Phantom of the Opera One Shot Collection

A potent sense of expectation marked the next few days. Erik expected Sherlock to get frustrated and drop his case, and I expected to meet with Sherlock again and indulge in the intimacy of our last encounter.

 To my dismay, this never occurred. I met with Sherlock a handful of times, yet he was aloof and excused himself from my presence as soon as possible.

 One idea accounted for all this. He avoided me out of fear. He knew the sparks between us were too intense and, if pursued, might kindle into a furious blaze.

 The man was a confirmed bachelor by all accounts, not taking interest in any particular woman, and I was the foolish one who believed she could change him.

 In other news, Erik's mood didn't alter over the coming days. He remained testy, often snapping at me. If I had anywhere else to stay, I would have considered abandoning him until he got his act together.

 In short, Erik and I were not enjoying the friendly business relationship we had known for many months now. He was stressed, I knew, but there was only so much I could tolerate.

 And, two or three days after Sherlock and I had embarked on our walk, I reached my breaking point.

 I had entered the main portion of the lair, intent on asking Erik some question about delivering his letters, only to find the entire room a mess. Manuscript papers were scattered all about the floor, and Erik tossed yet another composition into the hoard when the ink was barely dry.

 As for the ink itself, his long, boney fingers were smeared in it, and observing one of the pages fluttering to the ground, I noticed that the scribbling was barely more than some scrawled-out lines. Certainly not the concise, ordered music notes Erik usually drew so expertly.

 Erik must have heard my approaching footsteps, yet his focus didn't stray from slashing his pen across more paper.

 "It'd do you best not to come in here, Y/n," he growled, "I guarantee my temper will get the better of me."

 At his harsh tone, the question I'd come to ask fled my memory. I was on the verge of retreating to my room and hiding away until a more benevolent mood found Erik, but his shout arrested me where I stood.

 "Damn it!"

 He flung his pen on the ground, and the remaining ink splattered over a mountain of discarded papers.

 "What is it?" I asked, reverting to the only polite words I could scrounge up in my fear.

 "I broke the pen!" He gripped his slender wrist and hunched over the pipe organ like a wounded animal. "I wrote too fast, and now, all I have to show for it are terrible compositions, a broken pen, and an aching wrist!"

 Finally, he turned around, and his glare burned into my soul.

 "Why are you just standing there? What is it you want?"

 Erik had never turned such a brutish exterior against me, and my heart sank with dread. This was exactly the confrontation I'd been looking to avoid.

 "I–I'll just go." I muttered.

 Without looking over my shoulder, I walked backwards, aiming to disappear in the doorway and scurry back to my room.

 The world flipped upside down, and the floor beneath me shifted. The sole of my shoe had settled on one of his papers, which flew out from beneath me. Flailing my arms in a futile effort to break my fall, I landed on my tailbone with a painful thud. Tears singed my eyelashes, as I clamped down on my lower lip.

 Erik's hostile demeanor faltered, and I gaped at the sudden change across his features. In two swift, graceful strides, he stepped toward me and reached out a hand to help me up.