@scngflight liked for an Erik starter!
Erik had been so sure he would die beneath the opera in Paris. For weeks, the Daroga tended to him and despite Erik’s certainty that he would finally greet Death, Nadir’s damned steady care had been enough to not only stabilize him but wean him from the morphine. Once the hallucinations ceased, Erik still felt haunted. Roaming the halls of his opera house, he would expect, or perhaps hope, to see Christine Daae and to know that he had not dismantled the child’s spirit so thoroughly as to keep her from singing. He never saw her. Why should he? In murdering the Comte de Chagny, he ensured that Christine would flee with that little sailor of hers. He did not ever see the Vicomte de Chagny in the Palais Garnier, either. Erik scoured papers for them for a few months - news of a Swedish songbird or disgraced nobles in Le Monde were few. Each lead was a dead-end. After a year, he’d given up. In two, he quit the opera house.
“Don’t fret, Daroga,” Erik said, fastening his traveling cloak, “I shall return to this grand mausoleum to die. You have guaranteed that, unless I run afoul of the dueling sort, that that won’t be for a long time.”
“And where will you go?” Nadir asked. He brushed Erik’s shoulder free of cat hair.
“I will write to you once I have settled. I know your squeamish conscience will not rest until you know I am keeping my nose clean - such as my nose is.”
He wrote to Nadir from London, where Jules Bernard’s second son accompanied him. Antoine Bernard fulfilled much the same role his father before him had - setting up an architectural firm. Erik had to get away from Paris, from music, from his memory and he succeeded wonderfully well in birthing new creations in a foreign land. He built country houses for those seeking escape from the viselike grip of industrialization found in London; he restored architectural gems in the tarnished crown of London. Lucrative as it was busy, the business thrived. Erik rented a lavish flat. He walked the misty streets boldly. He bought a grand piano and filled his home with musical instruments but played none of them. He was tolerated as a continental eccentric, but he had nothing to say to Music.
And when a fire claimed the Royal Opera House a few years later, there was but one man for the job. The city turned to the architect known only as “Erik” and asked if he had experience in music venues. He wrote to Charles Garnier for the first time in many years. Instead of comforting him, Garnier wrote a letter to the city, cementing Erik’s reputation, and lo, the Royal Opera House was redesigned and built. The love for this project flickered like a wood-wick candle in Erik’s heart, crackling, full of life. It did not consume him as his love for the Palais Garnier had. He neither burned for his new project nor crumbled to ash in its wake. A piece of his soul remained forever tethered to the Garnier. It was true: he would return there to die. But he loved his newest creation more devotedly than he had any home he built. At the opening gala, he was introduced as the building’s chief architect and ogled with a modicum of uncomfortable curiosity. After several glasses of champagne, he pulled away from the crowd for a moment of solitude. A reverent hand touched the stones. Erik’s rigid posture relaxed. He’d been offered a box for the Opera’s first season, which he accepted. Now, though, as he wandered away from prying eyes, he joked internally that he could always give this place the ghost it deserved, perhaps not a menacing phantom, but something more benevolent: the kind of ghost that returned lost sheet music and played harmless pranks. The Royal Opera House had its share of secret passages, but none so extensive as th labyrinth he concocted for the Garnier. It would be a challenge and he had a reputation here and-
The light sound of singing reverberated from down the hall. Cherubic, it drew Erik’s attention. It was a child and then a second -
“Mama is going to worry if we don’t go back...”
He followed their hushed bickering when he heard the girl say they were lost. They’d wandered from the party. What sort of parent brought children to a gala like this one? When he found the parents, Erik would have choice words for them... He entered the cavernous rehearsal space. The children startled but relaxed when his exposed lips curled to a gentle smile.
“You have an excellent voice, mademoiselle,” he said. “And you, monsieur, are quite the responsible young gentleman. Do you need help finding your way back to your mama?”