charleygirl | Fic | Phantom of the Opera

Title: The BFF of the Opera
Author: charleygirl
Word Count: 2099
Rating: G
Genre: Humour
Characters Involved: Christine Daae, Erik the Phantom, Raoul de Chagny
Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera is the creation of Gaston Leroux but probably these days copyright to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Summary: Raoul and Erik friends? It could happen...
Author's Note: Utter silliness, following my other daft Phantom fic A Change Is As Good As A Rest. I was dared to write this by

litlover12, and as usual I blame John Owen-Jones and Killian Donnelly. :)

THE BFF OF THE OPERA

“Well? What do you think?”

Christine waited expectantly, hands clasped and eyes wide, as Erik opened the box. She’d done her best to make it pretty, taking ages to tuck in the corners of the brightly-coloured paper so that they were just right, and decorating it with nearly a yard of ribbon that she pilfered from Madame Michon’s work basket when the wardrobe mistress wasn’t looking. The lid open, Erik stared at the contents for some moments, the visible side of his face as blank as the mask, and she wondered whether she’d gone overboard with the glitter and sequins.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked when he said nothing, feeling her excitement deflate like a punctured balloon.

He tilted his head slightly, frowning. “It’s hard to tell,” he said at last. “What exactly is it?”

Christine almost stamped her foot, unable to believe that the man who claimed he was a genius could be so obtuse. “It’s a birthday cake! Surely you must have seen one before?”

“The circumstances of my birth were hardly a cause for celebration,” Erik replied, his misshapen lip curling. “My mother used to fall to her knees and beg God to tell her what she’d done so wrong to deserve a monster for a son.” He took a deep breath, making a valiant effort to control his rising voice and head the impending ‘the world showed no compassion to me’ rant off at the pass. “Anyway, it’s not my birthday.”

“I know,” she said, huffing and folding her arms, “but you wouldn’t tell me when it was, so I decided that I would make it today. I thought you would be pleased – I know the mixture was a bit thick and it didn’t really rise properly, but I iced it myself and it has candles and everything! The writing is a bit wonky, and I made a bit of a mess of ‘birthday’ so that it looks more like ‘bithday’, but - ”

“Christine.” Erik cut across her babbling with that tone she knew so well from their lessons; one word from her Angel of Music was enough to make her fall immediately silent. She glanced hesitantly up at him through her hair, expecting a reprimand, only to find that there was now a smile turning up the corner of his mouth that was not hidden by his mask. “You made this for me?” he asked.

She nodded, relief flooding her, and she felt quite light-headed all of a sudden. “You like it?”

“Yes.” Reaching out a hand to her, he pulled her close and daringly dropped a kiss on her cheek. Unprepared, Christine blushed; it was a strange sensation, but not entirely unpleasant. “I even like the icing,” he added, “though it looks more like ‘birthdog’ to me.”

Christine peered at the cake as best she could without having to leave the rather nice position she was currently in, snuggled up against his chest. “Are you sure? I thought - ”

The jangling of the doorbell, the one that she had insisted Erik install so that when she came to visit she would not be met with an angry Phantom of the Opera in full flight because she had interrupted his composing, made them both jump.

“Who could that be?” she wondered. “Have you invited anyone else?”

Erik quirked his one eyebrow. “Unlikely, as I have no friends and only discovered it was my birthday five minutes ago.” He let go of her, moving across the lair to pull a lever and raise the portcullis. The gears squeaked and groaned as they moved and he cringed at the assault upon his ears. “Remind me to oil that.”

A moment later a very wet and bedraggled figure clutching a bottle of vintage champagne in one hand and a beribboned box in the other stumbled through the forest of candelabra. “You need to get another boat,” it declared breathlessly, “That water is bloody cold.”

“Raoul!” Christine exclaimed in surprise, recognising the dripping vision. “What on Earth are you doing here?”

Her fiancé’s response was to shake himself like a dog, spraying freezing water all over her, and then ignore her completely, turning instead to Erik with a beaming smile. “Mon ami!” he cried, making an attempt to slap the rather nonplussed Phantom on the back before he remembered that his hands were full. “Mate! Buddy! Bosom pal! Happy Birthday!”

Erik ducked out of the way before the large bottle of Moët et Chandon could whack him over the head. “Thank you, de Chagny.”

“Hope you like fizz, BFF,” Raoul said, waving it at a dangerous angle, “I... liberated it from the Pater’s cellars. Very good year.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” the Phantom told him dryly.

The vicomte grinned. “He’ll never notice – the old soak only cares about his cognac.” He glanced across the lair and nodded absently. “Hello, Christine. So – any plans for your big day, GBFF?”

“Excuse me,” said Christine before Erik could open his mouth, “What is a ‘BFF’?”

“‘Best Friend Forever’,” Raoul clarified, putting down his burdens on the organ and wrapping an arm around Erik’s shoulders, squeezing him in what was evidently meant to be a manly fashion. The Phantom squirmed. “Right mate?”

“Stop calling me ‘mate’,” Erik ordered in a tone that could have frozen half the underground lake. “And don’t do that!” he added when Raoul laughed and ruffled his hair. Cursing, he desperately straightened his wig in an attempt to maintain his dignity. “Some of us, if you recall, were not blessed by Mother Nature.”

“He always says that,” Raoul told Christine brightly. “Don’t you, buddy?”

“You can stop calling me ‘buddy’, too,” Erik said.

The little diva wasn’t listening, still trying to work out the acronyms. “So a ‘GBFF’ is...?”

Raoul rolled his eyes. “‘Greatest Bestest Friend Forever’ of course,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, and squeezed Erik again. “I love this guy.”

The Phantom cleared his throat loudly and slipped out of the vicomte’s grasp. “Yes, well, thank you for dropping by, Monsieur - ”

“Have you two been spending time together? Behind my back?” Christine asked, all the pieces finally slotting into place. They both looked at her in surprise.

“I don’t know why you’re so shocked, Christine,” Raoul said, and Erik nodded. “You were the one who wanted us to bond!”

“Precisely,” the Phantom agreed, “What else were we to do when you and Meg went out on the town and left us to our own devices?”

“I don’t know! Have a quiet drink, perhaps, talk out some of your aggression and jealousy?” Christine cried, waving her arms because she felt it was an arm-waving moment. For added effect, she tossed her hair too. “How often have you been seeing one another?”

The pair looked slightly shifty. Exchanging a glance with his rival, Raoul said, “Um... every other Friday. And... sometimes Saturday mornings, too, if there’s rugby on.”

Christine stared, bosom heaving prettily. “You told me that your mother was making you attend her card parties because she had one too many ladies and wanted to make the numbers even! And you - !” she added, turning on Erik, “When I suggested we have an extra voice lesson you were adamant that the damp down here would give me a cold, and said that the rat catcher was sick so you were batting the horrible creatures away with a tennis racquet! How could you both lie to me? How could you?”

They looked at each other again. “We knew you wouldn’t approve,” said Erik.

“Of course I don’t approve!” she shrieked, stamping her foot and stubbing her toe on the gondola. “I think it’s the worst idea in the world! And I wish you wouldn’t leave that thing lying around in the middle of the room!!”

“That thing is the result of months of labour,” the Phantom informed her stiffly, bending down to examine the hull of the little craft. “Would you rather I brought you across the lake in some common, unromantic old rowing boat?”

“She hasn’t damaged it, has she?” Raoul asked anxiously, completely disregarding his limping fiancée.

“No, no, nothing a lick of paint won’t put right.” Erik patted the gondola in relief.

“This has to stop,” Christine announced, practically circling her arms like a windmill and trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her foot. “Right now. You two are supposed to be rivals for my affections - you hate each other! You,” she said, pointing at Erik, “are so insanely jealous that you want to kill him! And you,” Raoul this time “will do anything to bring him to justice! That’s the story!”

Raoul looked at Erik. Erik looked back.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, does it?” the vicomte asked. “Because I have to tell you, this man can clean up at pool – won us nearly seven hundred francs the other night.”

“And Monsieur de Chagny’s rendition of My Way is not entirely unpleasant to the ear as long as enough alcohol has been imbibed beforehand,” said Erik, earning himself an ‘Oh, you!’ from Raoul and yet another squeeze. The Phantom glared at him and tried to smooth the crumpled material of his jacket.

“That is not how it’s supposed to be!” Christine exclaimed. “You’ve detested each other for over twenty-five years – at the Christmas party we always have to put you at opposite ends of the table, hide the steak knives and remove Erik’s lasso at the door. You once had a stand up row over which of you got to bring me my slippers after a performance! I don’t... you’re meant to want to spend time with me, not with each other!”

Now she had their attention. Two pairs of eyes, one blue, one multicoloured, blinked at her. Erik smiled slyly. “Christine, are you jealous?”

“I... you...” She stammered, not knowing what to say. “I don’t...”

“I think you are. In fact, I can almost see you turning green. Don’t you think so?” he asked Raoul.

The vicomte nodded. “Absolutely. Any greener and she could audition for the lead in Wicked.”

“You... you... you are two of the most odious men I have ever met!” Christine screamed. “I wish I’d never baked that cake now – I hope you both choke on it!” Turning on her heel, she hobbled off towards the exit that didn’t involve negotiating the lake, wishing that there was a door she could slam dramatically behind her.

“Do you think we upset her?” Raoul asked after a few minutes of silence in which the steady dripping of water somewhere nearby was punctuated by the sound of Christine tripping over her skirts and cursing her way up the stairs.

Erik shrugged. “No idea. I’ve never understood women.”

They waited a bit longer, awkwardly twiddling their thumbs, until at last the vicomte cracked, running over to the organ and snatching up the brightly-wrapped box he’d brought with him. “She’ll come back, she always does. Open your present.”

“Three gifts in one day. That’s more than I’ve received in a lifetime,” Erik said, visibly touched. He brushed away a tear.

Raoul was practically bouncing up and down. “Open it, open it...!”

“Oh, all right.” The Phantom ripped off the paper, and burst out laughing when he found the slim plastic case underneath. “I should have guessed.”

“I assume that Monsieur le Phantom, Angel of Music, is not afraid to play me at Guitar Hero?” Raoul enquired with a grin.

Erik drew himself up to his full, impressive, height, looming over the younger man in what he hoped was a suitably intimidating manner. “You just bring it on,” he told the vicomte in that particular tone he usually reserved for threatening the managers. “I’ll wipe the floor with you.”

“Excellent. Do you want the Gibson Les Paul or the ‘Genericaster’?”

“Whichever one is the most stylish, naturally. I have a reputation to maintain.” As Raoul bustled about unpacking the game, Erik stood for a few moments, gazing off into the tunnel down which Christine had disappeared. “Perhaps one of us should go after her,” he said.

“What for? She left the cake,” Raoul told him. “Looks like chocolate cake - ” He stuck a finger into the sponge and licked it. “Yep, definitely chocolate. I think we have everything we need, don’t you?”

The Phantom still stared into the darkness indecisively, but at the sound of a champagne cork popping behind him, he turned. “Guitar Hero, booze and chocolate cake? Hell, yeah.”