Just a short fic about one of Erik’s nightmares and Reza being the only one who can fix things. Kay Universe where Erik and Reza both live…set after the events of Phantom. First person Daroga It began with Erik crying, silently with tears dripping down his unmasked cheeks, down into the twisted flesh of the face I had come to love. I had been woken by his feet kicking, no doubt trying to break himself free of bounds that weren’t there and he was murmuring, whimpering in his sleep. I had seen nightmares far worse than these ones back in Persia so I felt no need to wake him, not at first. I propped myself up on my elbow and ran my hand across his bare shoulder. “Erik, it’s all okay, I’m here,” I whispered, hoping my words reached whatever land of nightmares his mind was residing in. My words seemed to offer no comfort, the opposite in fact. He began to squirm in the bed, tossing from side to side and shouting incoherent sentences to names I wasn’t familiar with. I’d spent what felt like a lifetime, a beautiful lifetime, with this man that I loved but there was still so much of his life that I didn’t know. So much I feared I would never know, that he’d never share with me. As his cries and protests got louder I decided I had to wake him, I could leave him to suffer at the hands of his own mind any longer. “Erik!” I called, “Erik, it’s just a nightmare! Wake up,” I called and those golden eyes, the colour of leaves when they lay in the autumn sun from falling from the trees, snapped open. But in the darkness of our room they didn’t see me and Erik shrieked with terror. I wrapped my arms around him, drawing him closer and waiting for his rapid, ragged breathing to slow in vain. He began to cry, cry harder than I had seen him cry in a long, long time. In fact since our days back in Persia, that was the last time I saw Erik cry so bitterly. Those choked, stuttering sobs that seemed to echo around our room. I had never heard such a sound of acute suffering, those cries seemed to hold the weight of the world and all of the pain and cruelness that it had to offer. The sounds were low and as I held Erik closer I could feel the sounds vibrating against my chest, sounds of such fear and despair. Ugly, scared sounds that I wouldn’t have thought Erik’s beautiful voice was capable of making. It was like every extraordinary, exquisite note he knew was being mangled in this throat and spit out. The sobs made me want to throw my hands over my ears and leave Erik to cry alone, I couldn’t listen to these sounds anymore! Sounds of such despair. It seemed all the suffering of the world was capturing in those pitiful sobs. >“Erik, please, I’m here. It’s not real, none of it’s real,” I whispered into his thinning hair but he only sobbed, as though I were not there. Like he hadn’t even woken up. Amongst the noice I heard the familiar creak of our bedroom door, the soft click of the handle being turned and the padding of familiar feet on our carpet. When I raised my head from Erik’s I found Reza standing, half awake in the doorway. His soft curls were made softer by the light from the hallway that obscured his features, save from his large green eyes. Staring, unblinking and wide at me and the man he called Papa in my arms. “Reza, go back to bed,” I whispered, all the while Erik cried into my chest like a mad man. Like a baby in the dead of night, abandoned by all the world. I have no idea how I managed to speak to Reza, the very sounds Erik made seemed to cut off my air supply, as though his Punjab lasso was around my throat. “What’s wrong with Papa?” He whispered. “Nothing, go back to sleep Reza,” “He’s crying,” Reza said simply, walking closer to the bed, “Daddy, he can’t stop,” he murmured. Reza reached the side of his bed and carefully reached out, stroking Erik’s spine as though he were made of ice. As though his touch might melt him. “Papa?” Reza whispered. “He’s been having bad dreams Reza,” I tried to explain. Reza stared up at my curiously, pulling himself onto our bed no matter how much I tried to persuade him otherwise. Erik still cried, his head hidden in my arms. But suddenly another sound filled the room. The sweet, small singing voice of my son. >“Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines Ding ding dong, ding ding dong” As Reza sang, his eye not once meeting mine but remaining all the while on the back of Erik’s head, his great heavy sobs became whimpers. The choking cries that had wracked his body subsided and he began to only murmur and whisper into me. By the time Reza reached the end of his midnight rendition Erik was left with only ragged breathes and hiccuping gently. I sat in stunned silence, unable to speak, I was so mystified by the hold Reza's thin voice seemed to have. “Papa?” Reza whispered, moving closer into him. “I’m so…very sorry,” Erik told us both, as though he were our burden. “It’s not your fault you have bad dreams,” Reza said, looking at me, baffled at the apology. “Causing a scene…Nadir, I’m so sorry,” He whimpered, burning himself further into my arms. I kissed the top of his head gently. I suppose like Reza I was worried I could melt him too. Erik seems so fragile, so gentle in the dead of night. “Would you like me to sing again Papa?” Reza whispered. “If you shouldn’t mind, Mon cher,” “Of course not,” Reza replied, smiling lightly and he began to sing once more. By the time he was done Erik slept once more, his head back on the pillow and his hand holding Reza’s. "How did you know to sing that?” I asked my son, smiling. “Papa told me when he was a little boy his Mama’s friend sang it to him when she heard him crying. He said his tastes were much more refined than a song like that but she sang it anyway and that he loved it, because she couldn’t sing at all but she sang it anyway. To try and comfort him, he supposed,” Reza explained. So much of Erik’s life that I still didn’t know… "Back to bed then,” I whispered, afraid to wake Erik. Reza didn’t move, but gazed down at his Papa instead thoughtfully. “I think I should stay here, in case he has another nightmare,” Reza informed me. I agreed, lying back on my own side of the bed and allowing Reza to sandwich in between us. I’m still not sure why I agreed because it was not something which I normally consented to. Perhaps it was because he had been able to drag Erik back from the darkness, from whatever deep, dark ditch of his mind he had stumbled into when I couldn’t. Perhaps it was the expression in his face as he sang as gently as he could the only lullaby Erik had ever known, had ever heard sang kindly to him. But I think, most of all, I simply couldn’t bear to remove Reza’s hand from inside Erik’s as Erik clung to him like a lifeline.
