Friends POTO Fic
Michael sat comfortably in an armchair. Finally, after a night of tossing and turning, he was comfortable. Just as he was sinking into a book, he heard a knock at the door.
‘Oh, bloody Hell.’ he growled before getting up.
He walked slowly to the door. As he answered it he saw a familiar brunette soprano.
‘Oh... Sarah. What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in years!’
‘Michael, I have something to show you!’ the woman said, running a hand through her long, curly locks. ‘I was just shooting... You haven’t worked in a while.’
‘Yes, I think people are waiting for me to revive The Phantom.’ he said, sighing nostalgically.
‘Oh... That wouldn’t work...’
‘I know. Why are you here, anyway?’
Sarah paused and thought for a second. What had caused her to go to his house in such haste, when she’d been halfway through shooting a movie?
‘Oh, yeah.’ she said, remembering suddenly. She barged past him, into the house. She looked around. ‘Isn’t the great Michael Crawford rich enough to buy a bloody computer?’
‘Um... yes.’ Michael replied, leading her into a dark study. After turning the computer on, he turned to Sarah and looked at her quizzically: ‘Why do you need my computer?’
‘Look at this!’ she said, furiously pushing him out of the way as she opened the Internet - a modern convenience and torture for the people who were stars in the 80’s - and typed something into the address bar. The page loaded and Sarah thrust her finger at the screen. Michael lowered an eyebrow, thespian that he was, and looked at the screen.
‘What’s Fanfiction.net?’ he asked quizzically.
‘I’ll show you.’ Sarah said, still furious. She typed in ‘The Phantom of the Opera’. Michael scoffed to himself. ‘OK, you laugh now, but...’
‘Oh, my goodness...’ Michael spurted as the search results were shown. He clicked on the first thing without Sarah’s approval. ‘What the Hell is this?’
~*~
After reading more than a few of the more tame E/C phics, Michael glanced up at Sarah.
‘Is this some elaborate joke? Is Andrew blaming me for Love Never Dies going under or something?’ Michael was incredulous. Sarah sighed.
‘Do you know what a ‘phangirl’ is?’
‘No.’
‘Essentially it’s someone who’s in love with you. A twelve to eighteen year old girl who’s in love with you.’
‘Nice...’ Michael began, before looking at his old workmate’s face. ‘I mean, that’s awful! I’m too old for that!’ He clicked into one with an M rating. Needless to say, by the end of it, both were blushing rather noticeably. ‘That didn’t happen! That was never in the script!’
‘Thanks, genius. I was in fact married to the man who wrote it...’ Michael shot her an icy glare.
‘Well, I wasn’t likely to be, was I? What?’ he gasped with horror as he saw a phic labelled “Erik & Raoul”. He read it, making various sounds of horror, disgust and disapproval as he went. ‘What in God’s name would Steve say if he saw this?’
‘That’s what I thought!’
Though they both had to admit, if only silently and to themselves, if they’d gotten that kind of chemistry between their respective portrayals in the past, the show would have been an even bigger hit. And with all due respect, these so-called ‘slashes’ were... written well. Even if Michael would never approve of the pairing. Oh, God! he thought, The slang’s rubbing off on me! He began to run his hands through his grey hair, trying to rid himself of his thoughts as if they were dirt.
‘I have to go. My plane’s in a bloody hour.’ Sarah said, grabbing the jacket she’d removed when she walked into the room. ‘Nice to see you, Michael.’
‘You too, Sarah. Been a while.’
‘Bye. And don’t get too caught up in it. Christine came back to haunt me. I’m sure you don’t want to have that bloke on your back again.’
‘Right...’ Michael arched an eyebrow as he went back to the study. He sat down and lingered on the page for a few moments before closing it. ‘The Phantom haunting me? Again? How absurd...’
Shame he didn’t see the black swirl of smoke behind him... The one with a small patch of white.