laurelin_kit | Fic: "Skin" PotO, R

Title: Skin
Author:

laurelin_kit
Rating: Hard R
Version: Movie

Languidly, Christine stretched, slowly waking from a heavy dream of song, mist and angels. She heard muted splashing from somewhere in the darkness. There were no candles lit as there had been…before. Slowly she adjusted to the darkness, her eyes slowly blinking until her surroundings melted into shades of grey and gold.

Her footsteps made no sound as she arose from bed, feeling the soft skin of her bare legs brushing together. The stone was cold against her feet, surprisingly. It had lost the heat from the power of the Angel's music, and for a fleeting moment, she wondered if she had, terribly, imagined the warmth of the stone. As her frightened mind tumbled over itself in the quick panic, she wondered if her Angel even existed. If he did not, where was she? The fear bubbled up in her chest and threatened to overwhelm her, but the touch of her hand on the velvet curtains anchored her and, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the large, intricate doll of herself, like a frozen doppelganger watching the world with empty intensity. It wasn't a dream.

Her eyes were drawn to the source of the soft sound that had awakened her. Ripples in the murky water below reflected little slivers of soft light on the stone of the grotto. Silhouetted in the glow seeping from beyond the grate was the shape of a man in the water, facing away from her. His head was bent down as his hands slipped through the water around him, wetting his already gleaming skin.

The Angel in the water didn't hear her when she stepped down to the water's edge.

He didn't hear her when she slipped off her dressing gown, nor when she stepped into the water as if in a dream.

He didn't notice until she was right behind him. Until her hand touched his slick, bare back like she was almost afraid of him.

He turned around and reached for her neck, fingers rigid and ready to clench, but he saw her, said her name like a prayer, "Christine," and fell to his knees in the water, wrapping his arms around her waist. His hands moved, were everywhere, clinging as he pressed his face into the rigid lines of her corset. Then he was standing again, lifting her and setting her on an altar, eyes pleading for benediction. Then they were against the slippery metal gate, Christine's arms twining around his neck and his hand, shaking as it pushed her knees apart, touched her once more, ghosting across her soft skin. Christine's eyes were wide with wonder as she looked beyond his head to the dark, dormant organ in his grotto beyond. He worshiped her like a queen, holding her close and crying out softly as they moved together, working through her pain. Christine trembled and quaked, bit her lip so she didn't let him know how badly it burned.

It was different to be adored, to be completely in control and yet be so helpless and afraid and thrilled. And he didn't look at her, he never showed her his face, never kissed her on the mouth, but everywhere else, his lips trailing over her collarbone, her bare arms, the soft skin of her breast. The mask was cold when it brushed against her neck. The corset dug into her hips, biting and bruising, and she knew she'd have to lace it looser tomorrow, and God, he was so much taller than her, and so strong and his shoulders were too broad for her to do more than cling to. She felt her hips crack and ache as she wrapped her legs around his waist, digging her heels into his backside. The portcullis was slippery and cold when she clenched her fingers around the bars to keep him from driving her right through it. He clutched at her like he was drowning, and fear rushed through her like hot oil, pooling at the base of her spine, and she didn't know if it was fear that drove her or the heat of their two bodies, how he was almost trying to pour himself into her soul. It hurt, oh God it hurt, but the ache in her heart for his fear hurt more than the pain of his love. Did love always hurt? She knew he was scared and she loved it, loved the Angel for the fear and wanted to badly to be the one to take it all away, but right now all she could do was push back against him, with the burning turning into something else entirely.

Her muscles screamed, her nerves twitched and she knew something was happening and then suddenly it did, for him, the sound of his hard breathing concentrating into a strangled, hoarse cry as his hips bucked against hers. He stilled, shaking, hands moving to cup the back of her head and her neck. His masked face pressed against the side of her neck, whimpering like a lost child. Christine was stunned, and all she could do was comfort, holding him gently as he shuddered in her embrace. As her hand swept across the planes of his unmasked face, as her fingers collected the sweat from his warm skin, there was a flash of white in the darkness and his mask slipped-

And he left her before she could wonder why, clutching the side of his face as though it burned him. Left alone as he vanished into the shadows of the grotto, Christine picked herself up and made her way back to bed, walking gingerly to ease the pain and hollowness.

So Raoul knows not to say anything when Christine seems to feel no great pain when he sinks into her, and he pretends not to notice how she knows the way to lock her legs around him, and he feigns sleep after so she doesn't know he can hear her crying.