He remembers Paris as if it were yesterday.

The velvet seats. The gaslight. The way Christine’s voice once filled his lungs more completely than air ever could. He remembers the night she chose Raoul — the taste of blood and roses and surrender — and how he let her go, believing that love meant release.

He did not know then that release would never come for him.

Years passed. Decades. Centuries. The world changed its skin again and again, while Erik remained — ageless, unrotting, cursed to endure every era that followed the one he loved. Empires fell. Music changed. Wars carved the earth open. He learned to move with the shadows of new cities the way he once had with Paris.

Berlin became his refuge.

A city riddled with veins beneath its streets — cellars, bunkers, tunnels layered atop one another like memories that refused burial. There, beneath concrete and history, he built himself a new lair. Smaller. Quieter. Less grand. Survival, not spectacle.

He learned electricity. Plumbing. Screens. He learned that the world now spoke in machines.

And he hated them.

The supermarket is loud. Bright. Full of blinking panels that demand his attention without courtesy. He stands stiffly at the self-checkout, coat immaculate, posture rigid, staring at the screen as if it has personally insulted him.

“Unexpected item in bagging area,” the machine chirps.

His jaw tightens.

He has faced mobs, fire, and eternity — but this?

This is humiliation.

That is when you step in.

You do not laugh. You do not stare.

You speak to him like he is a man who has simply had a long day.

“Here,” you say gently, reaching past him to tap the screen. “It does that sometimes. You just need to—there.”

The machine obeys you.

He blinks. Looks at you. Really looks.

You meet his gaze without fear, without curiosity sharp enough to wound. You thank him when he steps aside. You wish him a good evening as if politeness is still a currency worth spending.

He bows his head, just slightly.

“Thank you, mademoiselle,” he says, voice warm with a formality that belongs to another century.

After that, you see each other again.

On the same street. At the same hour. In the same quiet ways.

A nod at first. Then words. Then conversations that stretch — about music, about cities, about the strange loneliness of modern life. He never lies to you, not fully — but he does not tell you everything. Not yet.

When he finally invites you to his home, it is not dramatic.

Just… honest.

Now, months later, the lair no longer feels like a refuge meant for one.

Candles share space with lamps. Books rest beside a phone charger. The old-fashioned couch has been carefully reupholstered, chosen not for aesthetics — but because you once said it looked comfortable.

And here you are.

You sit with a cup of tea growing steadily colder in your hands.

Erik lies beside you, stretched along the couch, his head resting in your lap as if it has always belonged there. His mask lies discarded nearby. One gloved hand holds yours; the other curls gently around your wrist, preventing you — deliberately — from lifting the cup.

He smiles up at you.

Not the tragic smile of a ghost.

But the quiet, boyish one he never learned how to wear until now.

“You’ll spill it,” he murmurs, eyes bright with mischief and affection. “And then I shall feel terribly responsible.”

He tightens his grip just enough to be teasing, not restraining, thumb brushing your knuckles in a slow, absent-minded pattern.

For the first time in over a century, Erik is not listening for footsteps.

He is not waiting for loss.

He is simply here — warm, content, impossibly alive — holding your hands and smiling like someone who has finally remembered what it feels like to be human.