#{ chase Crystal around because he's so obsessively infatuated with her. So he would likely just be used as some kind of... something. }

[chronosbled]

{ My brain still can’t believe that I created a Miraculous Ladybug!AU for Dickson out of all the muses that I have... I still blame Serin for pointing out how similar Dickson and Crystal are to Chat Noir and Ladybug. }

[ineloqueent]

angel of lies | one

Brian x Fem!Reader / Roger x Fem!Reader

synopsis: welcome to the opera populaire. be careful what you wish for.

warnings: tw; mention of blood

word count: 5.3k

a/n: in honour of my birthday (i flatter myself), the much-procrastinated, long-awaited (?) saga begins! a massive thank you to jess ( @brianmays-hair​ ) and pearl ( @deacyblues​ ), the masterminds behind the premise of this fic. if you have not already guessed, this is most definitely a phantom of the opera au.

~⚘~

The stage was alive with sound.

With movement it crawled, such that from a distance it appeared to be shimmering, for the headdresses of the dancers sparkled like mirrorballs, casting flecks of light throughout the theatre like stars.

In the grand foyer, glittering crystals dripped from the ceiling, and shadows chased the balustrade statues that raised candelabras above their marble heads.

The place hummed with life, typical of the pre-show hustle and bustle, where every inch of floor was populated by activity, each person more frantic than the next, and the frenzy was only building by the minute.

The theatre became louder as the shouts grew more frequent, and the poor conductor was struggling to raise his voice over the clamour, the prima donna of the production now doing the most orchestration, in terms of chaos.

You sighed, and Meg rolled her eyes. This was going to be a long night.

Meg’s brother shot her a warning look.

We cannot afford to lose our leading lady, his look said.

“Yes, Monsieur Giry,” Meg mocked, but only when his back was turned.

“I heard that,” John hissed as he passed his sister.

But Meg only laughed.

You shook your head at her. “You really oughtn’t annoy your brother like that. He has the power to fire you from here, you know.”

“Oh, but it’s so funny when he gets like that,” Meg said. “His hair always bounces whenever he leaves in a huff.”

You stared after John, whose mound of hair really did bounce when he walked. You smiled.

Then, one of the owners of the opera, a man with dark hair and dark irises to match, made a grand gesture, and all eyes followed his hand. “Darlings, may I present the Vicomte de Chagny.”

Your heart caught in your throat, and you found that you couldn’t remember as to why Meg was giggling by your side.

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t be him.

Could it?

In your disbelief, your mouth fell open, because there, at centre stage, being introduced as the new patron of the Opera Populaire, was Roger.

Golden-haired, blue-eyed Roger, sweet and silly, who, in your childhood, had been a companion closer to you than your own shadow. You had no fonder memories than those in which he made an appearance, laughing happily as the two of you traded stories of goblins and the rain lashed against the windows of the attic, as your father, long passed, played his violin by candlelight, as Roger shared with you the last of the chocolate.

There would never be a day when you did not think of him.

“Y/N?” Meg intoned.

“Roger,” you whispered, unable to do anything but watch him and his smiling eyes, as he shook hands with the opera personnel.

Meg frowned, standing on her tiptoes in an attempt to see above the gathering crowd, but she was unsuccessful. “The Vicomte? What of him?”

A smile flickered across your face as you murmured, “I guess we could say we were childhood sweethearts.”

Meg’s eyes widened in your peripheral vision. “Y/N, he’s so handsome,” she said.

“What,” you laughed, “do you think he’s too good for me?”

Meg pushed you lightly. “No, of course not. If anything, I’m just surprised that there are still attractive people left in the world. And god, you’re lucky to have had one of them.”

You flushed, “Meg! I have not had him, as you so indelicately put it. And he was never mine.”

“I believe I am keeping you for rehearsal, Signor,” Roger told the owner of the opera in his airy manner. He spoke rather like a prince, you thought, with his long vowels and sharp consonants, and the way his voice hummed with a cadence, as though his words were meant to be a song.

“Oh please, with the formalities,” the opera director waved a hand. “Freddie.”

“Freddie,” Roger nodded. “Well, I’ll be here this evening, to share in your great triumph!”

He shook hands with the company once more, and then departed through the wings on the opposite side of the stage.

Your heart sank a little as he left. But then again, it had been many years ago that you had seen him last, and so much had changed since then.

“Y/N?” Meg asked.

You shook your head. “He wouldn’t recognise me.”

“Of course he would,” Meg assured you, a hand on your sleeve. “He didn’t see you, that’s all.”

You weren’t so sure.

“I have a message, sir,” John was saying to the owners of the Opera Populaire. “From the Opera Ghost.”

“Oh god in heaven!” cried Freddie. “You’re all obsessed.”

John blinked, irritated at being interrupted, but deigning to continue nonetheless. “He welcomes you to his opera—”

Freddie snorted indignantly, “His opera?”

“And commands that you continue to leave Box Five empty for his use, and reminds you that his salary is due.”

The discussion continued, with an outrage on Freddie’s part, concerning the paying of a salary for someone who was not even real, and your thoughts wandered back to Roger.

He had scarcely returned to your life for a handful of minutes, and yet, your infatuation had already taken ahold once more. You wondered faintly if he had ever thought of you the way you still thought of him.

But then you were thrown from your reverie, as a cry erupted from the crowded stage.

“He’s here!”

“Who?” you said, alongside everyone else in the theatre.

Meg clutched at your arm as a hush fell over the room.

“The Phantom of the Opera,” another person shouted. “Up in the rafters!”

Gasps and whispers sparked all around, and you whirled in the same direction as your companions, each of you straining your eyes in an attempt to see past the darkness of the rigging.

One of the opera directors called for silence.

“There’s no one there,” he said, and the masses fell calmer again, turning away from the rear of the stage and grumbling about making a fuss over nothing.

But you didn’t turn away; you stared into the abyss.

And then a shadow swept across the scaffolding, like dark fabric tossed in a wind, like a cloak, or a cape, and you gave a shout.

“There!” you said, your heart thudding with adrenaline, and Meg whirled in the direction of your raised arm.

“Where, where?!” she cried, but the longer she looked, the more obvious it became that whatever had previously been there was no longer.

You lowered your arm, a little dejectedly.

“Never mind,” you murmured, a crease forming between your eyes. “I thought I saw something, but I suppose I didn’t.”

“Oh,” Meg frowned, looking as disappointed as you felt.

But even as she turned away, you couldn’t tear your eyes from what you’d seen.

Because you knew what you’d seen.

You’d seen eyes— hazel— staring right back at you.

~⚘~

The darkness came so easily these days. He did not even have to turn to the shadows for it to eclipse the light. It was there at the corner of his eye, a soft whisper at his ear, a constant presence that was as calming to him as it would have been unsettling to any other.

The darkness had never drawn back in fear at the countenance of his face. The darkness had never told him that he was unloved and would forever remain unloved. The darkness had never cast him from his home, and forced him to cower in the cold when the snow bit at his skin, exposed by the coat he could not afford to own.

The darkness had always been there.

And yet, it was darkness, and so by definition, it was never really there at all. It was the absence of all things, and nothing can come from nothing.

But she was not nothing.

The light she carried in her voice, in her shoes. She was as light on her feet as she was in her spirits, and it made him want to change.

But he knew naught of change, and so it would not come.

Not without her.

But with her… Perhaps.

~⚘~

The production had barely begun, and yet Roger was already leaning over the banister to bring himself closer to the stage, as close as he dared to go without tumbling into the audience on the lower level.

He had hardly been able to believe his eyes, his ears, when she had taken to the stage. For all he could tell, her shimmering gown might well have been made from the waters of a moonlit river, and her eyes bore the same gentle glow they had always borne, and her voice was as beautiful as ever. Roger wondered if she would deny her talent still, if he were to tell her of it again, this day.

He could not deny the warmth which spread through him at the sight of her, and nor did he wish to. He would bring her flowers after the performance and tell her again of her talent.

And maybe, he would tell his Little Lotte what he had never been able to tell her all those years ago.

Maybe he would tell her that he loved her.

The production had barely ended before Roger had left his place on the balcony, in favour of hurrying down the stairs to where he would not miss seeing her.

Her. The only one who mattered.

~⚘~

Their calls echoed, praise upon praise where none before had existed, where previously you had lived in an echo chamber of your own mind, where you had been forced to endure the clamour of every voice that hissed— not good enough, not good enough, you’ll never be good enough.

Where had they been when the desperation had settled into the hot blood that coursed through your veins, painted your toes in horrible hue when you had danced for too many nights without a penny to show for it? Where had they been when your father had died and you’d have given your voice itself to have him back, to feel once more the touch of hand upon your shoulder, assuring you that he was there, that you were there?

Where had they been?

Their affectations you would have wished to endure as little as you wished to endure the echo chamber inside your head, for they would have shouted if a man had ridden a horse across the wooden framework of the stage.

But there was another sound. There had always been another sound.

In the darkness there was a solace— a comfort, almost— and a low, steady hum.

A voice.

An angel. Your father had always promised you that there would be an angel.

And he had been right.

An angel of music, to light the quiet moments between your thoughts, when friends were few and the cold grew monstrous teeth.

There had always been music in your ears— a tune to be hummed, a dance to be danced— and you could not quell the urge to sing when it came to you. That was how you had found your way to the Opera. It had called to you, far stronger than anything you had felt since your father had passed, since Roger had left.

Roger.

He was here. And he was here tonight. What had he thought of the show? Of you? Or were your fears to be realised, that he had not recognised you at all?

The candle in your peripheral vision flickered, subject to the whims of a draft.

The wind does not whisper indoors.

A shiver ran down your back, as sure there had been fingers to skim down your spine, the softness of the action turned sinister by the anonymity of the hand.

And then— again— a voice.

It bristled on the air like electricity, like a live wire simply waiting for the right person to make contact and ignite a fire.

It prickled on the back of your neck.

You turned, your movements slowed by a strange sort of fear, and yet, you wanted to know whose voice it was. You intended to make that contact, for so long had you lived without any sort of fire at all, and you were tired of being burned out.

“Where in the world have you been hiding?”

You nearly jumped out of your skin when Meg’s call reached your ears, the sound of her dainty footsteps growing more distinct as she approached. The shadow at the corner of your eye was snuffed out as surely as any flame.

You felt your shoulders lower ever so slightly, half in relief, half in disappointment.

You had been so close to knowing that the lack of knowledge was now almost too much to bear.

“Really,” she went on, with a little huff. “You were perfect. I only wish I knew your secret.”

“Meg,” you said, and she tilted her head like a curious fawn. “When your brother brought me here to live… whenever I come down here alone to light a candle for my father, a voice from above and in my dreams…” You trailed off, thinking of the soft baritone you could call to mind at will, it was so frequently present. “He was always there,” you murmured. The memories lulled you, quieted your senses, as though you were walking in a dream. “You see, when my father lay dying, he told me I will be protected by an angel. An angel of music. I used to dream he’d appear…”

You were quite sure that Meg had made a response to your musings, but you were not well aware of what that response had been, and nor could you find it in you to care. There remained suddenly only a singular thought within your head, and that was who? Who was the voice? He was the darkness, you were sure of it. He was the comfort, the peace amidst the chaos of the world, but he was evasive, the unseen genius. You longed to know the face of such an angel. You did not know for how much longer you could go on not knowing.

You blinked, and became conscious of the fact that you were no longer in the chapel. Meg had led you from it, and the two of you now weaved behind the screen, in the space between the stage and its rigging, your friend leading you by the hand.

“Y/N, your hands are cold,” she whispered, and her own face was pale, a mask of terror.

You wriggled your fingers slightly in her grasp. She was right; you felt as though the warmth had left your very blood. But though your skin was cold, you were not. You burned brighter than ever, as bright as the candle you lit, night after night, in the memory of your father.

“I know,” you answered. “But I am not frightened.”

~⚘~

It was John whom you saw first, following the show.

He placed a hand on your shoulder, and when he smiled, you thought that perhaps he considered you family as much as he did Meg. It made you feel a little less alone in the world.

“You did well, Y/N,” he said.

Then, to your puzzlement, he handed you a single red rose, upon the stem of which was tied a silk ribbon, in a pretty bow which shimmered onyx black in the dimly lit dressing room.

You had the strangest feeling, looking at that bow. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu, as though you’d somehow seen that exact shade of black before. In a dream, perhaps. Or in another life, if there were such things.

A shadow stirred at the corner of your eye, but when you turned to confront it, there was nothing but light bouncing off of the walls, and John nowhere to be found.

And Roger, standing in the doorway, with his familiar half-smile and eyes that glinted with mischief, a bouquet of flowers over one arm.

“Little Lotte thought,” he began, his smile growing as he made his way toward you, “am I fonder of dolls, or of goblins of shoes, or of riddles or frocks—”

“Those picnics in the attic,” you said, and your smile mirrored his.

“Or of chocolates,” Roger continued with a wink, setting down the flowers.

They surfaced in your mind, those memories. Bathed in golden light as though the sun shone upon them through stained glass windows, their images rendered divine in their innocence, their happiness. “Father playing the violin…”

“As we read to each other dark stories of the North,” Roger reached you and sank to his knees, his tone soft and playful and all those things you’d missed about him since before you’d known he’d be gone.

“No,” you whispered, and you thought that his eyes had never been as blue as this. Wider than the sky and bluer than the deepest of seas, cerulean and sapphire and everything in between. Every shoal and reef one could have imagined to exist shimmered in his irises, a whole other world, and it belonged to him.

And it belonged to you, when you looked at him.

“What I love best, Little Lotte said, is when I’m asleep in my bed…”

A tingle rushed down your spine as he drifted closer to you, so exquisite in his stillness, the prettiness of his being that suddenly assaulted your senses like the smell of roses.

Roses. A rose. With a black ribbon.

A gift—

“And the angel of music sings songs in my head.”

His smile grew until you thought it would take over his face entirely, and then he embraced you, tightly.

Oh, how you’d missed him and the feeling of being held in his arms, the way your chin fit perfectly on his shoulder and his cheek rested against your cheek.

“You sang like an angel tonight,” he murmured, and you sighed into the crook of his neck.

He pulled back again, and you relished the way his gaze lingered on your own, as though he could not look away, and even had he been able to, would have had no mind to do so either.

“Father said, when I'm in heaven, child, I will send the Angel of Music to you.” Roger blinked, as though resurfacing from the depths of a dream, and you perceived a change in him. “Well, father is dead, Roger, and I have been visited by the Angel of Music.”

He gave a little laugh, and there it was at once, that which had hurt you so much in the past, and still stung you now. You had thought you had grown, but really, you were still that little girl, no more grown than you had been when you were shorter than your father’s music stand, as sensitive as you’d always been.

He didn’t believe you.

He thought you were telling stories, as usual, and his skepticism was grating; it tore at your heart.

“Oh, no doubt,” he said, clearly in doubt. He stood up, brushed off the front of his coat. “And now we'll go to supper!”

You fought to make him believe you, anything to have that warmth return to his eyes once more, to turn away his disbelief. “Roger, no—”

“Change, sweetheart, and I’ll order my carriage,” he waved a hand as he strode toward the door.

“No, Roger, wait!”

The door had shut. And he had shut you out, again.

You were still those children, haunted by your losses and warned not to believe that which was strange, even if it was true.

But there was no magic in this form of youth, because it was not youth so much as the turning of a blind eye to that which one did not understand.

And Roger did not understand you. You couldn’t help but wonder if he has ever.

The lock of the door clicked, and you tensed.

The room felt suddenly cold, and you would not have been surprised if cobwebs had begun to spiral down from the ceiling, if ice had formed on the door handle and the mirror, if the flowers all around you had withered in an unbidden frost.

Then a rush of that strange wind that could not possibly exist within the walls of the Opera, and every candle in sight was extinguished. You imagined that it was not only the candles in this room, but all of the candles, everywhere, snuffed out in their prime, one by one, until the Opera turned shadowy and grey.

The frost settled on your skin as a voice rose from the shadows to greet you in the silence left in the wake of Roger’s departure.

A familiar voice.

“Ignorant fool,” came the whisper, quiet but condemning in manner, resolute in assessment.

It was close. He was close.

The angel, he was here.

“Angel,” you murmured, your eyes flitting between the shapes of the world in darkness, trying to discern the living from the inanimate, but entirely without luck. You whirled, anything to catch a glimpse, yet still there was nothing. “I hear you— speak, I listen…”

Your plea was met with silence, but his presence was not gone, so you began again. “Stay by my side... Guide me.”

You reached out your hands in the darkness, and there again was that rush of cool air, like someone moving past.

“You shall know me,” he answered. “See why in shadow I hide.” His voice lowered to that whisper again, and you felt the cold reach your very bones. “Look in the mirror.”

Toward the mirror you wandered, on some invisible path, like staring at something so horrible that one cannot look away, only this was not horror you felt, but a sort of gravitation in favour of the unknown.

Curiosity.

And there, in the looking glass, was a face, or part of one— high-cheeked and fine boned, severe in beauty, yet cold in the stare of those hazel eyes which should rightfully have been warm as a summer’s day.

But they were not.

Had the mirror been any less pristine, you would have thought it damaged, for you could see little cracks there, in his eyes. But the cracks were not part of the mirror. In fact, they were part of nothing at all, no more than a figment of your imagination. But you perceived in him a brokenness, and so that was how he appeared to you.

His skin shone like porcelain, almost blended with the half of his face covered by some fashion of mask.

And curls.

His hair was so curly that you thought there would have been curls for miles if they had all been uncoiled and the ends spun together.

Such beauty did not often hide behind a mask. You wondered why this one did.

You drew nearer to the mirror and it rippled like water. You imagined the figure reaching out his hand to you. Or maybe you were not imagining it. Maybe it was real.

And it was.

His fingertips skimmed the palm of your hand and you gasped at the touch.

There was a tremble in his hand, and you longed to still it. You curled your fingers around his wrist.

He pulled you closer to the mirror and sharply, the air left your lungs.

You felt his eyes skim down from your temples, to your jaw, until he lifted his gaze to meet your eyes. You could not breathe beneath that gaze.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

And the darkness— it finally had a face.

“I am not afraid of you,” you whispered, feeling a heaviness like relief take over your senses, dousing you in drowsiness.

“Perhaps you should be,” he replied, and his exhale touched your lips. The blood in your veins which had been cold was now hot, and the pace of your heart made your head spin.

Then his grasp fell stronger upon your own, and he pulled you through the mirror.

Someone was calling your name, somewhere, but you found suddenly that you could not look away from the one who grasped your hand, the one whose eyes remained upon your own, even as he led you.

Where he was leading you, you did not know, but this mystery was one that had existed for far too long already, and you were desperate for answers, for a glimpse of truth in this world of shadows, where you had been blind for too long to remember what truth looked like.

So perhaps it was not the truth that you were chasing, but rather a dream, in which you would slip farther and farther from reality until the fantasy consumed you.

But what was there to miss from this place? You had no family to speak of, and the opera would surely go on as it always did. After all, the show must go on.

The walls seemed to bow inwards, and the candles mounted there danced in the hands that held them, because indeed, the candelabras were golden hands.

But you were not concerned by the swaying walls or the golden hands. All you could think of was the hand which rested lightly in yours, the eyes that gleamed softly, far more beautiful than any candle.

It soon became dark once more, as the candelabras became fewer and fewer in number, as you descended with the face of the darkness, until at last you found yourself within a small boat, which sailed swiftly across the waters of a river you had never known the existence of.

Perhaps it was the river Styx, of which you had always heard in stories. You did not spare the thought doubt, for nothing would surprise you anymore. It would seem there was an entire world beneath the Opera Populaire, and this was the first that you were seeing of it.

How many more hidden corners of the world had passed you by?

The thought struck in you a sadness, and awash with a heady loneliness, you glanced over your shoulder.

But of course, he was still there— the tall, dark shadow that had always been there, and you hoped he would always be there. The darkness still called to you, even now.

You felt a smile curve your mouth.

Then the boat crested a shore, and you turned back to the prow of the vessel, to find the walls of a spacious cavern decorated in swaths of red velvet, similar to that of the Grand Drape of the opera. All around were those candles, sparkling like supernovas in the darkness, the light glancing of off hundreds of odd trinkets, from mirrors to chandeliers, to more candelabras, and it impressed you as strange that there should be so many agents of light in a place of such darkness.

And then he was stepping from the boat and extending his hand to you again, though you could not remember letting go.

His gaze was sharp and it challenged you, dared you deny him your hand.

You did not deny him your hand.

Wordless still, he drew you forward, led you on a path amongst the candles, to the music of the night— of the river water lapping against the shore, of the sound of the velvet drapes which fluttered in that impossible wind which seemed to breathe life into every forgotten corner of the Opera Populaire, including this cavern.

You came to a stop where the ground was raised, and you at once lifted your eyes to that masked face.

“Who are you?” you murmured.

“The same as I have always been,” he replied, with a dip of his head.

“And who is that?”

“The angel, of course.” His voice was low, smooth as caramel, and enraptured by the sound, you gazed up at him. “Yours.”

“Mine?”

“Am I not your angel?” he asked, and you thought he drew closer. “Have you not always spoken to me amongst the whispers of the night? Have you not fallen asleep many a time with my name on your lips?” He was definitely closer now, for you were almost chest-to-chest, and he grasped your hands between the two of you, lifted them to his lips.

He ghosted your fingers with a kiss, and heat spread through you at the tender touch.

“I do not know your name,” you said.

He lowered your hands but did not release them, instead running one long forefinger over the underside of your wrist, a gesture behind which shivers followed.

“May, some used to call me.”

“May?” you whispered, and felt the intimacy of the name of your eternal protector hum across your lips. “An uncommon name.”

“I once had another. But none remember it.”

“Except you,” you said. “You remember.”

His eyes flickered. “I can hardly call it mine.”

This was dangerous ground. His jaw and his grip upon your hands had tightened, and though the change in demeanour was subtle, it was significant.

But you pushed back, because you had come here for answers.

“Tell me,” you said.

You took your hands from his grasp and raised them instead to either side of his face, to the cool porcelain of the mask, to the burning skin which told of fire beneath— a fire to his soul, as there was to your own.

His eyes fluttered closed at your touch and he leaned his cheek into your palm, his breath a caress across your skin.

“Brian May.”

He gifted the words to you with a shudder, and you knew in your heart that you were the first in a long time to hear them. His lips brushed your palm, and his fingers skimmed your hips, to which you leaned in closer, now almost in an embrace.

“Return my name to me,” he whispered.

To your toes you lifted yourself, and his name flooded your lips as ambrosia, everlasting, binding, but though your blood turned to fire, your bones did not become dust, unless by dust, stardust was meant.

“Brian May,” you said, and slipped your fingers beneath the mask.

With a cry, he pushed you away, roughly, and you fell to the ground as the mask fell from his face.

A tremor began in the surface beneath your feet, before it spread to the entirety of the floor and spiralled up the walls, shaking the cavern and everything within it with such force you feared the breaking apart of the very Earth.

Candles toppled from all around, and you gave a shout as one narrowly missed lighting your dress aflame, again when a mirror nearly crushed you, and hot tears of mortal fear pricked your eyes.

Until a hand pulled yours and a body shielded your own, as glass shattered and waves swelled within the winding river.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the earthquake receded, and your protector disentangled himself from you.

Sitting up, you wiped tears from your face, ashamed of the fear which had plagued you, and you found that the cavern was all but completely dark. Only a single candle had survived the shaking of the cavern, and its light now seemed almost garish.

Then eyes met your own in the dark, and your gaze fell upon the right side of his face, to find—

Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but the second half of a man’s face, equal in beauty to the first half, for but a slightly over-dilated pupil which obscured the hazel of its iris.

But then again, perhaps you did not see a man at all, but a boy.

Because for all the terror in his expression, you could not see past his youth.

When he spoke this time, his voice was gravel, and a coldness settled within you at the condemnation in his tone, for it was clear that he was no protector here.

“What have you done?”

~⚘~