eat their own ankle joints one tiny bone at a time.
Understand?
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[She rests her head on Erol's shoulder, torn between joy and horror.
Horror because she has no doubt that Erol will carry out his promise and then some, should anyone make the mistake of trying anything with her. Christine fears both for whoever crosses him, and for Erol himself. Who knows what the captain will do to him next? What if he's killed, and the system doesn't bring him back.
But she also feels joy, because Erol's claim strenghtens her tentative belief that she really does mean somegthing to him, that he will fight for her. The fact that she is in his arms again might even mean that he has forgiven her, or is beginning to. Christine has, of course, already forgiven him. How could she not? Erol is the center of her world, her life, her love. Without him... well, she doesn't want to think about what would happen to her if she didn't have Erol.
A gentle smile pulls at her lips, and she murmurs the words at the fore of her mind against Erol's neck, without quite meaning to, but not midning that they escaped, either.]
I love you.
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