Phantom Choices

by ~ShadowDrakkon

The Phantom of the Opera

This story is mainly based on a date between Erik, the Phantom; and Chelsey. Will Erik have enough time to give Chelsey a present before the night ends...or will Chelsey take down Erik for taking Raoul on a date? Pairing is ErikXChelsey obviously, Susan Kay book elements, Gaston Leroux book elements. This is a oneshot.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera or the characters of this story. Also...I do not own "Requiem Mask".

I now present..."Phantom Choices"!!

NOTE I: Modern day setting in Paris.

NOTE II: If anyone knows how to spell "rivoli" from "Rue de Rivoli", please tell me!! Because I am using it in this oneshot.
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Phantom Choices

  After a while from leaving home to go to a bookstore, Chelsey wandered the dark streets of the beautiful city of Paris. It was raining heavily on the edges of the "Rue de Rivoli(?)", when even raindrops the size of halfdollars were slamming the ground. With the rain flowing like a stream into the side gutters, Chelsey stepped onto a puddle and her clothing became soaked completely. She had no umbrella to protect her this dark night...and she had no accompanyment along with her.

(No Point of View)

  "This is such a dark day, I wish it was over." Chelsey muttered under her breath in slight anger. The clouds were hanging low, a dull and dark sky had long approached the city. The rain plunked on her forehead as she began running through, leading herself to the subway for overhead protection from the rain. Chelsey was then about to wait out the storm with great anticipation until she heard footsteps creep up behind her.
  She turned abruptly and fell to the cold tiles below her feet. "Don't scare me like that, Erik! You know I get very frightened when you sneak up on me." Chelsey noted the dark umbrella in Erik's skeleton-like hands and asked, "Do you think I could get to the bookstore? With your umbrella, you should be able to get me across the bridge."
  He nods slowly, taking Chelsey under the dark umbrella, he escapes the subway in an abrupt movement to cross the bridge. Once outside in the rain, he quickly dashes from one sidewalk to another faster than many times before.
  "I know you're prone to talking...but why are you being silent?" Chelsey had no clue why Erik was this silent today. She watched his shoulder as he was walking under the umbrella, "And where's Mephistopheles?"
  Silence.
  This went on for moments on end until they reached the library. But of course, Chelsey just had to invite Erik in so he wouldn't be out in the rain at almost nine at night. Taking the umbrella and folding it, he walks inside and stays near the door. Disappearing soon after, Chelsey never noticed he was gone from sight.
  At the counter, checking out new books and putting back old ones, she heard footsteps behind her again...she refused to turn around this time until she was about done with checking out the books. "Erik!!"
  "Quiet, Chelsey...none must know of my presence."
  "Sorry, Erik...just don't do that to me--"-sigh-"--you know I don't like being scared, I told you that." she eventually turned to leave Erik so suddenly, but he quickly came up behind her.
  "May I walk you back home?"
  "Um...that's kind of odd for you to say...but...sure." Chelsey knew it wasn't like Erik to say that. He must have had something up his sleeves that he was most likely ready to frighten the younger female beside him. She just had that feeling.
  "So...why did you stay silent earlier?" Chelsey asked in a curious glance at Erik, "And where is Mephistopheles? You always go somewhere with him." Both Erik and she were now walking to her apartment in deep Paris. The rain was still splashing like the drops of a waterfall in Niagra Falls, but Chelsey was safe under Erik's black umbrella.
  "To answer both questions, Mephistopheles was very busily playing around in his cage when Erik came in to see him...and he clipped on Erik's mouth. So Erik left him at home. Besides, he is not menacing enough to stick around when lurking in the shadows."
  "Does he need a mask and a black coat?" Chelsey teased happily, rushing inside the apartment complex with Erik and his umbrella. "I'm only kidding, Erik. It's just a rhetorical question."
  He rolls his dark eyes as he then searched the room with great anticipation in which Thanh was there or not. He whispers to Chelsey but it ends up being a massive stutter instead starting with, "I--I...I--I--"
  "Stop stuttering Erik, I know my house is made of pickles."
  "Holy flying sheep in a shipwreck!! You read Erik's mind!" he called abruptly, placing the wet umbrella in a small cylindrical holder. He kept on the jacket and elongated fedora, and Chelsey asked to Erik this.
  "I was only kidding...well since you're here, would Erik just like to stay awhile? I'm guessing Erik and Christine aren't working out between themselves. It should be better to stay here tonight. We could do alot of things together." Chelsey concluded with a faint smirk of joyousness. She felt that if Erik was to say he would have to be here for awhile, he would think of something to along at. But of course, happiness shouldn't always be the direct approach.
  He could never say it was true enough; but as always, it was Erik who made the strange decisions that were never really true. He stared into another direction, Chelsey waved a hand over his eyes but they were punjabbed.
  "Erik! I just ask a simple question and you punjab me. What is wrong with you today?"
  "Erik would love to be with you this most joyous of nights."
  "This isn't a joyous night. It's raining, Erik, raining! Not even close." she stammered, walking to behind the counter of the living room. "You do know that you don't have to wear a raincoat and a scary fedora right?"
  Without paying much attention to the surroundings of the condo itself, Erik just absentmindedly took a seat in a soft chair in the living room. "Are you even listening to me, Erik?"
  "Erik is listening!" he shouted out of nowhere about one minute later, Chelsey nodded her head in no relief. She paced around the living room, occasionally turning to the window, and then moving on.

(Chelsey)

  I don't know what to do with Erik; he's only an acceptional person to be with when he's acting like he was before. But I think there might be something wrong with him, I mean...he never goes anywhere without little Mephistopheles and now he's not worried about getting him at all. I need to investigate this happening.
  When I walk into the living room it appears as if he just left without his umbrella, but I look closer and he appears from under the sofa. How the heck does he do that?!, I thought about it...and just stopped when he grabbed hold of me like a grizzly bear to an unarmed hunter. I was almost as dumbfounded as everyone else who would say he was not pretty at all...not to offend Erik by just saying he was quite ugly with that pale yellow-green face.
  I sighed.
  "Okay, Erik, you found me. Now please let me go." he loosened his grip on my shoulders and I slid right out. "This night isn't very well going according to plan. But I have something you would like. Come into my room in fifteen minutes, and you'll be amazed."

  After the minutes passed on by, Erik appeared into the room like a swift black wind and stood at the door. "I was, uh...sculpting this one day during the summer and, uh...I made it for, uh...Raoul."
  "You mean Erik's nemisis Raoul?! That no good undertaker of Christine?!"
  "But listen. I made this for him, but I want to give it to you."
  "Holy flying sheep in a shipwreck! It's flying sheep in a shipwreck!" Erik must be going insane when I heard him talk about flying sheep in a shipwreck. Raoul first mentioned that, and now Erik is saying it too. What's going on with them?
  I immediatly gave Erik a shipwreck hang-on-the-wall bottle with it's own little flying sheep. Besides, who more deserves flying sheep than Raoul? Yeah, that's right...Erik.
  When I went around my room, I had immediatly rushed out the door of my room for my computer. I never heard him follow, but...well, he didn't. I gave myself a sigh of relief when I turned, and continued on. I set myself down in one of the closer chairs and opened my laptop computer, calling Erik from afar. "Erik, do you want to see something?"
  "I think the flying sheep in a shipwreck is good enough. But what is it?" Erik sat down beside me and I glanced over quickly and back. I turned the laptop into the other direction so he could see it. Typing in a few keywords, a website pops up and I hear he slams his head on the table. "You ARE kidding, right?"
  I smirked happily in a small gesture. I see he nods his head in shame, speaking to himself in agony. "This isn't bad. But look. All I have to do is make a pair for you and see if it fits." I type our friends names; Raoul, Christine, Erik, Nadir, Chelsey, and Alex and the pairings turned out to be like this. I never read over them until a moment later.

-Chelsey and Nadir
-Alex and Christine
-and...Erik and Raoul?!

  What?! I got posed up with the Persian?! Not cool! I mean, I do look pretty, but with a guy who's not from this country? Let alone the whole continent of Europe...and Christine's gonna get it being paired with my Alex. And Erik is with...oh, heck no. He's gotten paired with Raoul de Chagny? He's probably a transvestite or something. I decided not to show Erik the pairs until he got what was going on with the dating site.
  "Well," I whispered, "who's to say Erik is a perfect match with Raoul anyway?" I laughed maniacally and Erik grabbed my shoulders.
  "Listen, Chelsey, I think there's something on that screen that I need to see. Turn around the computer at once." I hesitantly showed him the screen of the computer...he smashed the screen. "I am paired with that swindler who stole me Christine? How dare they! They have a bone to pick with Erik, don't they?"
  "This can't be right. I put in our names and they were all together. Now you're stuck with Raoul and I'm with Nadir?! Oh this night can't ever get worse." I bowed my head in shame, and Erik just laid his head on the table, unmoving for over an hour. At least Erik and Raoul wasn't as bad as me and Nadir.
  I was just lying on the sofa for the hour, contemplating what would happen if Nadir and I had gone on a date instead of Erik and I. I was also trying to get it from my mind without doing a very good job at it.
  As long as I stared at the ceiling, I'll never know. Erik came up to the sofa and stared down at me, watching closely as I turned to see the window covered in rain. No the rain did never cease until early that morning.

  I almost fell asleep when Erik returned from somewhere (he never told me a thing about where). I hoisted my head from the comfortable pillows and looked in the general direction of Erik as he stepped through the doorway. Sneaking up to the kitchen table, he placed a box on it and left for the sofa. Before he even reached here, I asked blindsightedly of what the box was. He just glares at me...the brilliant yellow eyes placed so cleverly at me as I craned myself from the sofa. He just stared at me like nothing happened.
  "Chelsey," he said, "I don't want to date Raoul. I could never say I loved him, even it was for a short time...I love you more than him... . I proved it so by...well..." He immediatly stepped up into the dark room and turned to the table. He took the box into his bony hands and gave it to me. As I reached for it, Erik sat once more down on the sofa.
  Both of us heard the crackle of thunder and the flash of lightning outside the window, and I jumped in being startled. I hesitantly opened the box and I saw little fluffy ears stretch out. "You gave me Mephistopheles?"
  He nodded in disagreement, "No. I gave you another bunny to match with Mephistopheles, I even named her."
  "Well, aren't you going to tell me the name? Just to see if I like it?"
  "Her name is Eris. Named after the Greek goddess of discord, Eris is a good little bunny and won't bite people...or monsters."
  "That's so sweet! I thought you were going to name her Aphrodite or Venus. I guess not. Anyway, thanks Erik, you're so thoughtful. What made you want to give me a bunny rabbit?"
  "I had a feeling you wouldn't enjoy being around me when the website said I loved Raoul, but that couldn't do. To show I still loved--wait a flying note! I've already mentioned this." Erik stammered around the room and took out another box. "Erik says 'Eris should meet Mephistopheles soon."
  I almost gasped in shock until I saw little Mephistopheles jump onto the top of the sofa. Hopping onto my lap with Eris, I heard Erik leave suddenly. "Where are you going now? You just came back from...wherever you went. Where exactly did you go anyway?"
  "Erik is going because it is getting quite late for Chelsey. It is almost eleven. Chelsey went to the subway at about nine and to the library at nine fourty with Erik. Chelsey then came here about fifteen minutes later and Erik had gone to the pet store with little Mephistopheles and came back thirteen minutes after with Eris. Erik was here over an hour and a half and Chelsey must sleep."
  Here we go again with the third-person. "Well, why aren't you taking Mephistopheles with you?"
  "He seems attracted to Eris. Oh, and please mind to see Raoul about the dating?...I don't want to see him myself."
  "Don't you mean, 'please don't mind about seeing Raoul about the dating fiasco?' "
  "Forget it. And adieu, Mademoiselle, I shall go unspoken of our...fiasco tonight. I truly don't want Christine to know anything about it." He leaves suddenly and I whisper carefully to myself.
  "Oh, I'll tell Christine about it." I laughed maniacally and began coughing madly. "This day never got better, did it?"